BY GORDON MACINNES
Cross posted from The Record
NEW JERSEY is hurting. It’s hurting so bad that the only way the governor could pay for his proposed tax cut is to borrow the money from our kids and grandkids. Float a bond for $260 million to pay for the $200 million or so tax cut proposed for this budget year. Benefits to future taxpayers? Zero. No matter, we can all enjoy a night out with the reduced taxes and let our kids pay. Given the amount we’ll get back, most of us can reserve a spot at the nearest White Castle.
This is not the condition one would expect of the “Comeback” state. But it gets even worse.
The United States has suffered a cut in its prime credit rating because Congress wouldn’t provide timely funds to repay the nation’s debt.
To add to our growing burdens, the House of Representatives has passed a plan that is supposed to balance the federal budget without increasing revenues. It’s called the Ryan Plan for its Wisconsin sponsor, Paul Ryan.
The first-ever state-by-state analysis of the Ryan Plan released this week by the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities presents the bad news. The plan, if approved, would dig the New Jersey hole even deeper, about $760 million deeper in the budget year that begins next July.
That may not sound like enough money to worry about in a $32 billion state budget. But the reason the governor was driven to borrow money for his tax cut was that tax collections came in $700 million short between the time he delivered his budget message in February and when the receipts were counted in May.
1.5 billion in the red
By July, the non-partisan legislative research arm estimated the hole was $1.5 billion; Moody’s — the credit rater — suggested that it was closer to $2 billion and counting.
So, a reduction in federal aid of $760 million has significant and negative consequences for New Jersey citizens. Is the state helping to pay the bill for your grandmother in a nursing home? If so, you might have a problem since Medicaid — the federal-state program that pays for most nursing home care — is due to take a one-third cut between 2013 and 2021.
Other programs would suffer as well — programs for special education kids, for putting cops on the street and for providing emergency aid following fires, floods and hurricanes.
The companion proposal to the Ryan Plan is to repeal the Affordable Health Care Act. The combination of repealing the act with its Medicaid expansion and the one-third cut proposed by Ryan is to add another $500 million per year to the budget burden.
This time the addition comes because there will be no expected reduction in the charity care payments to hospitals that treat uninsured patients. With the health care act and the existing Medicaid population, the state could assume a sharp falloff in its hospital payments (that now total about $1 billion).
Blance cuts with revenue increase
As New Jersey residents, we might hope that our governor would use his influence with Governor Romney and the national Republican Party to call on the House of Representatives majority to balance some of its tax cuts with revenue increases. Not only would such a move increase the chances of avoiding the “fiscal cliff” we all jump off on Jan. 1 if there’s no agreement on taxes and budgets, but it would do less harm to New Jersey, which is still crawling out of the Great Recession.
So far, instead of making the call for New Jersey, the governor has applauded Ryan, hailed the cuts in Medicaid and remained silent about the negative consequences facing his state. It’s not too late for him to show that he puts New Jersey above party politics.
Gordon MacInnes is president of New Jersey Policy Perspective
Showing posts with label The Record. Show all posts
Showing posts with label The Record. Show all posts
Saturday, August 11, 2012
Wednesday, August 8, 2012
Christie’sRhetoric Does Not Match Reality
The following Op-Ed was written by Josh Henne and appeared in yesterday's The Record:
GOVERNOR Christie devotes a lot of time talking about a “Jersey Comeback.” But the truth is more like an impressionist painting by Monet or Seurat. From a distance, it seems as if things make sense … but the closer you get, the more you realize the dots don’t seem to connect.
When Christie goes on the cable news circuit or beats his chest to sympathetic audiences in far-off states, he paints a vivid picture. But in New Jersey, folks know the rosy rhetoric isn’t matching reality.
Whenever I hear beltway talking heads gush about Christie, I feel like yelling at the screen: “You’re not from New Jersey. You have no clue what you’re talking about.”
You aren’t sitting in traffic outside the Lincoln Tunnel or on a delayed train coming into Penn Station because Christie canceled the bipartisan-backed ARC tunnel linkage to Manhattan. Your kids’ teachers aren’t the ones being used as a political piñata to score points. Nor did your children lose out on $400 million in Race to the Top funding because your governor bungled the application.
Your air, land and water won’t be filthier because Christie is allowing corporate polluters to rewrite the rules via Department of Environmental Protection waivers. You aren’t living in a state where one out of every 12 mortgages is in foreclosure, and whose business climate has landed the state 41st out of 50. And you don’t have a governor who vetoed women’s health four times at $7.5 million a pop maintaining the money wasn’t there, while giving $261 million in bailout money to casino moguls.
Christie’s boosters point to popularity in the polls as if it gives him a mandate to run roughshod. But these same folks should realize that in 1997, Gov. Christie Whitman came within a whisker of losing to a completely unknown Jim McGreevey a mere year after polls had her at 62 percent.
This Christie’s numbers are due more to dumping millions of unanswered dollars into television advertising than actual ability to govern.
Face-saving exit
Every time Christie claims he doesn’t want to run for national office, I immediately think of Br’er Rabbit begging Br’er Fox not to throw him in the briar patch. It should come as no surprise that Christie relished being in the mix as Romney’s potential running mate, not just to feed his ego, but also because the opportunity would provide a face-saving exit valve from a state whose residents know the true story.
Just last month, unemployment spiked nearly half a point to 9.6 percent – the most severe monthly increase since 2009 and the largest disparity from the national average since 1978.
In fact, underemployment stands at 15.5 percent. For Christie, success is measured in increments of attention rather than measurable improvements for his constituents. Recently, the governor’s staff squawked about hitting 5 million YouTube hits, as if that’s a measure of success. Viral videos, retweets and Facebook “likes” are not the numbers that matter to New Jersey residents.
The real stats are grisly in the Garden State. Chronically lagging the nation when it comes to unemployment, allowing corporate polluters to rewrite environmental regulations and borrowing money the state doesn’t have to subsidize a tax cut for multimillionaires – that’s Christie’s New Jersey. We have a state economy that ranks 47th in the nation and are facing a property tax rate jump of 20 percent – those numbers mean something.
Now that the fantasy of his vaunted “comeback” is crashing down around him in the face of actual facts, Christie is acting like a man with one foot out the door. Clearly, the governor is a gifted politician with a calculating mind for campaign strategy. So when he vetoes funding for women’s health, nursing homes, after-school programs and repairs at the Marcellus Street Bridge in voter-rich Bergen County a mere year before Election Day, one has to wonder if Christie’s head is in the game … or if he even still holds designs on standing for reelection.
Seeing enemies
Christie is acting downright Nixonian in seeing enemies lurking around every corner. At first it was Democratic legislators bearing the brunt of his anger — which is to be expected in politics. Today, he sees adversaries everywhere: in the classroom, at press events, even on the boardwalk.
With each escalating incident, Christie repeats himself – first as tragedy, then as farce. Maybe this is all just a brilliant smokescreen designed to divert attention from his failures or to set himself up for a job in the entertainment industry.
Christie may skip town before the piper comes to make him pay for his failures. It’s New Jersey’s taxpayers and families who are going to be left holding the bag.
Joshua Henne is a co-founder of White Horse Strategies, a New Jersey-based political consulting firm, and is a spokesman for One New Jersey.
GOVERNOR Christie devotes a lot of time talking about a “Jersey Comeback.” But the truth is more like an impressionist painting by Monet or Seurat. From a distance, it seems as if things make sense … but the closer you get, the more you realize the dots don’t seem to connect.
When Christie goes on the cable news circuit or beats his chest to sympathetic audiences in far-off states, he paints a vivid picture. But in New Jersey, folks know the rosy rhetoric isn’t matching reality.
Whenever I hear beltway talking heads gush about Christie, I feel like yelling at the screen: “You’re not from New Jersey. You have no clue what you’re talking about.”
You aren’t sitting in traffic outside the Lincoln Tunnel or on a delayed train coming into Penn Station because Christie canceled the bipartisan-backed ARC tunnel linkage to Manhattan. Your kids’ teachers aren’t the ones being used as a political piñata to score points. Nor did your children lose out on $400 million in Race to the Top funding because your governor bungled the application.
Your air, land and water won’t be filthier because Christie is allowing corporate polluters to rewrite the rules via Department of Environmental Protection waivers. You aren’t living in a state where one out of every 12 mortgages is in foreclosure, and whose business climate has landed the state 41st out of 50. And you don’t have a governor who vetoed women’s health four times at $7.5 million a pop maintaining the money wasn’t there, while giving $261 million in bailout money to casino moguls.
Christie’s boosters point to popularity in the polls as if it gives him a mandate to run roughshod. But these same folks should realize that in 1997, Gov. Christie Whitman came within a whisker of losing to a completely unknown Jim McGreevey a mere year after polls had her at 62 percent.
This Christie’s numbers are due more to dumping millions of unanswered dollars into television advertising than actual ability to govern.
Face-saving exit
Every time Christie claims he doesn’t want to run for national office, I immediately think of Br’er Rabbit begging Br’er Fox not to throw him in the briar patch. It should come as no surprise that Christie relished being in the mix as Romney’s potential running mate, not just to feed his ego, but also because the opportunity would provide a face-saving exit valve from a state whose residents know the true story.
Just last month, unemployment spiked nearly half a point to 9.6 percent – the most severe monthly increase since 2009 and the largest disparity from the national average since 1978.
In fact, underemployment stands at 15.5 percent. For Christie, success is measured in increments of attention rather than measurable improvements for his constituents. Recently, the governor’s staff squawked about hitting 5 million YouTube hits, as if that’s a measure of success. Viral videos, retweets and Facebook “likes” are not the numbers that matter to New Jersey residents.
The real stats are grisly in the Garden State. Chronically lagging the nation when it comes to unemployment, allowing corporate polluters to rewrite environmental regulations and borrowing money the state doesn’t have to subsidize a tax cut for multimillionaires – that’s Christie’s New Jersey. We have a state economy that ranks 47th in the nation and are facing a property tax rate jump of 20 percent – those numbers mean something.
Now that the fantasy of his vaunted “comeback” is crashing down around him in the face of actual facts, Christie is acting like a man with one foot out the door. Clearly, the governor is a gifted politician with a calculating mind for campaign strategy. So when he vetoes funding for women’s health, nursing homes, after-school programs and repairs at the Marcellus Street Bridge in voter-rich Bergen County a mere year before Election Day, one has to wonder if Christie’s head is in the game … or if he even still holds designs on standing for reelection.
Seeing enemies
Christie is acting downright Nixonian in seeing enemies lurking around every corner. At first it was Democratic legislators bearing the brunt of his anger — which is to be expected in politics. Today, he sees adversaries everywhere: in the classroom, at press events, even on the boardwalk.
With each escalating incident, Christie repeats himself – first as tragedy, then as farce. Maybe this is all just a brilliant smokescreen designed to divert attention from his failures or to set himself up for a job in the entertainment industry.
Christie may skip town before the piper comes to make him pay for his failures. It’s New Jersey’s taxpayers and families who are going to be left holding the bag.
Joshua Henne is a co-founder of White Horse Strategies, a New Jersey-based political consulting firm, and is a spokesman for One New Jersey.
Friday, September 18, 2009
The Record: A small step
For 79 weeks, laid-off workers can collect unemployment benefits. That means the government will offer some financial help while day after day, week after week, people make cold calls, network, send out résumés, go to job interviews and then start the process over again.
The benefits won't make anyone rich, but they help — 60 percent of a person's average wage, not to exceed $584 a week. Then, after more than a year, after all that searching for work and still no job, unemployment insurance comes to an end.
It has stopped for more than 45,000 workers in New Jersey, at least 3,500 each week. That is scary.
On Tuesday, Governor Corzine announced a plan meant to encourage state businesses to hire people whose unemployment benefits have run out. Using money from federal discretionary funds, the state Department of Labor and Workforce Development will give $2,400 to employers who hire those workers for jobs paying at least $15 an hour. The funds are to help cover the cost of training.
An estimated 3,000 to 4,000 people will benefit.
This is a creative and worthwhile course of action. It lets people in desperate circumstances know that state government is aware of their predicament, and is trying to help. It offers hope during an especially bleak period. And it allows companies a cushion with which to take a risk.
"Whatever the governor is doing today is literally a Band-Aid on a hemorrhage," Republican gubernatorial candidate Chris Christie said Tuesday. "This is not going to create sustainable jobs for the people of the state of New Jersey."
Christie called the plan an "election-year photo op."
He may be right that Corzine's effort will not provide jobs to everyone in the same boat, but that is almost beside the point. It will provide jobs for some. And for those people, however many, it will make all the difference. Better to employ several thousand then do nothing at all.
The measure stipulates that the newly hired workers cannot replace other workers, and they must be employed for at least six months. So even if, for some reason, an employee loses the job after half a year, that will have been half a year of earning an income, of going to work each day and of learning a new skill or keeping up with skills. It also means another job to put on the resume.
As for this being an election-year stunt, that seems rather dramatic. Corzine will not win reelection because 3,000 to 4,000 newly employed voters pull the Democratic lever in appreciation.
The federal government has extended unemployment insurance payments twice, and then paid for another stretch, prolonging the state's 26 weeks to the current 79. Yet people still can't find work. Bills go unpaid. A health problem or unforeseen car repair can upset whatever delicate financial equilibrium there was. Families lose homes.
Recent census data reveals that last year citizens in deep poverty — people whose income dropped below half the federal poverty line — reached the highest level in 14 years. That means a family of four earned $11,013 or less. The number of poor was the highest since 1960.
If Christie has a better idea, if he has a way to scoop up even half the workers in New Jersey who have exhausted unemployment benefits and plunk them into new jobs, we are eager to hear it.
Friday, August 21, 2009
Doblin: The New Jersey catechism of politics
By ALFRED DOBLIN -RECORD EDITORIAL COLUMNIST
TRAVEL BACK to Sunday school with me. Somewhere, back in the Sixties, a catechetical instructor explained to me the difference between a sin of commission and a sin of omission.
As I recall, the difference may affect whether you go to hell. Applied to early 21st century New Jersey politics, it may affect who goes to Trenton in January, a place many believe is hell on Earth.
This week, the public learned that Chris Christie, Republican gubernatorial candidate and all-around protector of ethics, failed to disclose a loan made to personal friend and former subordinate in the U.S. Attorney's Office, Michele Brown. The $46,000 loan was not reported on Christie's federal and state disclosure forms or his tax returns.
Christie has been apologizing all week. He said he and his wife were helping a friend in need. He just forgot to disclose the loan or list the interest on the loan in his tax returns. It was a sin of omission.
He said he made a mistake. It's a big mistake for a former U.S. attorney to make.
I can accept that people with large incomes and/or cash reserves may think little of lending out $46,000. And Christie Savings and Loan is small potatoes compared to the House of Corzine. Governor Corzine lent former romantic interest Carla Katz nearly $500,000. He eventually forgave that loan.
But there are some differences between the two transactions: Corzine reported the gift and Katz was his girlfriend, not his employee.
I cannot think of any managers believing it is good policy to lend money to persons, friend or not, who work for them. Add to that where both Christie and Brown worked: the U.S. Attorney's Office. And then do some more math and add on the probability that the boss was going to run for governor while the subordinate would rise in authority as a federal prosecutor.
Sin of omission or sin of commission?
Christie has been thinking about running for governor for some time. He had to know that the loan would be problematic, at best. That would be a sin of commission – knowing you were doing something wrong. If he didn't intend to do wrong, it's a sin of omission. Either way, according to my Sunday school teacher, there are consequences for the action taken.
Realistically, this is not the stuff that most New Jerseyans really care about. Unless Christie and Corzine want to start making personal loans to all New Jerseyans in financial straits, most folks who don't work in politics or live on a diet of politics don't give a hoot.
But the gubernatorial campaigns have not been centered on the economy, but rather on ethics and choices. Christie says he's not Corzine and that he will fight corruption tooth and nail. Corzine is running a campaign that says he's not Karl Rove and Christie really is.
Democrats have long said Christie used his position as a U.S. attorney as a stepping stone for a gubernatorial run. And that politics played too much a part in the decisions of who was targeted for investigation.
Now there is a question of whether Christie is still receiving information on ongoing investigations while a candidate. He can deny it. But it is hard to overlook the fact that one of the top officials in the U.S. Attorney's Office in New Jersey owes him money. It is a self-inflicted political wound.
It also is hard to overlook the fact that he gave a personal loan to someone who reported up to him while U.S. attorney. This is the same murky water Democrats swim in. Money, friendship and employment are the absinthe, sugar and water of Jersey political life. It's cloudy. It's potent. And it leads to self-delusion.
How could Christie not realize that giving a loan to Brown was more than a financial liability; it was a huge political mistake? It also was ethically wrong. He was her boss.
How could Christie not realize the loan had to be reported? His entire brilliant career as U.S. attorney was constructed on the foundation that money transactions, particularly between people working in government, have to be transparent and reported.
White Knight Christie has fallen off his horse. There are no seat belts on saddles.
But New Jersey doesn't need a white knight. It needs an honest broker. Among the field of candidates, who is who they say they really are? Not easy to figure out when the answers are not always complete, by chance or design.
Sin of omission? Sin of commission? Either way, the truth is compromised.
TRAVEL BACK to Sunday school with me. Somewhere, back in the Sixties, a catechetical instructor explained to me the difference between a sin of commission and a sin of omission.
As I recall, the difference may affect whether you go to hell. Applied to early 21st century New Jersey politics, it may affect who goes to Trenton in January, a place many believe is hell on Earth.
This week, the public learned that Chris Christie, Republican gubernatorial candidate and all-around protector of ethics, failed to disclose a loan made to personal friend and former subordinate in the U.S. Attorney's Office, Michele Brown. The $46,000 loan was not reported on Christie's federal and state disclosure forms or his tax returns.
Christie has been apologizing all week. He said he and his wife were helping a friend in need. He just forgot to disclose the loan or list the interest on the loan in his tax returns. It was a sin of omission.
He said he made a mistake. It's a big mistake for a former U.S. attorney to make.
I can accept that people with large incomes and/or cash reserves may think little of lending out $46,000. And Christie Savings and Loan is small potatoes compared to the House of Corzine. Governor Corzine lent former romantic interest Carla Katz nearly $500,000. He eventually forgave that loan.
But there are some differences between the two transactions: Corzine reported the gift and Katz was his girlfriend, not his employee.
I cannot think of any managers believing it is good policy to lend money to persons, friend or not, who work for them. Add to that where both Christie and Brown worked: the U.S. Attorney's Office. And then do some more math and add on the probability that the boss was going to run for governor while the subordinate would rise in authority as a federal prosecutor.
Sin of omission or sin of commission?
Christie has been thinking about running for governor for some time. He had to know that the loan would be problematic, at best. That would be a sin of commission – knowing you were doing something wrong. If he didn't intend to do wrong, it's a sin of omission. Either way, according to my Sunday school teacher, there are consequences for the action taken.
Realistically, this is not the stuff that most New Jerseyans really care about. Unless Christie and Corzine want to start making personal loans to all New Jerseyans in financial straits, most folks who don't work in politics or live on a diet of politics don't give a hoot.
But the gubernatorial campaigns have not been centered on the economy, but rather on ethics and choices. Christie says he's not Corzine and that he will fight corruption tooth and nail. Corzine is running a campaign that says he's not Karl Rove and Christie really is.
Democrats have long said Christie used his position as a U.S. attorney as a stepping stone for a gubernatorial run. And that politics played too much a part in the decisions of who was targeted for investigation.
Now there is a question of whether Christie is still receiving information on ongoing investigations while a candidate. He can deny it. But it is hard to overlook the fact that one of the top officials in the U.S. Attorney's Office in New Jersey owes him money. It is a self-inflicted political wound.
It also is hard to overlook the fact that he gave a personal loan to someone who reported up to him while U.S. attorney. This is the same murky water Democrats swim in. Money, friendship and employment are the absinthe, sugar and water of Jersey political life. It's cloudy. It's potent. And it leads to self-delusion.
How could Christie not realize that giving a loan to Brown was more than a financial liability; it was a huge political mistake? It also was ethically wrong. He was her boss.
How could Christie not realize the loan had to be reported? His entire brilliant career as U.S. attorney was constructed on the foundation that money transactions, particularly between people working in government, have to be transparent and reported.
White Knight Christie has fallen off his horse. There are no seat belts on saddles.
But New Jersey doesn't need a white knight. It needs an honest broker. Among the field of candidates, who is who they say they really are? Not easy to figure out when the answers are not always complete, by chance or design.
Sin of omission? Sin of commission? Either way, the truth is compromised.
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