Thursday - April 22, 2010

Christie Leading The Charge

N.J. Gov. Chris Christie pushes property tax cap, public benefits changes after schools vote

Claiming the school budget defeat as a validation of his shrinking government plan, Gov. Chris Christie today pushed the next reforms on his agenda: A 2.5 percent constitutional cap on property taxes, and reforms to public worker pensions, benefits and the collective bargaining process.

Christie said New Jerseyans sent “an extraordinarily clear signal,” and the Democrat-controlled Legislature and local elected officials “ignore these results at their own political peril.”

For an example of the school budget voting, see my area here. The township mailed out an info sheet a week or so before the election, on which they showed a whole bunch of numbers that tried to make it look like almost $2 million was being cut from the budget to run the 2 local high schools. Except that $1.7 million “cut” was reflecting the one time expense they had last year when they had to replace the boiler in the one school. Ok, they cut a couple positions, but the executives still got a raise, the maintenance crew got a 10% boost, and the overall benefits package was up 22%. It was a con job, and everyone saw through it. Best comment on the vote: “No one is willing to pay another dollar after being gutted for years in this state by taxes.” The only town that passed it’s budget was Tewksbury, where everyone is rich to begin with. Seriously, the town oozes money. Tewksbury’s budget passed by 1 vote.

“People in public life don’t ignore election results. They absorb them,” he said, adding, “This is going to be a watershed moment for New Jersey because I believe it’s going to unite all of us to say these reforms need to be done, the people need to be listened to.”

The governor urged municipal governing bodies, school boards and local teachers’ unions to work together to implement a one-year wage freeze.

“It’s not too late to reopen those contracts. It’s not too late to agree to a freeze.”

Today, Christie called for legislative approval of a package of reforms, including a constitutional amendment limiting annual property take hikes, benefits cuts for current public workers and changes in the collective bargaining process to give towns and school boards more control.

It’s not going to be an easy fight ... and some entrenched Dems just don’t get it:

Senate president Stephen Sweeney (D-Gloucester) said the governor did a “masterful job” of tapping into people’s “anger over the government right now,” but misled voters about the real impact of a one-year wage freeze.

“He used the wage free to say, ‘Look, we don’t really have to go up in taxes,’ but that wasn’t true. Taxes would have gone up anyway,” Sweeney said. “But it was good theater.”

Sweeney said he agrees with Christie that “we need to do some things to make it easier for governments to control their costs,” and is willing to work with him on some of the reforms. But Democrats also want the governor to reinstate an income tax surcharge on the wealthy, Sweeney said.

Oh, and just in case you might be thinking that NJ is heartless towards it’s children’s education, know that NJ spends about 60% more per student each year than the national average. I swear the schools are gold plated inside. Seriously. The regular ones, not just the “special” Abbot District schools which get super funded. A year or so ago there was a referendum here to raise money so that the local school could have an equestrian team. Climate controlled stables, the works. And 2 dozen horses, with grooms and trainers. And they also wanted a coach so they could have a junior varsity girl’s water polo team. The referendum failed.

But they keep asking. This year’s “bare bones” budget to run the 2 high schools was $56 million. I doubt that both schools together have 1500 students.

So school budgets went down in flames all across the state. Is it a mandate? Maybe. If nothing else, it’s a start. And now Governor Christie is taking it to the next level, and is taking on the unions.

Woo hoo!!!!

There are 700,000 more Democrats than Republicans in New Jersey, [total population about 8 million] but in November Christie flattened the Democratic incumbent, Jon Corzine. Christie is built like a burly baseball catcher, and since his inauguration just 13 weeks ago, he has earned the name of the local minor-league team—the Trenton Thunder.

He inherited a $2.2 billion deficit, and next year’s projected deficit of $10.7 billion is, relative to the state’s $29.3 billion budget, the nation’s worst. Democrats, with the verbal tic—“Tax the rich!”—that passes for progressive thinking, demanded that he reinstate the “millionaire’s tax,” which hit “millionaires” earning $400,000 until it expired Dec. 31. Instead, Christie noted that between 2004 and 2008 there was a net outflow of $70 billion in wealth as “the rich,” including small businesses, fled. And he said previous administrations had “raised taxes 115 times in the last eight years alone.”

Government employees’ health benefits are, he says, “41 percent more expensive” than those of the average Fortune 500 company. Without changes in current law, “spending will have increased 322 percent in 20 years—over 16 percent a year.” There is, he says, a connection between the state’s being No. 1 in total tax burden and being No. 1 in the proportion of college students who, after graduating, leave the state.

Partly to pay for teachers’ benefits—most contribute nothing to pay for their health insurance—property taxes have increased 70 percent in 10 years, to an average annual cost to homeowners of $7,281. Christie proposes a 2.5 percent cap on annual increases.

Challenging teachers unions to live up to their cloying “it’s really about the kids” rhetoric, he has told them to choose between a pay freeze and job cuts. Validating his criticism by their response to it, some Bergen County teachers encouraged students to cut classes and go to the football field to protest his policies, and a Bridgewater high school teacher showed students a union-made video critical of him. Christie notes that the $550,000 salary of the executive director of the teachers union is larger than the total cuts proposed for 190 of the state’s 605 school districts.

New Jersey’s governors are the nation’s strongest—American Caesars, really—who can veto line items and even rewrite legislative language. Christie is using his power to remind New Jersey that wealth goes where it is welcome and stays where it is well-treated. Prosperous states are practicing, at the expense of slow learners like New Jersey, “entrepreneurial federalism”—competing to have the most enticing business climate.

Christie’s predecessor [Jon ”seatbelts” Corzine]addressed a huge unionized rally of public employees, vowing to “fight for a fair contract.” Who was he going to fight? The negotiator across the table would be . . . himself.

Saying “subtlety is not going to win this fight,” Christie notes that New Jersey’s police officers, the nation’s highest paid, can retire after 25 years at 65 percent of their highest salary. In the state that has the nation’s fourth-highest percentage (66) of public employees who are unionized, he has joined the struggle that will dominate the nation’s domestic policymaking in this decade—to break the ruinous collaboration between elected officials and unionized state and local workers whose affections the officials purchase with taxpayers’ money.

It’s no wonder they’re all pissed off at him. The union folks are even wishing him dead. Funny thing though ... here in Blue Jersey, land of the libs ... his popularity gets better every day.

Christie’s entire term will be a slap in the face to the White House. And when it’s shown that cutting spending, reducing the deficit, lowering taxes, easing business regulations, and shrinking the government and the gold-plated school system turn the state around in an economic miracle ... the left won’t have a leg to stand on. Godspeed governor, you’re the nearest thing we’ve got to Ronald Reagan right now.

Posted by Drew458     on 04/22/2010 at 09:24 PM   
Filed Under: • Republicans •  
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