Trying some optimism on for size
Now that the budget mess looks like it's over with, I'm wondering what's going to happen next. Where will Gov. Corzine go from here? Will he attack the ingrained problems of New Jersey government? Will he push through the reforms we need? He sold himself as a successful businessman who could pull our state out of its rut with his acumen. Will he have the guts to demand that all the no-show, politically appointed, overpaid people on the state payroll take a hike?
Run the state like a business, people say. In some ways you can't -- it's a government, not a business. But some business basics would go a long way toward getting New Jersey onto a better financial path, including booting out the dead weight and demanding more efficient production from the labor force.
If the governor has -- as some surmise -- presidential ambitions, he has to win over the residents of New Jersey first. If he can pull us out of our fiscal morass, bring property taxes down and root out the corruption (he'll have to can Attorney General Zulima Farber ASAP if he wants to work on that!) that makes New Jersey the butt of so many jokes, he could do just that. I do hope he has those ambitions, and that his goal is to spend eight years repairing New Jersey. Then, with the state's residents heralding him as a hero, he can aim for the White House. Otherwise, if the governorship was his top goal, he's there.
(More spell-check fun: the suggestion for replacing "Corzine" is "coercion." Go figure.)
Run the state like a business, people say. In some ways you can't -- it's a government, not a business. But some business basics would go a long way toward getting New Jersey onto a better financial path, including booting out the dead weight and demanding more efficient production from the labor force.
If the governor has -- as some surmise -- presidential ambitions, he has to win over the residents of New Jersey first. If he can pull us out of our fiscal morass, bring property taxes down and root out the corruption (he'll have to can Attorney General Zulima Farber ASAP if he wants to work on that!) that makes New Jersey the butt of so many jokes, he could do just that. I do hope he has those ambitions, and that his goal is to spend eight years repairing New Jersey. Then, with the state's residents heralding him as a hero, he can aim for the White House. Otherwise, if the governorship was his top goal, he's there.
(More spell-check fun: the suggestion for replacing "Corzine" is "coercion." Go figure.)
3 Comments:
Things Corzine won't do but that need to be done:
(1) Abolish the fat traditional pension system for public employees and switch to a 401K type plan popular in the private sector.
(2) Get rid of local police departments, local courts, local schools, local public works departments, etc. in favor of that which is county-wide and county run. We don't need 50 police chiefs in Monmouth County alone, all of whom will collect fat pensions. Other states have county sheriff departments; we should as well.
I could go on, but this post is way too long already.
no discussion of the budget crisis is complete without an honest look at what christie todd whitman's tax cuts did to the finances of the state of new jersey.
this is the morass we're still digging out of.
Put this equation together: Corzine liberal democrat+ republican RINO's = no change at all and promises for the next election.
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