Governor Chris Christie: Well I think we have to look at the specifics of it, Terry, as to whether it’s going to be a good deal for the states or not. Here’s what I’m happy about. They finally did something. I mean, I don’t know, I’m like, I think most citizens in this country are, sitting around saying, ‘What the hell are they doing down there?’ And you know, they don’t talk to each other, they talk at each other, they’re worried more about talking to the cable TV stations than they are about talking to their colleague sitting to their right or to their left. President seemed to be absent for most of this, I mean if we ever did that in New Jersey we’d be run out of town on a rail. You look at what we’ve done in the first 18 months in New Jersey with divided government. You know, divided government is a challenge, but it’s not impossible. With divided government, we’ve gotten two budgets that have cut significant money from the expenditures it’s saved New Jersey. We’ve gotten a 2 percent property tax cap, we’ve reformed the interest arbitration system to keep property taxes down, we have put forward $132 billion dollars in savings for taxpayers over the next 30 years by reforming the pension and public health benefit system, to protect the pensions of those people who are collecting them and also to try to help to save the taxpayers. All this stuff has been done in divided government, because Senator Sweeney, Speaker Oliver, Senator Kean, Assemblyman DeCroce and I talk to each other, not at each other. So I’ll look at what the specifics are Terry when they come out, I think the members of Congress are still trying to get their arms around the specifics of the deal, and I’ll certainly comment on that when I get a better handle on it from the folks who look at this stuff for me in Washington. But I will say that I join, I’m sure hundreds of millions of Americans, to say I am relieved that the Congress and the President have finally gotten around to doing their jobs not a moment too soon, and I wish they would look more to the states for an example of how you can get this done. And whether it’s me in New Jersey with divided government, or that it’s Governor Cuomo across the river in New York with divided government, we’re both setting an example. So it’s not a Republican or Democratic issue. It’s a leadership issue. And if you understand that, you know, your job is to lead and get things done, and not just to posture and pose in front of these cameras, then you actually get your job done, so I’m relieved that the President and Congress finally got to that this weekend, but I’m sure that Governor Cuomo and I would be happy to run a seminar for them anytime, to try to let them know how to get things done.
Assemblywoman Amy Handlin (R-13) will be the first guest tomorrow at 5PM on the LaRossa And Gallagher: Real Jersey Guys On The Radio Show on WIFIAM1460 on your radio dial and here on the Internet.
Handlin and her 13th district Assembly running mate Declan O’Scanlon are sponsors of the New Jersey “Right to Work Act” which prohibits payroll deductions for union dues and makes union membership voluntary.
Imagine getting your dream job that pays well, offers generous benefits and is located a few miles from your home.
But there’s a condition: You must pay Harold Camping $75 every month to help spread the word about his next Doomsday prediction.
That’s probably not a problem for those who believed Judgment Day was May 21 and are now convinced it’s coming Oct. 21, but most would object to an employer telling us what we should believe and how we should spend our money.
In America, people are free to believe whatever they want and support their beliefs however they choose.
In New Jersey, and many other states, however, workers are forced to join unions and fund their political priorities, regardless of their wishes.
I support workers’ right to organize, but that should be a personal choice. Those who agree withtheir union representatives have every right to join, but others should have the freedom to work without subsidizing and endorsing a group they disagree with.
Just last week Handlin announced that she is drafting legislation to prohibit voluntary retirees who are collecting a pension from simultaneously collecting unemployment benefits.
Tune in for what promises to be an informative half hour. Those who have questioned Handlin’s conservative ethos should especially call in and learn something.
Call in with questions and comments to 609-447-0237.
Patrick Murray, the founding director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute will be our guest for the second half hour of the show. Murray’s media profile has risen in recent months as increasingly he has become a “go to” expert for both local and national new outlets for commentary on New Jersey government and politics. We are pleased to have him on the show.
When Murray asked what I want to talk about I said, “whatever is current. We can talk about how the debt ceiling dealings in Washington will impact New Jersey politics, we can talk about Congressional Redistricting, and the upcoming legislative races.” We’re not limited to those topics, and as always, your calls are welcome and encouraged.
Listen live between 5PM and 6PM here and call in to 609-447-0237.
If you miss the show, a recording will be posted here on MMM, hopefully by 9PM.
The primary election for the Republican nomination for United States Senate in 2012 now appears to be a contest between two members of the New Jersey State Senate, Joe Kyrillos of Monmouth County and Mike Doherty of Warren County. Kyrillos served in the State Assembly from 1988 until 1991 and in the state senate since then. Doherty served in the State Assembly from 2002 until 2009 and in the State Senate from 2009 until the present.The contest has been depicted in the media and in some political quarters as a race between a conservative Doherty and a moderate Kyrillos. This is, however, a most inaccurate portrayal.
Joe Kyrillos is a solid Reaganite conservative. By contrast, Mike Doherty is a Ron Paul conservative. Doherty supported Ron Paul for President in the 2008 election.
Senator Doherty has emphasized as his defining conservative issue his Fair School Funding plan, which he has introduced in the State Senate in the form of a bill. Under this legislation, each school district would receive state aid based upon a per pupil amount, multiplied by the number of its students.
The Doherty plan would clearly be held to be unconstitutional by the New Jersey Supreme Court. Under its Abbott v. Burke line of cases, the court has shifted a disproportionate amount of state aid from suburban districts to the state urban “special needs” districts. Senator Doherty’s legislation is effective in making a point, but ineffective in making change.
By contrast, in 1992, Senator Kyrillos proposed a constitutional amendment which would have been far more effective in preserving suburban state school aid. This measure would have effectively superseded Abbott v. Burke and limited the jurisdiction of the New Jersey Supreme Court to intervene in state school funding matters.
Specifically, the Kyrillos amendment would have prohibited the New Jersey Supreme Court from requiring that any school district be funded in an amount in excess of 120 percent of the state per pupil average. The amendment was considered at a joint Assembly-Senate public hearing in July, 1992.
The liberal media in New Jersey harshly criticized the Kyrillos amendment as having an anti-minority impact. At the public hearing, urban school officials and activists denounced the amendment as racist. In the face of these attacks, the amendment failed to get the necessary support of 24 Senators and 48 Assembly members for placement on the November, 1992 ballot.
In sponsoring and advocating this amendment however, Joe Kyrillos demonstrated both his judicial conservatism and political courage. In the election of that same year of 1992, Kyrillos ran against incumbent Frank Pallone for the U.S. House of Representatives. Yet he still sponsored the amendment, refusing to sacrifice his judicial conservatism as an expediency of the election.
The judicial conservatism of Joe Kyrillos was also much in evidence on November 14, 2006. On that day, he was the only member of the State Senate to vote against granting tenure to New Jersey Supreme Court Justice Jaynee LaVecchia.
Earlier in 2011, Justice LaVecchia issued the court opinion requiring the state to give the urban 31 districts an additional $500 million. In assessing the Kyrillos vote on Justice LaVecchia’s tenure back in 2006, one must understand that he would oppose the granting of tenure to any justice he perceived to be legislating from the bench rather than strictly interpreting the law.
Joe Kyrillos has a connection to the presidency of Ronald Reagan deeper than that of any other current elected official in New Jersey. He began his career as a special assistant to the then Secretary of the Interior Don Hodel during the second term of the Reagan administration.
After the completion of the Reagan administration, Hodel later served as president of the Christian Coalition from 1997 until 1999 and as president of Focus on the Family from 2003 until 2005. The social conservatism of his mentor, Don Hodel influenced Joe Kyrillos as well. It was much in evidence during the second term of the Whitman administration, when Kyrillos sponsored a constitutional amendment banning all third trimester abortions.
The tax reduction and pro-business ideology of Ronald Reagan has constituted the core of the conservative, free market philosophy of Senator Joe Kyrillos. He was a leading advocate of the Whitman income tax cuts. Most significantly, Kyrillos made history by his authorship and sponsorship of the New Jersey Business Employment Incentive Program, which gives rebates to companies who create a substantial number of new jobs.
Kyrillos also demonstrates his appreciation of the Reagan style by his effectiveness in securing the passage of legislation. While he is loyal to his conservative principles, he works well with senators of different political parties and divergent ideologies. Joe Kyrillos has demonstrated the ability to not only talk conservative change, but make it as well.
In writing this column, I do not mean to imply in any way that Mike Doherty is not a conservative. I simply want to correct any misperceptions about Joe Kyrillos. Far from being a moderate, he is the ultimate Reaganite conservative.
I must make a full disclosure, however. Joe Kyrillos is a good friend of mine. That is something of which I am most proud.
Alan J. Steinberg served as Regional Administrator of Region 2 EPA during the administration of former President George W. Bush. Region 2 EPA consists of the states of New York and New Jersey, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and eight federally recognized Indian nations. Under former New Jersey Governor Christie Whitman, he served as Executive Director of the New Jersey Meadowlands Commission. He currently serves on the political science faculty of Monmouth University.
The Tea Party fits in Washington like nuns at a swingers’ convention. The fiscal orgy at Club Fed just can’t continue unless the Tea Party gets the hell out. Unfortunately for Obama, we just won’t leave. How could we? We can’t afford to refuel our corporate jets.
So in order to give the Tea Party the “change we need,” Obama is pulling out all the stops. He continues his War on Productivity against the “rich.” Like the preacher said to the congregation,
“I have good news and bad news. The good news is we have the money for the new building. The bad news is it’s out there in your pockets.”
When Obama can’t just get taxpayers to hand over their booty at knifepoint, he threatens to “Katrina” America, and unleash Mother Nature on us. His timing was impeccable, as he delivered his Mother Nature threat in the wake of the worse tornado season in decades—let no crisis go to waste!
Somebody must have whispered in Obama ear that Mother Nature is a fickle wench, and can’t be counted on, as tornadoes and hurricanes are seasonal, despite global climate change. However, people have to eat pretty much every day.
This prompted Obama to threaten our food, as not allowing Obama to create more debt might force him to cut the FDA. How horrible a death would it be to die from e-Coli?
Has this guy ever experienced cuisine in Mexico, where merely handling a mango can get you Montezuma’s revenge? You’d think that being African, Obama realizes the bugs you can get in the Motherland from eating the wrong foods make salmonella feel like slight indigestion.
We weren’t fooled. So when the food scare didn’t work, Obama pulled the entitlement card out. Obama tried to mug old people, gank them like a purse-snatching, wallet-lifting thief in the street, by suggesting they wouldn’t receive their Social Security checks. We will never know how many old people died at the threat of losing their livelihoods, but you can bet some did.
However, even the old “Old people will lose their benefits” trick didn’t persuade Conservatives to allow Obama to pick their pocket, thus victory was delayed for the battle worn, wannabe hero of the Left.
Time for yet another escalation within the Democrat Rules of Destruction of America manual, and a willing Democrat Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee pulled out her well-worn, but now laminated race card.
According to Lee, there exist racists in Congress who do not want to raise the debt ceiling for this president as they have for all “other” presidents. Lee points out that there is only one glaring difference between this president and all “others.” I originally guessed that this president is the only idiot we’ve ever elected, but then I was reminded of Jimmy Carter who presided during The Peanut Era.
Congressman Lee’s beehive is obviously wrapped too tight, as she apparently forgot that the debt ceiling has already been raised three times for this president, putting Obama ahead of Bush in the “Race to Continually Raise the Debt Ceiling.”
Obama was left with only one possibility, one move, one gambit as it were: Obama would have to “talk tough.”
Things are serious when Obama talks tough. Reminiscent of the battle between the African king Ramses and the Jewish Prince Moses, Obama warned Republican Eric Cantor: “Don’t try me…uh…you Yutz!”
Unphased by Obama’s threat, Cantor challenged, “Game on…Boyee!”
Obama unleashed tough talk on Cantor, the Republicans and the Tea Party, and anybody else who would dare try to live the American Dream unfettered at a press conference. The raw meat supporters of Obama’s tough talk were treated to Obama’s poll-tested new tough words “balanced approach.”
In his call for a balanced approach to allow himself the ability to run up even more massive debt, Obama used the historical, heretofore automatic raising of the debt ceiling to defend his actions. Apparently the “change we need” did not involve turning off the money spigot or the treasury printing presses.
Ironically, it was Obama who in the campaign of 2008 sold half of America on the idea that he was going to Washington to stop the status quo. I can only surmise that Obama didn’t think Washington was spending America into oblivion fast enough? He’s not exactly “reigning in Washington” is he?
So we find ourselves fighting the same battle with Liberals yet again, and pretty much in the same old ways. Democrats bluster that if taxpayers don’t keep forking over the big bucks, we will all die, and Republicans allow us to be pecked to death by chickens.
The only way to reign in Washington is to take away our money. Not raising the debt ceiling is the only way to force America to cut government, something Liberals abhor.
Liberals love spending orgies. Unfortunately for them, the Tea Party movement brought a fiscal religion revival to Club Fed Hedonism 2008. And we ain’t going nowhere.
That’s my rant!
Kevin Jackson is author of the Amazon best-seller The BIG Black Lie, and The Black Sphere blog.
Assemblywoman Amy Handlin (R-13) will be the first guest tomorrow at 5PM on the LaRossa And Gallagher: Real Jersey Guys On The Radio Show on 
Patrick Murray