Monmouth Poll: Christie’s Disapprove Numbers Up 9 points

By Art Gallagher

Monmouth University’s Patrick Murray has a new poll out this morning that indicates that while Governor Chris Christie’s approval numbers are steady at 47%, the percentage of New Jersey residents who disapprove of job the governor is doing has jumped from 40% in February to 49% today.

Murray noted that the poll was conducted before the latest state revenue projections were released.  MMM doubts the revenue numbers would have a postive impact on the governor’s numbers.  The positive news in the revenue reports of income taxes generated by Wall Street is offset by the lagging sales tax and corporate tax revenue results which point to a weak New Jersey economy.

Murray said that the increase in Christie’s disapproval numbers came from people who previously had no opinion of the governor’s performance.  In February 12% of the respondents did not express an opinion of Christie’s performance compared to 5% in the poll released today.

Christie support among Republicans slipped from 80% in February to 75% today. Among Independents Christie’s approval numbers rose from 49% to 53%.  72% of Democrats disapprove of Christie’s performance in today’s poll vs 61% in February.

Only 46% of New Jersey residents report having read or heard anything about the Christie’s Town Hall meetings.

Christie will hold a Town Hall meeting in Monroe Township this afternoon.

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Schwarzenegger-Shriver Marriage Terminated Over Love Child

Maria Shriver will not be back with Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Seems Shriver, the niece of former President John F. Kennedy, did not inherit the Kennedy women’s trait of looking the other way.

Numerous media outlets are reporting that Shriver left her marriage to the former California governor and former movie star immediately upon his confession of having fathered a child with a 20 year veteran of the couple’s household staff.

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State Tax Revenue Up $914 million

By Art Gallagher

New Jersey’s millionaires are sending an unexpected $913M to Trenton between now and July 2012, even though Governor Christie said no to the reinstatement of the millionaires income tax surcharge.

State taxes are expected to exceed Governor Christies projections by $430 million in the current fiscal year that ends June 30th, and another $484 million in the next fiscal year, according to an Office of Legislative Services analysis obtained by Gannett.

The money is coming from Wall Street millionaires’ income taxes.

As the stock market has risen broadly, the state saw an additional $633.9 million in income tax collections this fiscal year, and it is expected to reap another $811.7 million above expectations in the next fiscal year.

However, New Jersey’s Main Street economy is lagging behind expectations:

However, corporate business taxes are off early projections by $190.1 million and are expected to track $252.5 million below estimates next year.

Sales and other tax collections are flat or down and are expected to continue to be lackluster.

Naturally, Trenton Democrats are scrambling to find ways to spend the unexpected cash, rather than use it to shrink  New Jersey’s huge deficits in the pension and health benefits system, the transportation trust fund or the unemployment trust fund.  The State Supreme Court could order all the money be wasted in Abbot Districts.

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Shell Game

Government Reaches Debt Ceiling.  Treasury Secretary Tells Congress He’ll Keep Borrowing By Withholding Pension Payments and Accounting Tricks

By Art Gallagher

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is taking a page from the States playbook and balancing the federal books by delaying pension payments. 

In a letter to Congress, Geithner he will immediately halt investments in two big government pension plans so the government can continue to borrow money even though the $14.3 trillion dollar debt limit was reached yesterday, according to an Associated Press article.

Even though the government has reached its official borrowing limit, Geithner said unexpected revenue and bookkeeping maneuvers will allow the Treasury to continue auctioning debt for another 11 weeks.

What would our governments do if they didn’t have pensions to play with?  What would be the consequences of a private sector CFO making a similar move?

Stanley Druckenmiller, a “legendary investor” who was once a fund manager for George Soros, told the Wall Street Journal that a “technical default” or short term delay in government debt payments would be preferable to the status quo of continually raising the debt limit without fundamental reform of how the government spends money.

“Here are your two options: piece of paper number one—let’s just call it a 10-year Treasury. So I own this piece of paper. I get an income stream obviously over 10 years . . . and one of my interest payments is going to be delayed, I don’t know, six days, eight days, 15 days, but I know I’m going to get it. There’s not a doubt in my mind that it’s not going to pay, but it’s going to be delayed. But in exchange for that, let’s suppose I know I’m going to get massive cuts in entitlements and the government is going to get their house in order so my payments seven, eight, nine, 10 years out are much more assured,” he says.

Then there’s “piece of paper number two,” he says, under a scenario in which the debt limit is quickly raised to avoid any possible disruption in payments. “I don’t have to wait six, eight, or 10 days for one of my many payments over 10 years. I get it on time. But we’re going to continue to pile up trillions of dollars of debt and I may have a Greek situation on my hands in six or seven years. Now as an owner, which piece of paper do I want to own? To me it’s a no-brainer. It’s piece of paper number one.”

Druckenmiller says the current market for government debt, and low interest rates are part of the shell game:

Some have argued that since investors are still willing to lend to the Treasury at very low rates, the government’s financial future can’t really be that bad. “Complete nonsense,” Mr. Druckenmiller responds. “It’s not a free market. It’s not a clean market.” The Federal Reserve is doing much of the buying of Treasury bonds lately through its “quantitative easing” (QE) program, he points out. “The market isn’t saying anything about the future. It’s saying there’s a phony buyer of $19 billion of Treasurys a week.”

Hat tip to Bob Ingle for the WSJ article.

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Kyrillos Submits “The School Children First Act” Reforming Teacher Tenure and Pay

Trenton— State Senator Joe Kyrillos (R- Monmouth) has introduced legislation, S-2881, aimed at providing all children in New Jersey with an effective teacher in their classrooms. “The School Children First Act” will reform teachers’ tenure and pay structure, and bringing these important protections in line with the state constitution’s mandate of a “thorough and efficient” system of public education. The legislation is modeled after Governor Christie’s teacher tenure and salary reform proposals.

“We cannot, as a state, tolerate a public education system in which some children have access to good teachers while others do not,” said Kyrillos. “We must make the system work better for kids by rewarding excellent teachers and removing those who are not effective in the classroom. In order to meet the state constitution’s requirement of a thorough and efficient system of public schools for all children, we must put their needs above all else in every facet of our educational system. That includes how tenure and compensation are earned.”

The legislation replaces traditional teacher tenure with protections that must be earned and maintained through annual evaluations that rely heavily on classroom observation, making it easier to identify and remove ineffective teachers from the classroom.

The pay structure of the teaching field will be reformed as well. Student achievement will play a role in determining salary awards under the bill, a change from the current system which compensates teachers based on seniority.

“The new system puts students first by protecting and rewarding teachers who are effective, aiding those who need to improve but still show promise and passion, and moving those who are persistently ineffective out of the classroom,” Kyrillos stated. “All the while, this legislation protects educators from arbitrary or politically motivated termination.”

Under the bill, tenure is earned after three annual evaluations of “effective” or “highly effective”. A teacher loses and must re-earn tenure after one rating of “ineffective” or two evaluations of “partially effective”.

“Teachers who are performing well or who clearly will perform well with additional mentoring and guidance have nothing to fear from this type of reform,” said Kyrillos. “However, the new system improves on current practice by stopping the excuses for educators who are clearly incapable in the classroom or have burned out.”

Finally, the bill as drafted prioritizes students’ needs by ensuring that a school’s most effective educators are retained if staffing reductions are made. “I’ll take a great third year teacher over an ineffective veteran of the system any day of the week,” said the Senator. “When staffing decisions are made, our children should have access to the best teachers whether they’ve spent two or twenty years in the classroom.”

Kyrillos said he hopes that the debate over his bill will be based on its merits rather than fear. “Change is always difficult in government, but I hope that those who disagree with this bill do so based on fact rather than fear mongering,” he said. “A system that makes it too difficult and costly to remove teachers who are failing, that unnecessarily creates winners and losers among our state’s school children because of red tape and bureaucracy, is neither thorough nor efficient.”

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Christie Interview With Sean Hannity

Governor Chris Christie will be interviewed by Sean Hannity this afternoon at 4:30.

770 AM or listen online here.

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Trump Withdraws From Presidential Race. Declares Victory

By Art Gallagher

The Donald announced that he won’t be a candidate for President and that he will continue as the star and co-producer of Celebrity Apprentice raising “lots and lots of money for charity.”

He then said he would have won the Oval Office had he run.

With Trump and Mike Huckabee both out, the race for the 2012 GOP nomination will be a lot less entertaining.  Time will tell if that is good or bad.  Entertaining gets people to pay attention.

I don’t believe Trump was ever serious about seeking the nomination.  Yet I liked the role he was playing.  He, more than anyone was able to lay a glove on Obama.  He got under the candidate in chief’s skin.  Taking politically incorrect positions actually helped Trump’s agenda.   He created room for “real” candidates to take on the President.

If he had his druthers I think Trump would have played the gadfly through the summer.  But NBC needed to let their affiliates know if Celebrity Apprentice was going to be back on the air in the fall.  The Donald made the business decision he was always going to make.

Hopefully Trump will continue to speak out.  He can do the country a service positioning himself as a conservative counter punch to Michael Moore and his ilk.

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Pallone Wants A Progressive Senate Slot

Photo credit: Politickernj.com

With Congressional redistricting and the certain loss of one House seat on the minds of most New Jersey Congressmen, Frank Pallone is looking ahead to a 2014 run for U.S. Senate.

Pallone distributed slot buckets paid for by Pallone for Senate to delegates of the NJ Democratic convention in Atlantic City last week, according to Politickernj.

Pallone passed on a chance to run for Senate in 2002 when a scandal plagued Robert Torricelli dropped out of his campaign for reelection.  Frank Lautenberg came out of retirement and won Torricelli’s seat after the State Supreme Court ruled he could run even though the statutory deadline for replacing candidates on the ballot had passed.

Pallone raised and spent over $1 million in the hopes of going to the Senate in 2005 as Jon Corzine’s replacement.  Corzine resigned from the Senate during his only term to become governor.  Corzine selected Robert Menendez over Pallone as his replacement in the Senate.

Now Pallone is betting that Lautenberg, who is 87 years old, will not seek another term.

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Bin Laden Had Porn Stashed In His Compound

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Christie To Hold Town Hall Meeting Wednesday In Monroe

Governor Chris Christie will travel to Middlesex County for a Town Hall meeting in Monroe Township on Wednesday May 18th.

The meeting will be held at the North American Headquarters of Villeroy and Boch Company, 3 South Middlesex Avenue.   Seating is first come, first served and the doors will open at 12:45 PM

In order to ensure adequate seating, attendees are requested to RSVP here.

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