Christie Super Hero Video From Taiwan

Hat tip to Capital Quickies

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Correction? Did Christie say he “will not” or “may not” be governor in 2014?

By Art Gallagher

The Record’s Herb Jackson might have misquoted Governor Chris Christie when he reported that the governor said, “I’m not going to even be governor in 2014″.

As brought to our attention by our friends at InTheLobby, others have reported that Christie said, “Candidly, I may not even be governor in 2014.”

That’s a bit different.

CBS News has a tape of the interview.    Christie utters the phrase very quickly at the 20 second mark of the tape, immediately after an edit.

Frankly, I’m not sure which version is correct.

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Will Christie’s Reforms Reduce Property Taxes?

By Art Gallagher

In a column published in The Star Ledger and at NJ Spotlight, Mark Magyar says no.  Magyar says that like all the governors before him, except Florio, Christie is simply tinkering at the margins and that whether Christie serves one term or two, New Jersey’s property taxes will still be the highest in the nation.

Magyar, who was a policy advisor to Chris Daggett’s Independent gubernatorial campaign against Christie and Jon Corzine, makes the case that unless New Jersey increases income taxes and sales taxes with the State taking over a higher burden of education funding, that property taxes will continue to be a dispropotionate and inequitable source of funding for education and government services.

A good tax system is generally considered to be one in which income, property and sales taxes are in some rough balance, with each providing somewhere between 30 percent and 40 percent of total revenue for these three major taxes. That is the case in most states, but it is not the case in New Jersey, where property taxes actually make up 58 percent of the income/property/sales tax pie, with income taxes accounting for just 24 percent and sales for the remaining 18 percent.

The only way to actually lower property taxes in New Jersey to a competitive level with other states is to shift billions of dollars of the cost of K-12 education or municipal or county services to another major tax or taxes — with the income and sales taxes being the most logical choices — while simultaneously making sure that an effective cap prevents any new increase in school district and local government spending.

That is what Democratic Gov. Jim Florio tried to do in 1990 when he dedicated half of his $2.8 billion tax package to property tax relief, but most of the money was quickly eaten up by school districts and municipalities for new spending, and by the second year property taxes were rising again as rapidly as ever. Voter repudiation of Florio led to the election of a Republican legislature and GOP Gov. Christie Whitman, and scared politicians in both parties away from any meaningful attempt at overall tax reform.

Magyar makes a compelling case.  Middletown Committeeman Gerry Scharfenberger made a similar case last August.

However, Magyar’s argument is a non-sequitur to the current debate happening in Trenton (and nationally).

Even if Christie and the legislature were to institute Steve Lonegan’s flat tax, increasing income taxes on the poor and middle class while reducing them on the rich, and even if they instituted Chris Daggett’s $4 billion sales tax increase, and used the new revenue to reduce property taxes, the problems that Christie is addressing would remain.  They would just be paid for differently.

New Jersey, and many other states, has too much government.  There are too many government employees making too much money and getting benefits that are too generous to sustain regardless of how the revenue is generated.

It is only by reducing the size of government on all levels, which means less government employees making less money with less generous pensions and benefits, that our overall tax burden will decrease.  That is what Christie’s reforms are designed to do.   By forcing the downsizing within the current system, rather than radically changing the way New Jersey taxes its citizens and then implementing cuts, Christie is demanding that municipal, county governments and school boards make the hard choices now.  If Christie did it Magyar’s way, government and taxes would continue to expand.

Let’s first reduce the size of our governments.  Once that is done we can address the way we pay for them.

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Christie: “I won’t be governor in 2014”

By Art Gallagher

While criticising President Obama’s comments to the nation’s governors about public employee unions and health care, Governor Chris Christie told reporters that he will not be governor in 2014, according to Herb Jackson of The Record.

“I’m not going to even be governor in 2014, so the fact that he’s offering flexibility in 2014 is really of no moment to most governors who need to balance their budgets this year,” Christie said.

If reelected in 2013, Christie would be sworn in to his secord term in January 2014.

At his Town Hall meeting in Middletown on January 26th, Christie said he was going to seek a second term as governor.

The governor has repeatedly declared that he is not running for president in 2012.

Maybe his plans are changing.

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Governor Christie Moves Horse Racing Closer to a Self-Sustaining Model with Legislation to Expedite Off Track Wagering

Trenton, NJ – Governor Chris Christie today moved forward with his commitment to making horse racing in New Jersey a self-sustaining industry by signing legislation to expedite the establishment of off-track wagering facilities in New Jersey. Another step forward comes early next week, when the New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority will issue a request for proposals to bring a long-term solution to Monmouth Park through private operation. 

On December 17, 2010, Governor Christie announced a break-through agreement to end public subsidies of operations and purses for Standardbred racing at the Meadowlands Racetrack through the lease of that facility to the Standardbred Breeders and Owners Association (SBOA). Governor Christie is looking forward to similar progress with Monmouth Park and Thoroughbred racing there with the RFP for a private operator. 

“We were successful in the Meadowlands, and we can do the same for Monmouth Park to the benefit of New Jersey taxpayers,” Governor Christie said.  “I want to see a vibrant but self-sustaining horse racing industry in New Jersey, but that can be accomplished without tens of millions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies every year.” 

Assembly Bill 1705, which Governor Christie conditionally vetoed on January 31 and the Legislature subsequently amended to include the Governor’s recommended changes, removes barriers to the establishment of OTWs by permitting persons other than racetrack operators to run OTW facilities, making OTWs a permitted use in all municipal land use zones, and increasing the accessibility to liquor licenses for OTW operators. 

Despite enactment of an original OTW law nearly a decade ago, only three of the 15 facilities allowed by law were established. Governor Christie’s conditional veto was necessary to preserve the NJSEA’s ability to transfer licenses in connection with the sale or lease of the state’s racetracks.  It also eliminated a 1 percent fee on OTW operators, but expressly noted that the Administration will work with the Legislature to find an alternative source of revenue for OTW host municipalities

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How Chris Christie Did His Homework

Matt Bai’s article on Governor Chris Chrisite in the NY Times Magazine is a MUST READ.

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Governor Christie Releases Fiscal Year 2012 Budget Proposal

Trenton, NJ – Advancing his vision for a New Normal in state budgeting, Governor Chris Christie today presented a $29.4 billion budget for Fiscal Year 2012 that cuts real spending for a second consecutive year. The Governor’s Budget proposal includes $200 million in focused tax cuts, provides additional property tax relief, increases school aid and funds a reformed state pension system, while preserving or increasing funding to protect our state’s most vulnerable citizens. The Fiscal Year 2012 Budget marks a departure from the Trenton tradition of budgeting to meet deficit projections that embrace wish-list spending by legislators and assume continuous funding increases that irresponsibly ignore actual revenue sources and the fiscal health of the state. 

The Governor’s Budget – which reduces real spending by 2.6 percent from the current fiscal year – hits the reset button on the state budgeting process and starts with the refreshing assumption that budgeting and spending must be reality-based and zero-based. The New Normal means developing a bottom-up approach – establishing priorities and funding them based on revenue that is actually available and predictable versus the old approach of assuming every line item and program will automatically be funded at the same or higher level than prior years.

“The old way of budgeting and thinking must be stricken from our collective minds if we are to successfully emerge from this fiscal crisis with permanently reformed budgeting and spending habits,” Governor Chris Christie said.  “This is a new paradigm for state government – a New Normal – that cuts and spends responsibly, incentivizes our local governments to do better with what our taxpayers entrust to them, and causes businesses to feel welcome and want to stay and expand or relocate to our state.” 

The Governor’s Budget proposal adheres to necessary spending and budgeting discipline, but also meets New Jersey’s most vital spending priorities.  Among those priorities in the budget:

·         Increases education aid to every school district in New Jersey by a total of $250 million;

·         Fulfills the statutory commitment to make a $506 million payment to a reformed state pension fund, representing the first funding to the defined benefit plans since fiscal year 2009;

·         Provides $200 million in job-creating, strategic tax cuts that are responsible and sustainable;

·         Doubles funding for the Homestead Rebate to provide direct property tax relief in the form of a property tax credit under the newly named Homestead Benefit program;

·         Protects municipal aid and keeps funding at fiscal year 2011 levels to help towns meet the new 2 percent property tax cap (while decreasing by 10 percent the category of Special Transitional Aid to cities, in keeping with the Governor’s pledge to end cities’ reliance on the aid as they adopt best-practices budgeting to improve fiscal and management reforms); and

·         Increases and secures New Jersey hospital funding by a total of $20 million, and increases funding for student financial aid by the same amount.

The Governor’s Budget takes all possible steps to maintain the safety net for New Jersey’s most vulnerable and at-need individuals and families.  From prescription drug aid for seniors to helping low-income tenants stay in their homes, the Governor’s Budget includes billions of dollars and:

·         Preserves critical spending and fully funds the fiscal year 2011 increases to the Pharmaceutical Assistance to the Aged and Disabled (PAAD) and Senior Gold Prescription Assistance Programs without increases in co-pays or eligibility – keeping it one of the most generous such benefit programs in the nation;

·         Allocates $20.4 million to help the developmentally disabled lead richer, happier lives through new community placement and services, and funds day programs and other services; similarly, the budget continues and expands funding for the requirement that the state expand the number of residential and community settings for New Jersey’s mentally ill;

·         Preserves the current level of support for higher education, after years of cuts, while increasing student aid programs by $20 million and providing $15 million for capital improvements at community colleges;

·         Provides resources to keep 4,300 low-income citizens in their homes and apartments, including $25 million from the New Jersey Affordable Housing Agency Trust Fund and $9 million from the Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency; and

·         Avoids an increase in NJ Transit fares and expands bus service to select growth markets.

The damage caused by years of fiscal mismanagement, coupled with the lingering effects of the national recession, will continue to restrain state spending for years to come. The reality is that the New Normal of the current economic and fiscal climate necessitates more painful choices in how the state allocates finite taxpayer dollars.  Facing up to those realities, the proposed budget continues on the path of making difficult, often painful choices in nearly every department.  Funding in even worthwhile, popular programs is reduced or eliminated in order to fund priorities.

Governor Christie will continue to insist that the shared sacrifice be spread among state employees as well, including in payment of a fair share of medical costs.  By increasing co-payments and premiums to levels still below what federal employees pay, the state will save $323 million that will be used to pay for other critically important programs – and prevent increases in some of the highest sales, income and property taxes in the nation.

Finally, to pave the way for the best possible outcome for our state and its people as we deal with the New Normal and emerge from recession, the Governor intends to better position our businesses and attract new ones with tax cuts, reform and incentives to spur job growth and business expansion. To that end, he proposes a comprehensive but phased-in program of $2.5 billion in job-creation incentives over the next five years.  As part of the program, Governor Christie is proposing for Fiscal 2012  tax cuts and reforms resulting in approximately $200 million in savings for businesses. 

The package outlined by the Governor increases the state’s competitiveness in a responsible and sustainable manner by providing critical tax reform and incentives across a variety of tax-policy areas, including: loss carry-forward relief for small businesses, a reduction of the S-corporation minimum tax, increasing the credit allowed for research and development investments, exemptions for business software technology reinvestment, increasing funding for economic development programs, and the phasing-out of the Technology Energy Facility Assessment to provide needed relief from New Jersey’s already-high energy costs.

Governor Christie has committed to only putting in place tax cuts and incentives that are paid for within the context of a Constitutionally-balanced state budget.  By providing for a phase-in of the program, the fiscal impact rises with the expected expansion of the state’s economy while minimizing the impact on the state budget each year.

The budget proposal, a representation of the Governor’s commitment to maintain fiscal discipline, also outlines a bold reform agenda to take on the big issues facing New Jersey, including the Governor’s comprehensive reform plans to restore fiscal sanity to out-of-control pension and health benefits systems, make 2011 the Year of Education Reform to bring the opportunity of a high-quality education to every child, and the pro-growth, responsible package of tax reforms and incentives to create Jersey Jobs and increase New Jersey’s competitiveness, as outlined above.

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The Public Employee Union Problem

By Art Gallagher

Yesterday in Government of the unions, by the unions and for the unions I said that “public employee unions are as serious a threat to Americans’ freedom as is radical Islam. Maybe more so. ”   That wasn’t hyperbole.

President Franklin D. Roosevelt and George Meany, the first president of the AFL-CIO, warned of the dangers of public employee collective bargaining.  From Daniel DiSalvo’s The Trouble with Public Sector Unions:

The emergence of powerful public-sector unions was by no means inevitable. Prior to the 1950s, as labor lawyer Ida Klaus remarked in 1965, “the subject of labor relations in public employment could not have meant less to more people, both in and out of government.” To the extent that people thought about it, most politicians, labor leaders, economists, and judges opposed collective bargaining in the public sector. Even President Franklin Roosevelt, a friend of private-sector unionism, drew a line when it came to government workers: “Meticulous attention,” the president insisted in 1937, “should be paid to the special relations and obligations of public servants to the public itself and to the Government….The process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service.” The reason? F.D.R. believed that “[a] strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent on their part to obstruct the operations of government until their demands are satisfied. Such action looking toward the paralysis of government by those who have sworn to support it is unthinkable and intolerable.” Roosevelt was hardly alone in holding these views, even among the champions of organized labor. Indeed, the first president of the AFL-CIO, George Meany, believed it was “impossible to bargain collectively with the government.”

In New Jersey, the unions run our governments on the state, county and municipal levels.  Fortunately, Governor Chris Christie is fighting to correct some of the economic imbalances the unions have imposed upon the people with the cooperation of their lap dogs…previous governors and legislatures that the unions elected and shared the largess with.   Yet Christie is fighting to only tame the beast while killing the beast is appropriate. 

Examples of unions dictating government policy, spending and even risking public safety are so prevalent that we don’t even notice.  The unions tyranny is so complete that we just surrender rather than fight.

A minor example is Christie choosing not to layoff government workers during the current budget cycle.  Governor Corzine signed a no layoff contract with the unions just prior to his reelection campaign kickoff.   Vice President Joe Biden told Corzine that he wouldn’t cross a union picket line to appear at Corzine’s event.  Corzine caved to the unions demands and signed a deal that tied his successor’s hands. 

Much more serious examples come from our cities of Newark and Camden.   Both cities are in serious fiscal trouble.  Both cities, already high crime areas, are experiencing increases in violent crime.   In both cities unions forced police layoffs.  The most senior and highest paid members of the police department got to keep their jobs while younger junior officers were let go.  The younger officers are being recruited to join police departments in other states for less pay.  The unions didn’t even give them the option of accepting less pay to keep working at home.  Our leaders, the governor and the cities mayors accepted this situation because they had no choice.

The police situation in Newark and Camden is insane.  It is not government of the people, by the people and for the people.  It is government of the unions, by the unions and for the unions.

Unions, and their lap dog lawmakers have designed a system that trumps the economic law of supply and demand.  There is a huge supply of labor available.  Millions of those people are getting by with checks from the government.  The government can’t put these people to work, as police officers or in other functions, because of union rules and contracts.  This situation is insane.  We are living it.

This is not a system that protects the middle class, as the unions are protesting.  This is a system that rewards the few at the expense of, and literally to the detriment to the safety of us, the many.

Is there any doubt that Newark Mayor Cory Booker and Camden Mayor Dana Reed would hire as many police officers as they could and pay them the wages they could afford if “the system” allowed them to?  Is there any doubt that those jobs would be filled and that there would be a waiting list to fill vacancies?  I think not.

Newark and Camden are extreme but real examples of unions controlling our government and public safety.  There are less extreme but just as real examples all over New Jersey.   Our elected leaders throughout the state on all levels of government are constrained primarily by union contracts and civil service rules in their efforts to reform their jurisdictions and deliver government services efficiently.

It is insanity and we are living it.  It is tyranny and we are subject to it.

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Government of the unions, by the unions, for the unions

By Art Gallagher

Despite the rhetoric coming from Paul Krugman, Dick Durbin, President Obama and other demagogues on the left in the wake of Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s attempt to scale back public employee unions’ power, no one has yet attempted to “break the unions.”

That’s a shame because public employee unions are as serious a threat to Americans’ freedom as is radical Islam. Maybe more so.  

In many states throughout the union, including New Jersey, public employee unions have more power and influence over government policy, operations and spending than our elected representatives.  From our governor down to the councilman and school board member, elected office holders ability to manage and govern their jurisdictions are constrained by laws and contracts that protect employees from the public will.

Walker’s proposal in Wisconsin to remove unions ability to negotiate for pensions and benefits and Governor Christie’s reform agenda in New Jersey are considered bold because over the last 50 years unions have systematically and gradually taken over our governments. Their political power was extreme and unchecked.   Before Christie took on the NJEA over the last year and thrived, no politician dared take on such a powerful special interest.  Sure there where those who tried, but you don’t remember who they are and neither do I, because the unions destroyed them.  Christie, and now apparently Walker, could be the right men at the right time to lead America back to a truly representative form of government in the States.

Yet, as bold and radical as the governors seem in the context of the last 50 years of growing union power, their proposals are relatively modest.  Far from really “turning Trenton(or Madison) upside down” or doing “big things” Christie and Walker are modestly tinkering with the existing systems.

As Daniel DiSalvo, an assistant professor of political science at City College of New York, told the Star Ledger’s Tom Moran in a Q and A published yesterday:

Christie has created a big storm, in part because of his aggressive style. But what he’s proposed is not that controversial. It leaves intact the entire collective bargaining structure. Yes, he would impose short-term pain, but the Walker plan goes to the root of the problem.

Walker’s plan might go to the root of the problem, but it only exposes the root, it doesn’t cut it:

Q. Is Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker really proposing to end collective bargaining?

A. Not exactly. He’ll retain it for police, firefighters and state troopers. But he is proposing a drastic rollback for teachers and other public employees. They will retain the right to bargain over wages, but not benefits.

Politically, Christie’s success over the last year and Walker’s anticipated success could well be due to the moderateness of their proposals being sold to the public with bold rhetoric.  Christie took on the NJEA last year by calling for wage freezes and health care contributions of only 1.5% of teacher salaries in order to save jobs.  The union looked petty in their vocal opposition and the public sided with the Governor by overwhelmingly rejecting school budgets at the ballot boxes.  The public continues to support Christie’s agenda and now the debate in Trenton is over how much spending to cut, not whether to cut.  That’s a big change, but it is not systematic change.

But systematic change was not politically possible a year ago.  It is becoming possible, but it won’t be swift.  The unions took over our governments incrementally over a period of a half century.  We, the people, did not notice it happening for the most part.  Now that the public is waking up to the relative largess of public employee compensation and benefits, systematic change becomes increasingly possible, but it will have to be accomplished incrementally.

DiSalvo makes the case why public employee unions must be broken in his National Affairs article published last fall. Every political leader should take the time to read the article.

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Christie: People Are Ready To Hear The Truth

Governor Chris Christie addressed the American Enterprise Institute in Washington this afternoon.

Here’s a highlight from the Q and A:

Christie’s entire appearance can be viewed here.

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