Garden State Politics

Posted by admin on February 7th, 2010 in Uncategorized

Sorry, this is going to be a long one. So I’m breaking it into sections.

Section 1: The News
The Star-Ledger offers us competing opinions on taxes and the Great Exodus from New Jersey. First up, conservative commentator, Paul Mulshine:

The reaction to McGreevey’s class warfare [note: income tax increase on high wage earners] was similar. The wealthy fled New Jersey or just declined to move here. New Jersey’s net drop in wealth between 2004 and 2008 was $70 billion, the Center on Wealth and Philanthropy stated.

Mulshine makes a direct connection between the increase in income tax and the loss of wealth. His fellow columnist, Tom Moran, however, isn’t so sure:

For a careful academic like John Havens, a specialist on wealth at Boston College, these are trying times.

He finished a study last week that showed New Jersey lost nearly $70 billion in net wealth from 2004 to 2008 because we lost more wealthy people than we gained.

Then the politicians got a hold of it. And suddenly the report was twisted out of shape, presented as proof that New Jersey must rush to cut income taxes on the rich by $1 billion in the midst of our worst budget shortfall ever.

“I didn’t say that,” Havens says. “Taxes are just one possiblity.”

In fact, Havens thinks the causes of this trend may lie elsewhere. But no matter. His study now has the status of a rotten tomato in Trenton’s latest food fight. It’s going to be used as the combatants see fit.

Moran goes on to say that the State Treasury Department shows the number of families earning more than $500,000 has actually increased during the time McGreevey’s and Corzine’s income tax hikes were in effect – and then quotes State Senator Joe Pennacchio’s disbelief in those numbers.
Continue reading this post…

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Posted by admin on February 5th, 2010 in Uncategorized

You could almost see it coming:

Mayor Dana Redd has added at least five former aides to former Gov. Jon Corzine to her staff.

Redd, who was sworn in last month, has faced criticism from Republicans for pushing to increase the maximum salaries for some top staff positions.

Redd said she needed the higher guidelines to be able to hire the former state employees at their former salaries.

So she didn’t need higher pay to get qualified people. She just wanted to make sure her buddies didn’t have to take a reasonable pay cut. You know, it’s the old “friends-and-family” theory of hiring. Given that the new mayor is starting out with a rash of budget busting patronage moves, should we perhaps start wondering how long it will be until the state takes over (again) and the new mayor has to join the old one?

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Posted by admin on February 5th, 2010 in Uncategorized

Trenton lawmakers are falling all over themselves to make it look like they are outraged by the excesses of the Passaic Valley Sewerage Commission (PVSC) and unwilling to let it continue – so Scott Rumana wants the state to take over the patronage mill.

But it isn’t as if the PVSC is alone in its problems. Two months ago, I tried shining a spotlight on the Rahway Valley Sewerage Authority. And, it should be pointed out, the RVSA’s Board of Commissioners is no less politically connected than the PVSC’s Board. That, in itself, is neither surprising nor alarming. After all, these are appointed positions, so you’d expect them to have some political connections.

Beyond that, it is not impossible that a group of political appointees, with no real knowledge of how sewerage works, could still manage to do a decent job in managing a sewerage authority. All that is needed is an appointee who wants to serve honorably and well and will do whatever study is needed to get up to speed on the ins and outs of sewerage. Technical knowledge can always be borrowed from in-house engineers or consultants.

The problem is that we have probably hundreds of these hidden governments in New Jersey. Authorities and Commissions and Boards and whatnot that wield considerable power and influence our daily lives in ways that we aren’t even aware. Every decision they make impacts our property taxes…but we never know it because they don’t send a bill to us, the consumer. They send the bill to the municipality, who passes it along to us as part of a unified tax bill.

It’s as close to a law of human behavior as is possible to determine – if you give people power and money and never institute oversight; then you are going to have problems, in one way or another. Nepotism, patronage, extravagance, and outright corruption are only symptoms. If any improvement is ever to be made; then we have to get out of the idea that we just need more hidden government to watch hidden government.

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Posted by admin on February 4th, 2010 in Uncategorized

I think Wally has it wrong. Shirley Turner doesn’t fear a primary challenge at all. She simply believes that gay people should have the right to be sacrificed to protect a country that denies them the right to consensual marriage.

See? Nothing cynical here. Move along. Continue reading this post…

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Posted by admin on February 4th, 2010 in Uncategorized

While busily telling Jersey City employees that they are being forcibly furloughed, Mayor Jerramiah Healy found time to hire Gerald McCann to the Jersey City Incinerator Authority. But it did not go unnoticed. So Sandra Cunningham can be the voice of reason here, right? Let’s see how that works:

“I don’t see anything wrong with him getting a job,” said Cunningham. “Is he the only person that’s been hired? If he is the only person that’s been hired, and everyone has to go on furlough, then he shouldn’t have been hired. But if they’re hiring people, then why is he singled out? “

Update, 4:35pm: Fulop said that he talked this morning to Incinerator Authority Executive Director Orin Dabney, who told him that McCann was its only hire for at least several months.

“I’m a supporter of the Second Chance program. I’m not a support of political quid pro quo,” said Fulop.

Let’s not forget, by the way, that Mr. McCann currently serves on the Jersey City Board of Education. It isn’t as if this guy was sucking up the unemployment until Healy took pity on him. So, now that Sandra’s slip is showing, will she use her pull at the JCIA to get rid of McCann…or will she now turn into a typical Hudson County pol and see no evil?

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Posted by admin on February 4th, 2010 in Uncategorized

Interesting:

New Jersey is one of about 20 states that does not allow wine to be shipped directly to consumers. At present, consumers can get wine shipped only to a retail outlet.

A bill that would remove the ban faces opposition from New Jersey liquor retailers, who fear it would cut into their business and make it easier for under age drinkers to buy wine.

The bill, which was introduced but not passed in the last legislative session, allows in-state vineyards and wineries, and out of state vineyards, wholesalers and retailers, to obtain a permit to ship wine straight to the buyer’s home.

Yeah, I bet the wine retailers are really really don’t want underage drinkers to have wine delivered. Because they do such a damn fine job of stopping underage drinking as it is.

It’s a stupid objection. First of all, to have wine delivered, you are going to have to pay for it…with a credit card. Not many minors run around with a credit card, and if they do have one, Mom or Dad probably get the bill. Second, speaking as someone who has had wine delivered to my home (when I lived in Florida) I had to show ID to the delivery man (who was actually younger than I).

Now, will it cut into the retailer’s business? I suppose it’s possible – if you can buy the same product online at such a discount that it remains cheaper even after adding shipping costs. More than likely, people will do what I did recently – order wines that the local retailers don’t stock (honestly, try to find anything from either Caprock or Llano Estacado in a Jersey store – heck, try and find a Jersey brand in a Jersey store). But I actually had to have it delivered to a friend in New York because New Jersey is stuck in the dark ages here.

But critics say the law would undermine the current system in which vineyards deliver wine through distributors to retailers, who sell it to consumers.

“It’s a pretty big threat,” said Diane Weiss, executive director of the New Jersey Licensed Beverage Association, a Trenton-based trade group that represents about 500 bars and taverns around the state. “You are bypassing the whole retail aspect.”

“It could be the beginning of something,” she said. “Right now, it’s the wine connoisseurs. Then what about the scotch connoisseurs?”

Yeah, there are tens of thousands of Scotch distilleries in New Jersey, right? Let me give you a term I learned in Econ 101: “economies of scale.” It’s just damned cheaper to send a dozen cases of Johnny Walker to the distributer than it is to send the same number of bottles to forty or so individual customers.

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Posted by admin on February 4th, 2010 in Uncategorized

In its entirety:

The owner of a Philadelphia-based temporary labor firm has admitted bribing a senior investigator in the New Jersey Labor Department.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office announced today that Channavel “Danny” Kong of Philadelphia pleaded guilty Feb. 2 to bribery and failure to pay employment taxes.

The 38-year-old Kong remains free on bond pending his May 28 sentencing.

He owned Sunrise Labor, a company that provided temporary employees to businesses and usually assumed responsibility for withholding and paying state and federal payroll taxes.

Kong admitted that from 2006 through January 2009 he paid more than $55,000 to labor investigator Joseph Rivera to protect the company from state audits. Rivera pleaded guilty in March 2009 to accepting bribes.

Put ‘em in adjoining cells.

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Posted by admin on February 4th, 2010 in Uncategorized

Normally, I applaud political leaders who actually try to lead the community. But in this case, I have to take exception:

It’s time for the fathers in the 31st District to start acting like “daddies.”

That’s the message that Assemblyman Charles Mainor want to get across tomorrow at a 6 p.m. meeting at his Jersey City office “for the men of the community — black, white purple and green.”

Sounds good so far.

Mainor is calling the men of the community together in the wake of the double-murder on Woodlawn Avenue early Tuesday morning, where 17-year-old Mileak Richardson and 26-year-old Lester Thompson were both shot in the head.

Ok, first of all, this is suspected of being a gang murder. There are some indications that boys seek out gangs, in part, to surround themselves with surrogate male role-models. The key thing to remember is “in part.” Gang membership is just not so simplistic. If it were, surely someone would have already hit upon this solution. But the problem goes beyond a simplistic attempt to dupe voters into believing that a politician cares.
Continue reading this post…

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Posted by admin on February 4th, 2010 in Uncategorized

Anyone looking for a sign that New Jersey Democrats understand that the electorate is angry with them is going to have to break out an electron microscope. Or maybe the Hubble telescope. Or maybe just go ahead and put on a blindfold and hope for the best.

Read it all.

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Posted by admin on January 5th, 2010 in Uncategorized

I’m still here, and still watching the sorry state of politics in New Jersey. But I’m looking at ways to do this without being a one-person sorry knock-off of what is already out there. I’ll keep you apprised of changes planned and taken.

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