Obama Rolls the Dice and Craps Out in New Jersey
As I mentioned in a previous PJM article, taxes were the deciding issue. New Jersey homeowners pay the highest property taxes in the nation, and businesses are pounded with higher taxes than most any other state. During his tenure, Corzine raised property taxes, the sales tax, and many other taxes while sustaining the highest spending in decades. At the same time, the Corzine administration had several convictions on corruption charges and Christie built a strong reputation as a corruption buster when he was a U.S. attorney:
Christie served as a county freeholder before ascending to the U.S. Attorney’s Office. Once there, he successfully prosecuted more than 130 public officials for corruption.
In order to win, Christie needed to have a clear-cut victory — a large enough margin of votes that his opponent would not be able to contest the results.
Finally, on Election Day, after all the campaigning and the endorsement of the state’s largest newspaper for unaffiliated candidate Chris Daggett, the independent vote turned in Christie’s favor. Election results started coming in, and early in the evening Fox News was saying that that Christie and Corzine campaigns both were “lawyering up” to fight the results in the courts. Before midnight, however, the results were clear: Christie had won.
Corzine gave a big nod to the unions in his concession speech. He also said that he was proud of his administration, stressing that “it is important that we fight for health care.” Then he poked fun at his mom, “a registered Republican.”
Christie’s speech, meanwhile, focused on the work ahead.
Christie indeed has his work cut out for him. In addition to a large number of angry Jerseyans who believe that the state has been run for decades by party bosses, and special interests, New Jersey has chronic problems and is nearing financial ruin. The problems include a huge state workforce, with the government now the largest employer in the state; pension obligations that are not fully funded and indeed were raided in the past; one of the highest levels of education spending in the country, which has not resulted in significant improvement in student performance; infrastructure problems that need to be addressed; huge government spending that needs to be reduced; and, above all, the budget deficit, now in the billions of dollars.
Is this a win for fiscal conservatism? We shall find out soon enough. It all depends on whether Christie gets serious, as he said in his speech, about “making New Jersey more affordable.”
I hope he’s successful, but how much can Christie realistically get done with a legislature that (I assume) is majority Democrat and in the unions’ pockets?
#1 Phineas – That is the question. He’ll ahve to do a Giuliani or a Romney. It’s do-able. Think the Dems in the Legislature didn’t notice his victory? He’s freakin’ King Kong right now.
If he focusses on a few key things, gets some victories, he can roll them back. Start with just a token property tax relief, for example. Build up the political capital. Keep going, one step at a time.
Although Trenton is part of the property tax problem, property taxes themselves are levied by the municipalities and to a lesser extent the county. Trenton requires certain spending that subsequently requires the towns to raise property taxes to pay for it, but Trenton does not levy them. In addition, property values are decreasing and it won’t be long before there is a demand that property taxes be lowered to reflect that. In short, there is only one sensible way around this and that is a serious reduction in spending. This in turn means cuts – real cuts not imaginary cuts. With the Democrats still in charge of the legislature and the public having an idea that money for what they like really does grow on trees (that Green Acres Bond Issue passed like they always do)this won’t be easy if it is doable at all.
I’m glad he won, but insufficient attention was paid to the legislature and they will fight to hang on to their kingdoms paid for with our money.
We have to get serious about cutting spending and taking the hits where necessary.
I disagree! If Obama really cared about Jersey, he would have put 10,000 ACORNers faking votes and 50,000 armed Black Panthers threatening white voters (Holder wouldn’t have done anything, again). Most of those “assets” are nearby, in Philadelphia.
Corzine has the cash to tie up the election in the courts for years like the dipwad in Minnesota did. They gave up much too easy. Something else must be involved.
Well, I used to live in NJ, owned a house too. Unless it’s changed drastically, the bulk of property tax went to the local school district. I remember one year the town actually reduced their portion of the pie, but the teachers came in sucked that up and wanted more. Wound up with a huge increase. The point is that property tax at least used to be all local; collected locally, spent locally. When the income tax and sales tax went into effect, it was for “property tax relief”, basically everyone send money to the state, the state will dole it back out, so the towns could reduce their property tax. I don’t see how the state can ever reduce the property tax unless the law creating the sales and income taxes said “administrative costs shall be no more than 8%, the remaining 92% shall be distributed to the towns”. Unfortunately, I don’t think towns would do that. They’d “expand to meet the income”, property tax would not go down, local government would grow. Any kind of relief from the state would have to get the money from somewhere.
….because Obama’s campaign manager was saying that the elections didn’t mean much.
Yep, four visits to the state by Obie is a sure-fire indicator that it didn’t mean much….
There is only so much Christie can do when the Democrats and public sector unions control the legislature.
Tax cuts will be next to impossible; the best he can do in that regard is veto any tax increases the legislature puts forward.
As for cutting staff, that will be difficult to do given the union power and the fact that all our news media, as elsewhere, is a propaganda tool of the Democrats and will run stories about laid off state employees and how they are suffering and starving under the evil budget cutting, racist Christie. (You know the media will focus on minority workers.)
Of course, Obama crapped out!
Last night, he met:
THE AMERICAN REGENT
http://naturalfake.wordpress.com/2009/11/04/the-american-regent
2 Marc Malone:
I agree. Incrementalism seems to be the best approach. If he tries for too much too fast, as Schwarzenegger did here in California in 2005, he could wind up with nothing except a reputation as a powerless governor.
Mer is correct. The problem is local taxes for the schools and reallocation of monies to inner city schools where the cost of educating one student could be as much as $38,000 – as much as a first class private school education.
Dear Leader picked up his violin and began to play.
“I didn’t watch the returns,” he said. “I was watching HBO, a wonderful documentary about me. It was called ‘My Struggle.’”
President Obama will not ever have any coattails because he is not a leader; leaders possess political coattails. Whereas, President Obama is a manufactured Cult of Personality created by himself, his administration, & the corrupt MSM. The truth is President Obama’s radical politics is Kryptonite to his fellow Democrats going into the 2010 elections given New Jersey & Virginia went into Republican control. President Obama will continue to fulfill his radical agenda, but will be stopped by the Congressional Democrats, Republicans, & WE THE PEOPLE. I fully expect Obama to have some kind of meltdown or implode from the pressure.
“There is only so much Christie can do when the Democrats and public sector unions control the legislature.”
Chris Christie only achieved a modest victory. He needed a butt kicking 15-20 point win. The voters did not send a clear message to the employee union bosses and other scoundrels. New Jersey will continue to lose population to the red states. It will get bluer. The state is royally screwed.
I voted for Mr. Christie yesterday and I am glad he won. I wish him all the luck in the world. But my house is still for sale and I’m still leaving New Jersey.
“But my house is still for sale and I’m still leaving New Jersey.”
I am going to pretend that I am a second rate Joel Kotkin. New Jersey’s future looks dim. At best, it may take a minimum of five to ten years to turn things around. Yesterday’s election results seem to indicate that a slim majority of that state’s citizens want to half heartedly give the GOP a chance. That’s not good enough. I don’t get the impression they realize the extent of their economic problems. How does John Corzine lose by about only five percentage points? This does not make a bit of sense. He should have easily been defeated by a 15-20 point margin.
#1 Phineas – As I recall, unlike POTUS, the governor of NJ possesses the power of the line item veto on appropriation bills. I believe Christine Todd Whitman made good use of it by defunding pet projects to districts of state dems who were overly hostile to her agenda.
I’ve been out of New Jersistan for just over 2 years. I am still bitter over the 1% tax I paid on the net sale price of my house even though I sold it at a 15% loss from purchase price. What BS.
Even though he wasn’t a friend of the second amendment, I long hoped Christie would run with his credentials fighting corruption in the most corrupt of states. NJ needs a good house cleaning. I wish Christie luck.
Now if NJ voters would just do us all a favor and vote that dinosaur Lautenberg back into retirement.
I really don’t think people understand freedom or socialism. NJ has ruined itself through political corruption, and Massachusetts is in the same boat. Of course instead of fixing the messes they made, the Mass-holes keep moving to my NH to escape Boston’s insanity. But then, after they move up here, THEY VOTE FOR DEMS. It’s ludicrous. If you don’t like your mess, change your ways, but don’t move to other states and then make the same messes there.
I am so glad I left that state 30 years ago. They are screwed for the foreseeable future between the public pension obligations, unions and the electorate dependent on Trenton. I really think the state is screwed.
We’re going to have a showdown with the bloated, over-compensated state bureaucracies and their unions that are bleeding us dry sooner or later. Maybe it can start in New Jersey. Okay, probably not, but one can dream.
I’m a former New Jerseyan, Mr. President, and, no, I don’t know who you’re talking about. Who the heck is Cousin Pookie?
Obama crapped out?! Impossible!! He is sooo full of crap, he could NEVER crap out. . . sorry, that was the best I could do with the available material. Seriously, who is going to pay for the “o”‘s visits to NJ to campaign for the loser? The taxpayer? Probably so, but what can you do? Squeal on , trolls. . . .
New Jersey illustrates the dangerous situation that arises when people can vote themselves money. Too many promises that can never be paid, and those to whom the promises are made will keep voting for their fulfillment.
New Jersey. I would have thought this impossible. Maybe this is a sign that people really are “Mad as hell, and not going to take this anymore.”