[Dean's World] Ron Coleman: New Jersey and you

[notify at powerblogs.com]

Posted by Ron Coleman:
New Jersey and you
http://www.deanesmay.com/posts/1152038013.shtml


                           [colorseal_small.gif]

   Did you know "New Jersey is shut down"? Well, not quite. In fact,
   while that would be bad -- no, really, it would be -- the actual news
   is pretty good: [1]The government is shut down, because the
   legislature has not passed a budget and Governor John Corzine (who
   could single-handedly bail the state out with his own Goldman Sachs
   winnings) has determined not to let the state go on off budget.

   Unlike the Clinton / GOP government-shutdown extravaganza, Corzine
   presides over a one-party system (Democrat, that is) cleverly
   engineered by a once-dominant state Republican party that made
   Rockefeller Republicanism like like the Falange. The Governor,
   therefore, is in a very politically delicate spot. He wants to raise
   the sales tax to balance the state budget, but the Democrats remember
   that the last governor to do that, James Florio, sealed his political
   fate by just such a maneuver.

   Cutting the state's bloated budget -- bloated mostly by the very
   public employees whose unions support, nay, guarantee that no
   Republican ever need be embarrassed again to be a State of New Jersey
   elected official -- is not an option. The Governor is a talented man,
   and immensely wealthy, and l[2]ike most of the super-rich, he cannot
   fathom what difference one percent here or there could possibly make
   in anyone's life. On the other hand, he knows that the state with the
   highest property taxes outside of Tokyo can't stand any more
   "progressive" taxation on the landed gentry whose homes, by virtue of
   proximity to New York or even Philadelphia have made them
   semi-millionaires on paper. Yet he can't leverage this problem to pin
   the "shutting down the government" canard on a recalcitrant
   legislature controlled by the other party. Yes, he's in a political
   bind.

   Keep track of the saga [3]here.

References

   1. http://www.state.nj.us/governor/news/news/approved/20060704.html
   2. http://www.slate.com/id/2108136/
   3. http://enlightennj.blogspot.com/