Author	Message
Guest	Posted: Fri, Dec 31 2010, 3:22 pm EST    Post subject: Re: NJ Republican governor Christie slammed for Disney vacation during snow stor I am glad we agree on the prescription. I am not assuming he has dictatorial powers. To start the process someone, and that someone should be the governor, needs to publicly state the extent of the problem. Then outline a plan, that I think will have to look suspiciously like the prescription outlined here, to move the public and the legislature toward this solution. Obviously, if Christie hasn't done it after one year he is not going to do it. I think where we really disagree is on the extent of the problem. Though I don't blame this on Christie in the past year the pension obligations have increased from 44 to 56 billion. That is about a 25% a year rate. That is officially a runaway rate. Whether you like it or not at that rate in three years this state will be bankrupt and my prescription will implement itself. My biggest complaint is that Christie seems to pretend this is not happening. He gets in a giant fight with the NJEA, which whether he is right or wrong does nothing to address the bigger problem. I think he should have addressed the big problem and then gotten into a fight with the NJEA. What he has done is gotten the entire state involved with a rather stupid debate over the NJEA, to the point where any criticism of the governor gets a response that you must be a teacher. We have to focus on the problem and we are not.
Guest	Posted: Fri, Dec 31 2010, 3:00 pm EST    Post subject: Re: NJ Republican governor Christie slammed for Disney vacation during snow stor I agree that your prescription is logical but not practical and I think you are missing that the Governor does not have dictatorial powers.
Guest	Posted: Fri, Dec 31 2010, 2:45 pm EST    Post subject: Re: NJ Republican governor Christie slammed for Disney vacation during snow stor Guest wrote: IMO it is delusional to think any politician will take the actions you have prescribed for "saving" the state. My point was, is, and will continue to be that your expectations are unrealistic. No one is going to "save" New Jersey. The only question is how hard are we going to hit the iceberg and how many of us will make it to the lifeboats. What is unrealistic? That a politician will do it, probably. But answer this. What else can be done. I think the prescription is pretty accurate in what has to be done. If you are saying no politician has the political guts to do it, I agree. That was the point of my post. We have now had governors of both parties stand at the precipice and look over the edge. I think anyone who honestly looks at the state of New Jersey's finances will come to my conclusion. Balance the budget. Allow no one new in the pension system. Sell off assets to pay down pension obligations. Are you disagreeing with my prescription?
Guest	Posted: Fri, Dec 31 2010, 2:14 pm EST    Post subject: Re: NJ Republican governor Christie slammed for Disney vacation during snow stor IMO it is delusional to think any politician will take the actions you have prescribed for "saving" the state. My point was, is, and will continue to be that your expectations are unrealistic. No one is going to "save" New Jersey. The only question is how hard are we going to hit the iceberg and how many of us will make it to the lifeboats.
Guest	Posted: Thu, Dec 30 2010, 9:14 pm EST    Post subject: Re: NJ Republican governor Christie slammed for Disney vacation during snow stor Goofy wrote: Some of you either believe in magic, or you are just plain goofy. Corzine used federal money, false projections, tax and toll increases to "balance" the budget. And he skipped the pension payment, too. Christie managed to "balance" the budget by cutting spending and skipping the pension payment. And here's a newsflash, the impending doom of the pension plan is the "big stick" in the negotiations. The fear of a pension system collapse is driving unions to the bargaining table. Why would you expect Christie, or anyone else seriously negotiating with the unions, to be anxious to give up their leverage? It seems like you expect the governor to magically erase years of bad decisions without any cooperation from the party controlling the Assembly, the Senate and the Court. Maybe you are the one spending too much time in Disney? You are confused. You think if we are unimpressed with Christie we must be Corzine supporters. Nope Corzine caved to his own party on his first budget and never recovered. You are missing the big picture. Let's do a thought experiment. We fire all state workers. We are still underwater because of a 56 billion dollar obligation. He has done nothing about this. He has presented no plan and done nothing to prepare the state. Why? Because in order to fix this he will have to lay off a lot of state workers, cut most services, raise taxes, and sell off most of the state assets. If he does that he will save the state. Unfortunately, if he does that he will be unelectable for national office. That is why we have heard nothing. Incidently, it was the national office idea that fatally flawed Corzine. If you recall his initial budget actually came close to balancing the budget. Then he went into a room with Shirley Turner, who apparently explained to him to get democratic party support for national office he would have to save union jobs and raise taxes and that is what he did. Don't delude yourself that the pension deficit is a good thing because it gives Christie leverage. It is strangling the state. This is analogous to what took General Motors down.
Goofy	Posted: Thu, Dec 30 2010, 8:05 pm EST    Post subject: Re: NJ Republican governor Christie slammed for Disney vacation during snow stor Some of you either believe in magic, or you are just plain goofy. Corzine used federal money, false projections, tax and toll increases to "balance" the budget. And he skipped the pension payment, too. Christie managed to "balance" the budget by cutting spending and skipping the pension payment. And here's a newsflash, the impending doom of the pension plan is the "big stick" in the negotiations. The fear of a pension system collapse is driving unions to the bargaining table. Why would you expect Christie, or anyone else seriously negotiating with the unions, to be anxious to give up their leverage? It seems like you expect the governor to magically erase years of bad decisions without any cooperation from the party controlling the Assembly, the Senate and the Court. Maybe you are the one spending too much time in Disney?
Guest	Posted: Thu, Dec 30 2010, 7:51 pm EST    Post subject: Re: NJ Republican governor Christie slammed for Disney vacation during snow stor Guest wrote: Name one actual example of real, meaningful policy Christie has crafted, negotiated and overcome obstacles to make happen? Arbitration reform.
Guest	Posted: Thu, Dec 30 2010, 1:34 pm EST    Post subject: Re: NJ Republican governor Christie slammed for Disney vacation during snow stor Guest wrote: Guest wrote: Typically, when a state of emergency is declared governors or big city mayors drop everything and return home. My gripe isn't about this trip, a vacation with your family over the Christmas holiday is hard to begrudge someone, but where was he in August and September. He campaign for every two-bit republican candidate across this country. Last I checked the budget still isn't balanced and the pension fund underpayment has gone from an unbelieveable 44 billion to a scary 56 billion under his watch. He needs to stay in the state and get something done. How many years have you been in the teachers union now? Interesting, instead of responding to the points, you change the subject. I guess your argument is pretty weak huh?
Guest	Posted: Thu, Dec 30 2010, 10:13 am EST    Post subject: Re: NJ Republican governor Christie slammed for Disney vacation during snow stor A real conservative, unlike Christie, would be for small government and mostly local control and fiscal responsibility for issues. Instead Christie likes to dictate from the top without backing up policy with money. The cap on district school administrator salaries is a good example. I applaud the idea of keeping salaries down but when the state provides zero dollars, that is for the local voters and governments to decide. You can't call a state that mandates massive amounts on local budgets for everything from transportation to libraries a fiscally conservative one. But Christie has done nothing about it. He only seems to take on issues where he has unilateral authority, and anyone in his position could do that. It doesn't take charisma or leadership or intelligence to dictate what others should do then leave all the actual work to them. He's a fraud so far. I would support a real fiscal conservative but he's not it.
Guest	Posted: Thu, Dec 30 2010, 9:07 am EST    Post subject: Re: NJ Republican governor Christie slammed for Disney vacation during snow stor I real fiscal conservative in the Governor's office would be working to drive down the huge burden of state-mandated costs on local townships, schools and counties, not just telling them to while not changing a thing. A true conservative would be leaving most governing at the local level instead of dictating from on high. So far Christie seems like a fraud coming from the perspective of a true conservative. He loves to yell and pose but the only thing he does is say no or unilaterally tell others to do all the work. Any dope could do that, especially when its politically popular. Let's see him really lead by working with the Legislature to tackle the hard issues of state spending. Then maybe I'll be impressed. So far he's a major disappointment.
Guest	Posted: Thu, Dec 30 2010, 9:00 am EST    Post subject: Re: NJ Republican governor Christie slammed for Disney vacation during snow stor Your response clears everything up. It appears you are tenured with at least 10 years into the union. Guest wrote: Guest wrote: Guest wrote: Typically, when a state of emergency is declared governors or big city mayors drop everything and return home. My gripe isn't about this trip, a vacation with your family over the Christmas holiday is hard to begrudge someone, but where was he in August and September. He campaign for every two-bit republican candidate across this country. Last I checked the budget still isn't balanced and the pension fund underpayment has gone from an unbelieveable 44 billion to a scary 56 billion under his watch. He needs to stay in the state and get something done. How many years have you been in the teachers union now? So any poster who criticizes Christie must be a teacher? I voted for the guy, am not and have never been a teacher and don't have any relatives or close friends who are and I think he sucks as a Governor.
Guest	Posted: Thu, Dec 30 2010, 12:23 am EST    Post subject: Re: NJ Republican governor Christie slammed for Disney vacation during snow stor Guest wrote: Guest wrote: So any poster who criticizes Christie must be a teacher? I voted for the guy, am not and have never been a teacher and don't have any relatives or close friends who are and I think he sucks as a Governor. I agree the teacher assumption was a bit of a stretch (not my post), but I don't understand how you voted for him and now think he sucks. He's pretty much doing exactly what he said he would do. Not really. It seems more like he’s auditioning for a Presidential run with stunts rather than real policy. He waits until school districts would have already completed budgets to make the State-mandated deadlines for voting before announcing his cuts and the stunt about encouraging voters to reject them unless the teachers agree to contractual roll backs. If his goal was real policy why not give the districts time to really do something about it and why not work on reducing the state-mandates that burden the schools? Instead he makes a showy statement without having to do any of the real work of reducing actual costs, despite the fact that state-mandates are a huge and disproportionate part of local budgets. In the case of Cranbury they make up over 35% of our budget yet the state contributes 0%. That’s not real fiscal conservative policy, just show. His response to the train tunnel expansion is another example. The economics associated with improving transit to/from New York hugely outweigh the costs of the project, even more so with the billions we were getting from the Feds and NY state via the Port Authority. Even still, the idea of reigning in costs on the project or finding another way to simplify the project is great. But the showy cancellation was not. The idea that the state doesn’t have money while it’s still spending billions is silly. Yet again Christie settled for a statement rather than policy. He left it to Bloomberg to actually suggest doing something about it, Bloomberg who actually does stuff instead of just making sound bites. This is my disappointment with Christie. Name one actual example of real, meaningful policy Christie has crafted, negotiated and overcome obstacles to make happen? I want less talk, less grand standing and more actual effort. A real roll-up-your-sleeves State budget reduction, not gimmicks that put all the burden on townships, counties and school districts. Almost everything he has “accomplished” is to tell other’s how to clean up their houses without doing anything about his own.
Guest	Posted: Thu, Dec 30 2010, 12:09 am EST    Post subject: Re: NJ Republican governor Christie slammed for Disney vacation during snow stor Guest wrote: Guest wrote: So any poster who criticizes Christie must be a teacher? I voted for the guy, am not and have never been a teacher and don't have any relatives or close friends who are and I think he sucks as a Governor. I agree the teacher assumption was a bit of a stretch (not my post), but I don't understand how you voted for him and now think he sucks. He's pretty much doing exactly what he said he would do. With all do respect, he hasn't done much at all. Economically the state is the same disaster area that it was a year ago. He hasn't stopped the bleeding yet. Maybe worse he hasn't told us how he plans on paying off the pension system. If he balances the budget and is able to take care of the pension fiasco, I will be his biggest fan. But as of yet he has done nothing.
Guest	Posted: Wed, Dec 29 2010, 11:58 pm EST    Post subject: Re: NJ Republican governor Christie slammed for Disney vacation during snow stor Guest wrote: Guest wrote: Typically, when a state of emergency is declared governors or big city mayors drop everything and return home. My gripe isn't about this trip, a vacation with your family over the Christmas holiday is hard to begrudge someone, but where was he in August and September. He campaign for every two-bit republican candidate across this country. Last I checked the budget still isn't balanced and the pension fund underpayment has gone from an unbelieveable 44 billion to a scary 56 billion under his watch. He needs to stay in the state and get something done. How many years have you been in the teachers union now? I am not a teacher. I am not a union member. I am not complaining about how Christie deals with teacher;;s or anyone else. I am complaining that the budget isn't balanced and the pension obligations are mushrooming. We can fire all of the teacher's and the state will still go bankrupt if we don't balance the budget and address the pension shortfall. If you don't admit this, you know nothing about the dire straits facing this state.
Guest	Posted: Wed, Dec 29 2010, 11:18 pm EST    Post subject: Re: NJ Republican governor Christie slammed for Disney vacation during snow stor Guest wrote: So any poster who criticizes Christie must be a teacher? I voted for the guy, am not and have never been a teacher and don't have any relatives or close friends who are and I think he sucks as a Governor. I agree the teacher assumption was a bit of a stretch (not my post), but I don't understand how you voted for him and now think he sucks. He's pretty much doing exactly what he said he would do.
Guest	Posted: Wed, Dec 29 2010, 10:49 pm EST    Post subject: Re: NJ Republican governor Christie slammed for Disney vacation during snow stor Guest wrote: Guest wrote: Typically, when a state of emergency is declared governors or big city mayors drop everything and return home. My gripe isn't about this trip, a vacation with your family over the Christmas holiday is hard to begrudge someone, but where was he in August and September. He campaign for every two-bit republican candidate across this country. Last I checked the budget still isn't balanced and the pension fund underpayment has gone from an unbelieveable 44 billion to a scary 56 billion under his watch. He needs to stay in the state and get something done. How many years have you been in the teachers union now? So any poster who criticizes Christie must be a teacher? I voted for the guy, am not and have never been a teacher and don't have any relatives or close friends who are and I think he sucks as a Governor.