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"That he's not Corzine isn't enough of a reason to vote for him."
That's how Obama got elected, 'he wasn't Bush'. Don't over estimate the logic of the electorate. Not much accurate information on which to base a vote is there? That responsibility would fall on the free press and NJN news.
Jon has been absent as governor. Don't ever remember a governor who had such a low profile. Not that it would exclude him from re-election but given the pattern of not addressing the basic issues he simply moves his pawns around like the the rest of the long line of office holders. He is indistinguishable and does not portray the chacteristics of a leader and most importantly does not have a vision. He is the man behind the curtain in the land of OZ.
His official announcement of ethic reform via elimination of dual office holders and the contempt in which they are held by him and his signers left the electorate with the impression dual office holders has been eliminated. Score one for Jon! However, the official bill stated it applied to 'newly elected offficials'. Oops, forgot to mention that! Sounds as if some one was intententionally try to mislead the electorate.
That's how you earn unflattering nicknames.
Aside from having to recind some of his appointments, a sign of poor judgement, Jon's lineage of political appointees is staggering. Fine if you know of a qualified entity for a position and they happen to be your bud but let's make that known up front and clarify the relationship. Otherwise ethics reform sounds just like what it is, an obligatory promise only heard during the campaign season, not unlike the call of the bugling elk heard only during the fall mating season.
He has been a fair weather friend of the black bears but not the sportsmen. To make up for this and gain some votes, he recently signed Sunday bowhunting into law.
Jon's tenure has been measured by the lack of action needed to make dramatic changes to stop the bleeding of taxpayer money and an absence of political courage. Oh, he threatened to close down the state parks to get his way. A glimpse into how he "negotiates", by threat. And who does he threaten, surely not the big money supporters. Had to rethink his elimination of property tax. To think that at all would be evidence he has no understanding of the plight of Nj taxpayers. His reference point is the higher tax bracket folks. Nothing wrong with being wealthy, in fact it should be encouraged, but if all you see are the extreme ends of the social spectrum you may be considered blind.
A while back when the election for gov was just heating up, some news station reported most of the money supporting Jon at that time was from out of state. Discouraging not just in this case, but across all politics, how people from outside the state exert such influence over the people of NJ. Now would they do that?
He had his chance, no pattern of succes was demonstrated. Let the taxpayers pay for his portrait and let him be on his way.
"a vote for Corzine is reaon to draw a new state line"
First, as a Republican I did support Corzine for the simple reason that he was a successful CEO, and I thought he could come in and make some hard decisions. I very much believe in the "business model," especially for government. He failed miserably.
New Jersey was in very poor financial shape when Corzine took over, and it is now worse. The fact that we have been getting rebates is a snapshot of everything that is wrong here. We have no business getting anything while our debt continues to rise. Our state's deficit is now at $1.2 Billion dollars, and we're getting checks to keep us happy. Yes, I like them as much as the next guy, but we need to fix our state first.
We don't need cuts in state agencies, we need eliminations of agencies. Yes, it will hurt, but it has to happen.
Cozrine didn't want to make tough decisions, so this is where we are.
As far as I am concerned, bring in the next guy.
I agree that property tax rebates are a vote buying trick.
I don't agree that he was terribly successful as a CEO (he was behind the push to take Goldman public, a poor choice and one that helped Paulson take him down)
Which "agencies" should be cut ? The largest expense items are education, pensions and health. Here is the budget -- which items should be cut, and how much would it save ?
the leading contender for overhaul is the pension system. Corzine took steps in the right direction, but pension management tends to be an issue where the policy consequences are delayed (which encourages bad policy).
Jon's tenure has been measured by the lack of action needed to make dramatic changes to stop the bleeding of taxpayer money and an absence of political courage. Oh, he threatened to close down the state parks to get his way. A glimpse into how he "negotiates", by threat. And who does he threaten, surely not the big money supporters. Had to rethink his elimination of property tax. To think that at all would be evidence he has no understanding of the plight of Nj taxpayers. His reference point is the higher tax bracket folks. Nothing wrong with being wealthy, in fact it should be encouraged, but if all you see are the extreme ends of the social spectrum you may be considered blind.
A while back when the election for gov was just heating up, some news station reported most of the money supporting Jon at that time was from out of state. Discouraging not just in this case, but across all politics, how people from outside the state exert such influence over the people of NJ. Now would they do that?
He had his chance, no pattern of succes was demonstrated. Let the taxpayers pay for his portrait and let him be on his way.
"a vote for Corzine is reaon to draw a new state line"
What action is "needed" ?
By the way, property tax rebates are a terrible idea -- they are little more than a vote buying measure. The only way to "spend" that reduces total taxation is by a direct tax cut. Property tax rebates are essentially a transfer of revenue from the state to local governments. Even if the state mail a check directly to you, the rebates have the effect of offloading local government expenses onto the state balance sheets, which leads local governments being even more wasteful than they would be otherwise.
By the way, property tax rebates are a terrible idea -- they are little more than a vote buying measure. The only way to "spend" that reduces total taxation is by a direct tax cut. Property tax rebates are essentially a transfer of revenue from the state to local governments. Even if the state mail a check directly to you, the rebates have the effect of offloading local government expenses onto the state balance sheets, which leads local governments being even more wasteful than they would be otherwise.
What action is "needed"?
Let's start with pay to play and the elimination of it.
Second would be to stop the crooks in NJ politics who have 3 no-show jobs and collect pension monies off of all of them.
Third would be telling the NJEA to take a hike and too bad, so sad you can't cover your entire family on your insurance for pennies a month compared to the rest of the non-union/state worker world..you might have to pay a little more.
Fourth would be to eliminate the ridiculous amounts of board of eds and supers.
Fifth would be to stop funding public schools through property taxes.
Not in any specific order but you do seem to have all the answers so you tell us.
Corslime is awful. Let's just look at his love life as one example, it has certainly affected his public life. His emails to Carla Katz his ex-girlfriend and powerful labor leader (now disgraced and kicked out of her union and under federal scrutiny for possible indictment for misuse of union funds for personal use) should have been made public. A public records request was made for them, which he denied. Corslime appointed Stu (spineless) Rabner to the NJ Supreme Court. When the email case hit the Supreme Court after several appeals in lower courts...the court ruled that the Gov's emails between Katz and Corslime were not public material. Corslime and Katz fought mightily to keep those under wraps..why?? Corslime and his money won. He has bought everything except a second term...Christy will win
Let's start with pay to play and the elimination of it.
Second would be to stop the crooks in NJ politics who have 3 no-show jobs and collect pension monies off of all of them.
Third would be telling the NJEA to take a hike and too bad, so sad you can't cover your entire family on your insurance for pennies a month compared to the rest of the non-union/state worker world..you might have to pay a little more.
Fourth would be to eliminate the ridiculous amounts of board of eds and supers.
Fifth would be to stop funding public schools through property taxes.
Not in any specific order but you do seem to have all the answers so you tell us.
One thing I don't know the answer to is, where are the substantive criticisms of Corzine ? Repeating "Corslime" (get it ? It rhymes with Corzine and contains the word "slime") does not cut it. (btw, neither do the "fat jokes" about Christi)
Regarding the above, on the first two items,there is already anti pay to play legislation in NJ. Corzine also signed an anti double-dipping bill. While these issues should be taken seriously, they are not the most pressing issues.
The last 3 items deal with education reform. I agree that education reform would be a great idea. I don't think that this state is ready for it though. Most democrats and a substantial portion of Republicans seem content with the quasi-feudal system that is currently in place, which keeps both sides happy by "keeping the bums out", and keeping the special interests happy.
I don't think Christi is very committed to education reform. His campaign website is conspicuously devoid of substantive policy content on that issue:
Corslime is awful. Let's just look at his love life as one example, it has certainly affected his public life. His emails to Carla Katz his ex-girlfriend and powerful labor leader (now disgraced and kicked out of her union and under federal scrutiny for possible indictment for misuse of union funds for personal use) should have been made public. A public records request was made for them, which he denied. Corslime appointed Stu (spineless) Rabner to the NJ Supreme Court. When the email case hit the Supreme Court after several appeals in lower courts...the court ruled that the Gov's emails between Katz and Corslime were not public material. Corslime and Katz fought mightily to keep those under wraps..why?? Corslime and his money won. He has bought everything except a second term...Christy will win
See, this is the kind of thing I'm referring to. Besides the usage of "Corslime" (get it ? It rhymes with Corzine, but it has "slime" in it) and some lame fishing expedition, you haven't offered any criticism. In particular, the above includes no substantive policy criticism.
Yep - "Corslime" is aa good argument against Corzine, but Christie's poor health habits are not a good argument against Christie. It's the ol' Republican double-standard!
continue voting by party and keep getting jerks.
“The state pension fund exists solely for the purpose of protecting the retirement investments of public employees,” stated Merkt, R-Morris. “Yet Governor Corzine continues to use this fund as his personal piggy bank. We are just coming off the Lehman Brothers disaster that cost our employees $115 million in 90 days because our multimillionaire governor acts like a Wall Street guy and decided to try to rescue his New York banking buddies instead of exerting leadership as the head of a state and being a good steward of the people’s money . Well, I have news for Mr. Corzine – this is State Street, not Wall Street.”
Merkt, a former trust banker and a member of the Assembly Appropriations Committee, said that if a private trustee used private trust funds as Corzine wants to use public pension funds, he would be held liable in court for breach of fiduciary responsibility.
“This is not Governor Corzine’s money and this is not Monopoly” said Merkt. “If he wants to play the banker, then he should use his own money, not people’s retirement funds, to get this state’s economy going. I am appalled at the governor’s lack of fiduciary responsibility.
that pension money is lost forever thanks to governor corzine!!
new jersey is facing a 1 BILLION DOLLAR TAX INCREASE THIS YEAR and they already have the highest property taxes in the country. maybe they need to elect somebody who can do a better job of managing money, rather than losing millions on wall street with the pension fund.
that pension money is lost forever thanks to governor corzine!!
You're just echoing partisan talking points. This isn't substantive policy criticism.
It's the nature of investing that you win some, you lose some. The Lehman debacle cost the pension fund about 1% of its assets, during a year when almost any long position in the stock market took double digit losses.
There is a reason that the pension fund needs to buy risky assets -- it is because the employees have been promised substantial retirement packages based on a relatively modest 5% contribution (Corzine raised this to 5.5%) -- this is 1/3 of what you would need to max out a 401k. The pension fund needs to bring in substantial returns to meet this. And to bring in those returns, they need to buy risky investments.
There are plenty of good arguments one can make against the pension system, but complaining about the fact that they buy risky investments, (and trying to manufacture some sort of contrived "scandal" from the investments that lose -- there are bound to be some) is attacking the symptom, not the disease.
btw, what do property tax increases have with Corzine's money management ? It's not his fault that the local governments are even less efficient than NJ's.
I guess for some of the more ignorant members here we need to clear up some things. First of all Corzine isn't a good governor. Nobody said he was. However, he will be MUCH better then Christie. To really decide who to vote for in the upcoming race you need to actually research the issues, something most right wingers refuse to do. I guess it's much easier to keep saying "corslime" and "Carla Katz"
I've already tried to discuss Chris Christie's political views, for example he is pro-amnesty. The only thing the right wingers here say in reply to that is "he isn't corslime." Great to see we have so many educated people in NJ, if anyone could respond to this post using sentences without saying "corslime" and "Carla Katz" i'd consider it a minor miracle.
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