Corzine Economics: The $750 million Bond Question

Do you approve the “Building Our Future Bond Act?” This bond act authorizes the state to issue bonds in the aggregate principal amount of $750 million to provide matching grants to New Jeresy’s colleges and universities. Money from the grants will be used to build, equip and expand higher education facilities for the purpose of increasing academic capacity.

We thought we were rid of him in 2009.  We sent him back to Wall Street where he destroyed the company that hired him as CEO and he destroyed the businesses and savings of thousands of investors when $1.2 billion of their money went missing.   He testified before a congressional committee that he simply does not know where the money is.  MF’ing Jon Corzine.

Yet the ghost of Jon Corzine in on the ballot twice this November.  Once, if Joe Kyrillos has his way, in the form of Bob Menendez, the man Corzine made a Senator.

Perhaps more dangerous to our fiscal health than Bob Menendez is the insidious alliance of trough swillers who are hoping New Jersey voters don’t notice that ballot question #1 is Corzine Economics and Governance.

Imagine this is a personal expenditure.  It is.  If not for you, for your children or grandchildren.

Imagine your income has been down for a few years and its lower that what you expected it would be so far this year.  Your credit rating has been downgraded.  Your savings have been depleted and you don’t know that you’re going to be able to make ends meet at the end of the year.  Not that hard to imagine.  Many New Jerseyans are living through that nightmare.  Our state government is going through exactly that.

Then imagine that a group of politicians, unions, business groups, colleges, gas and electric companies, water companies, insurance companies…pretty much everyone who supported Corzine’s plan to sell or lease our highways and his plan to borrow $450 million to fund stem cell research comes along and asks you to guarantee a $750 million loan to build, equip and expand facilities on college campuses.

Again, not hard to imagine because its happening.  The group is called Building our Future: Yes on #1.  Its list of donors smells like #2 if you’re concerned our New Jersey’s fiscal health and your own.

As of October 10 the group’s donors had kicked in $900,000 to persuade you to vote for their largess, according to The Star Ledger.

Most of Building our Future’s donors have a financial stake in the passage of referendum, which could create dozens of large construction projects on college campuses across the state.

The group’s first donors include: PSE&G ($200,000), New Jersey Carpenter Contractor Network ($100,000), New Jersey Resources ($100,000), Northeast Regional Council of Carpenters PAC ($100,000), New Jersey State Electrical Workers ($100,000) and the American Federal of Teachers New Jersey ($10,000).

William Paterson University was the first higher education institution to donate to the cause, with a $33,000 check, according to the ELEC filing. University officials said the money came from private donations to the William Paterson Foundation, the school’s nonprofit fund raising arm.

This group knows how to raise money. $900,000 since they were formed in August.  They also know how to spend it.  Save money?  Not so much.  Their web site cost over $18,000.

The Corzine connections to the group run deep.

Maggie Moran was the first chairperson of the group, according to their ELEC reports.  Moran was Corzine’s Chief of Staff when he served in the U.S. Senate. She was his Deputy Chief of Staff while he was governor. Laura Matos was the group’s first treasurer. Matos served in the governor’s office for Jim McGreevey, Dick Cody and Corzine.  Moran and Matos are now partners at M Public Affairs, Inc.  Building our Future: Yes on #1 shares office space with M Public Affairs in Lake Como.  Building our Future: Yes on #1 and M Public Affairs have the same phone number.  Of the $188,000 Building our Future: Yes on #1 spent through October 9, $55,000, including the $18K web site, was paid to M Public Affairs.

The new chairman of Building our Future is union leader William T. Mullen.  The new treasurer is John Duthie who is also the treasurer of the NJ State Laborers PAC and the Laborer’s International Union of North America.

The Corzine connections run deep.

We couldn’t afford Jon Corzine when he was governor and we can’t afford his borrow and overspend policies now.

Vote No on #1.

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Obama caught between Iraq and a Myspace

By Ernesto Cullari

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Thanks for a great month

June was by far the most active month in MMM’s history.  There have been 32,000 visits and 57,000 page views so far month.  71% of those visitors were repeats.  Google analytics says that all of that traffic came from 8700 computers.  Unbelievably to me, the average visit is for 11 minutes, which is longer than it takes to read an entire issue of the Asbury Park Press.

According to alexa.com, only 15,850 websites in the New York area and 125,439 in the United States get more traffic than MMM.

Special thanks go out to Anna Little, Ernesto Cullari, John Bennett, Christine Hanlon, Vin Gopal, Frank LaRocca, Barbara Gonzalez, Bob Gordon, Linda Baum  Rachel Alintoff, Judge Paul Escandon, Louise Murray and everyone who wears bathing suits on the Asbury Park Boardwalk.  I can’t forget Bob Menendez’s opposition research team.

I doing my monthly review, I couldn’t help but notice the success of my friends in Asbury Park.

Congratulations to Dan Jacobson and Molly Mulshine at the AsburyParkSun.  In only three months they have made a significant impact in the local media market.  Alexa.com says that APS is in the top 200,000 of all websites nationally and in the top 35,000 in the New York area.   Mulshine was the first to report the Asbury Park Boardwalk beach attire controversy, a story that went national.

UPDATE: July 1

Wow!  I haven’t had such a busy last day of the month since I was in the car business.  The final numbers for June are 32,959 visitors fromm 9,194 unique IPs and 58,768 page views.  Ranked 120,646 in the U.S. on Alexa.

As Lois mentioned in the comments, thank you so much to all the commenters, especially the “congregation” as Lois called the regulars.  I won’t name them all because I’m sure to leave an important one out.

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