Murray Sabrin is running for U.S. Senate

Ramapo College Professor Murray Sabrin made it official yesterday.  He is running for the GOP nomination to challenge Senator Cory Booker.

Sabrin made his announcement on NJ 101.5’s Dennis and Judy Show yesterday followed  by a fundraising appeal to supporters via email.

Sabrin’s announcement is an indication that he received sufficient encouragement from Republican county chairmen and other party leaders over the last two weeks since he announced his interest in challenging Booker that believes he has enough support to win the majority of establishment party lines in the primary.  Sabrin told WHDT 9 News, that he would only enter the primary if he had sufficient establishment support to avoid a competitive primary.

As a three time statewide candidate, once for governor as a Libertarian and twice as a Republican primary candidate for U.S. Senate, Sabrin is the favorite to win the GOP nomination by virtue of the name recognition and relationships built during those earlier races.

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Opinion: NJ Republicans and U.S. Senate — The Five-Decade Losing Streak

Opinion: NJ Republicans and U.S. Senate — The Five-Decade Losing Streak (via NJSpotlight)

In any field of human endeavor, a half century of futility, of reaching for a goal, coming tantalizingly close but ultimately falling short, is understandable cause for frustration, discouragement, and a temptation to throw up one’s hands, surrender…

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Lonegan Challenging Eck’s Petitions

Steve Lonegan

Steve Lonegan, the GOP front runner in the August 13 Special U.S. Senate Primary has filed a challenge to the candidacy of his only opponent, Dr. Alieta Eck based allegedly invalid signatures.

Calling Eck a “prospective candidate,” the Lonegan campaign alleged that Eck herself claimed to witness signatures that she did not in fact witness.

Lonegan’s attorney, F. Michael Daily, said in the challenge that “numerous books contain signatures purportedly witnessed by Alieta Eck and investigation has disclosed that contrary to her affirmations she did not witness such signatures.”

Daily, who has been retained by the Lonegan for Senate campaign, also alleged in the objections that other witnesses, some of whom also claimed to have gathered hundreds of signatures, are similarly invalid.

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From the comedian…

Art,

Thanks, I think, for the post on your website about my new skill, pundit/comedian.  We need some levity around here.  However, if you read my post, I said it appears the Kochs would like Christie to get the GOP presidential nomination. And if Christie goes all the way to the Oval Office, then Lonegan, part of the Koch team as head of AFP in NJ, would probably get their backing for the gubernatorial nomination in 2013.  One thing we know about politics is that there are no certainties.  I did not predict Christie would win nor that Lonegan would be the next governor.  I just wrote about what apparently is in the offing, Christie’s entry into the presidential race.  

Four years ago, the pundits predicted a Giuliani/Clinton presidential contest.  So much for the experts.  There is a “lifetime” between now and the first caucuses and primaries.  Yesterday, the FL straw poll results add fuel to the Christie for President bandwagon.  Bachmann is toast, Perry is toast, and the others are marking time.  Santorum and Gingrich had their egos stroked from yesterday’s results but they are going nowhere.  

Cain is the latest “flavor” of the week.  But he in not going anywhere either.  He wants even bigger government than Obama as DiLorenzo points out today on the LRC blog.  Ron Paul benefited enormously from the results yesterday.  He was right there with the other candidates.  In short, he is not a fringe candidate as much as the MSM would like to portray him as such.

One more thing; The title of my post: Is the fix in?  Not, The Fix is In as in your post.  Big difference.

Regards,

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Murray Sabrin The Comedian

My friend Murray Sabrin is trying to give Joey Novick some competition in his role as comedian/blogger.

If you’re not familiar with Novick, he’s a liberal Democratic lawyer and stand up comedian that makes up stuff about Republicans in his column at Politickernj.  Sometimes Joey makes up stuff about Democrats too.  He wrote that Carl Lewis was going to appeal to Judge Judy to get back on the LD 8 ballot as a Senate candidate.  Joey thinks he’s funny.

Sabrin writes funny stuff too.  Only Murray doesn’t think he’s being funny. Murray wrote that The Fix Is In.  The Koch brothers have arranged for Chris Christie to be elected president in 2012 and that Steve Lonegan will be elected governor of New Jersey in 2013.

That is funnier than anything that Novick has ever written.

Joey and Murray should create a joint act, The Liberal and the Libertarian.

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It’s the spending, stupid. How Grover Norquist and ATR blew it

By Murrary Sabrin

The other day I received a blast e-mail from Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) signed by its president Grover Norquist. Mr. Norquist has become a lighting rod for President Obama and congressional Democrats because of his opposition to higher taxes to address the fiscal crisis in Washington D.C. President Obama and Democratic leaders have asserted that a “balanced” approach to deficit reduction is needed including raising tax rates on upper income Americans. In addition, the Obama administration wants to end so-called loopholes for millionaires, billionaires, and corporations so they can pay their ‘fair share” of taxes to avoid cuts to domestic spending. Norquist and other anti-tax groups oppose Obama’s desire to hike taxes in any form.

Although ATR has been successful in getting hundreds of first-time candidates and legislators to sign its pledge not to vote for higher taxes if they are elected or reelected to Congress or their state legislature, it and other DC anti-tax groups have failed miserably in reining in the real issue facing the country-government spending.

In Norquist’s recent email, he writes, “The D.C. mentality of spending money that they don’t have must end.” This is the first time I can recall receiving a message from ATR about spending. In the past, its mantra has been no new taxes, which I agree with 100%. However, the debt crisis we face today has its roots in the “conservative” Reagan and Bush I administrations.

During Reagan/Bush’s twelve-year rein, federal spending doubled and the national debt rose from $1 trillion to $4 trillion.

Eight years of Bill Clinton could be considered the golden age of fiscal restraint. Federal spending rose by only $450 billion, or about 32%, while the federal debt rose by slightly less than $1.5 trillion. Moreover, in the last four years of the Clinton administration, the federal government ran a nearly $600 billion budget surplus. At the end of the Clinton administration budget surpluses were projected to be $6.5 trillion for the first ten years of the 21st century. It did not happen.

Thanks to eight years of Bush/Cheney, who gave us the welfare-warfare state in spades, federal spending nearly doubled to $3.5 trillion and the national debt nearly doubled to $12 trillion. President Obama is making all previous presidents look like fiscal conservatives with three consecutive $1 trillion budget deficits, mind numbing spending and more of the same for the next several years. In short, federal spending is now at the proverbial crossroads as the federal budget reaches nearly $4 trillion.

Although ATR’s goal of stopping tax hikes has been relatively successful, the real burden of the federal government is how much it spends, because the American people have to pay for spending eventually in the form of higher taxes or devalued money. In other words, ATR’s anti-tax pledge has been meaningless in the end because signers of The Pledge ignored spending as Reagan, Bush I and Bush II increased federal expenditures and the national debt to unconscionable levels. George W. Bush’s manic spending paved the way for the election of Obama and the fiscal crisis we face today.

ATR needs a pledge on spending. The pledge would state: “I promise to vote for a budget only if it is lower by at least 10% than the current one.” This would cause the federal budget to decline every year until spending and revenue are balanced at much lower levels. Eventually, the federal government would only spend the American people’s money on programs authorized by Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution.

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Supremes Cut The Baby In Half

By Murray Sabrin

Last week, the treasurer’s office informs us that higher income tax revenue of slightly more than $500 million for the next 14 month will fill the state’s coffers.  Yesterday, the Supreme Court ordered the state to spend $500 million more on schools in the Abbott districts.  Call me cynical, but what a coincidence! 

Did the Christie administration provide the Supreme Court with an “olive branch” by making this announcment about the tax windfall so it did not have to restore the $1.7 billion in school aid cuts the Education Law Center wanted?  The ELC, in its lawsuit, asserted that amount was necessary for providing a “constitutionally” funded education for “at risk” students who attend Abbott District schools.

Yesterday’s Supreme Court decision cuts the proverbial baby in half.  Abbott District schools get more state aid next year.  Governor Christie and the Legislature do not have to come up with $1.7 billion more in school aid in next year’s budget as the ELC wanted, and the Supreme Court looks “reasonable” by not ordering a huge increase in funding that would require a substantial tax increase and/or reductions in other spending.

In short, the status quo remains—more money for the Abbott Districts where student achievement is frighteningly poor in many schools.  The answer to the annual school funding battles is to separate schools and taxpayer funding.  In the meantime, state school aid should be distributed on an equal basis as Senator Michael Doherty recently proposed. Equality under the law demands that the state not discriminate against any child.  Period.

Murray Sabrin is professor of finance at Ramapo College and blogs at www.MurraySabrin.com.  

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New Jersey Is Broke

By Murray Sabrin

The State of New Jersey is a financial basket case.  The recent report that the state has not set aside one dime to pay for the promised ($66.7 billion) medical benefits of current and future retirees is another example of nonfeasance on the part of our elected officials. 

By failing to fund the medical benefits of state and local government workers, the state is on a road that will cause enormous economic hardship for the people of New Jersey.  In short, to pay for all the promised benefits, taxes will have to skyrocket, which will lead to a mass exodus of productive individuals and businesses over time.  In addition, businesses will not expand or relocate to New Jersey because of the onerous taxes that will have to be imposed to prop up the medical benefits fund. 

Even if benefits are reduced for current and future retirees, which is highly likely, who in their right mind will trust the political hacks in Trenton to be born again fiscally responsible politicians?

For years, Republican and Democratic governors and members of the state legislature from both political parties have failed to perform their duties to maintain the state’s fiscal health.  Now that the chickens are coming home to roost, what is being done to correct the gross shortfall in the state’s obligations?  Before we answer that, another report released on April 26^th reveals the state’s pension fund is $54 billion in the hole. 

Can anyone say criminal indictment?  If a corporation’s officials did not fund their employees’ retirement benefits, they would be fired and/or possible fined or even indicted by the federal government for failing to fulfill their fiduciary duties.  In New Jersey, we just keep electing the same gang of self-serving career pols from gerrymandered legislative districts who exploit the public’s income and wealth to maintain their political careers and continue the great con, the redistribution of income. 

(One legislative solution is to elect at large members of the legislature instead of from specific legislative districts. Alternatively, we could elect half of the legislature from the gerrymandered districts and half at large members.  With at large members of the legislature, all taxpayers will be represented.)

The financial solution to the $120 billion underfunding of retirees’ pensions and medical benefits is for the state to invoke something like force majeure and start from scratch.  That will send a strong signal to New Jerseyans and businesses, especially those from out of state that the politicians in Trenton will be fiscally responsible and not make promises they cannot keep. 

Without an “extreme makeover,” New Jersey will become the Greece of the United States.

Murray Sabrin is professor of finance at Ramapo College and blogs at www.MurraySabrin.com

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How To End Double Dipping

By Murray Sabrin

Editorial writers and good government types are foaming at the mouth because both Republicans and Democrats are collecting pensions while they are working in new government positions.  Who would have guessed that members of the political elite would rip off (legally, of course) taxpayers? 

Over the years, editorial writers have endorsed big government candidates from both major political parties because the political hustlers expressed “compassion” (financed with taxpayers’ money, of course) for the poor, elderly, et.al.  In other words, they epitomize “phony” philanthropy.  And how have the welfare statists repaid taxpayers?  By engaging in a legal but cheesy practice—retiring from one government job and collecting a paycheck from another. 

The solution is simple:  end pensions and health benefits for all elected officials.  This would end double dipping once-and-for all.  During this transition, public officials would have to fund their own pensions and health care needs out of their own incomes.  This “reform” would work as follows.  Salaries of all state, county and local government official would be increased (or not) to account for all the benefits the state, county and local governments now pay. 

In the future, if a person retires from say being a local police chief and then is elected county sheriff, there would be no double dipping because he would be using his savings from his first job plus the income from his new job to pay for living expenses.  In short, no more double dipping for elected officials in New Jersey. 

There is absolutely no reason retirement income and medical benefits should be tied to employment.  Every adult should take responsibility for his or her life.  That means planning for all stages of life including retirement.  However, in our collectivist, welfare state culture, the most disingenuous words are:  “I’m from the government and I am here to help you.”  Or, “I work for the government and I really care about taxpayers.”  

The reason state and local governments have a collective $3.5 trillion underfunded pension and health care liability is because politicians have not been funding the retirement plans and promised health care benefits of workers.  In short, politicians from both political parties have been–to put it mildly–poor stewards of taxpayers’ money.

The evidence is overwhelming.  Politicians cannot be trusted with the people’s money.  We need to downsize, not reform, all levels of government.  The welfare state, redistribution of income chickens are coming home to roost.   The worst of the ongoing financial crisis is yet to come. 

Murray Sabrin is professor of finance at Ramapo College and blogs at www.MurraySabrin.com

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Bloggers Featured on NJN

On the left, Jay Lassiter and Jeff Gardner of BlueJersey.com. Michael Aron of NJN, seated center. On the right, Art Gallagher and Murray Sabrin of MurraySabrin.com

NJN’s Reporters Roundtable will be a bloggers roundtable this week.

I was privileged to join BlueJersey’s Jay Lassiter and Jeff Gardner, along with Murray Sabrin for the taping on Michael Aron’s weekly show this afternoon at NJN’s studio in Trenton.

The half hour show will air Friday evening at 7PM and Sunday morning at 10AM and be posted on NJN’s website on Monday the 29th.

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