For me, this is a simple situation and one that really doesn’t require any protesting or arguing or petty “left vs. right” political comparisons. In short, there’s no money. No money = no jobs. Take the private sector over the last three years – people have been losing their jobs left and right. Why? Because their companies couldn’t afford to staff the position. It might suck, but New Jersey can’t afford to pay some of its policemen and firefighters, among other public workers.

And it’s silly to blame Governor Christie when Jon “Money Bags” Corzine, Jim McGreevey, and Christine Todd Whitman (among many other previous political leaders in this state) are the ones who raped our state’s finances. For my friends who aren’t from New Jersey – for decades it hasn’t mattered whether a Republican or a Democrat has been in office because both parties fleeced the state.

Yet, I understand that people need someone to lash out at and Governor Christie is the head of the state so they’re going to lash out at him. In fact, there’s a protest of public workers going on up the street from my office in Trenton today. And while I think contemporary protesting is so fabricated and false that in 2011 it typically gets Americans nowhere, I don’t mind the folks up the street protesting. I do mind that they added 45 minutes on to my commute this morning (because I wanted to spend nearly 2 hours in the car). But at least the folks protesting today are from New Jersey versus the idiots who protested in Trenton last week who were primarily bussed in from Pennsylvania and New York.

At the end of the day, though, there’s no money and cuts have to come from somewhere so jobs are going to be lost. For anyone to be surprised at that simple economic math means that they either had their head buried in the sand as the private sector was rocked over the last 3 years or they just don’t understand that no money = no jobs.

How great is Governor Christie? This guy speaks with the voice of all New Jerseyans who are sick and tired of the wimpy, petty bullshit coming out of the pansy teachers who think that because they hold a position of power in front of minors that they can treat the Governor like he’s a piece of garbage. This arrogant, rude woman that began to mock the Governor seconds after he began answering her overloaded question ought to be ashamed of herself! What did she think? That the Governor was some grade schooler that had to bow down and do as she said? Get real, woman! That’s probably why this arrogant, rude woman decided to become a teacher instead of going out into the private market – that type of rude attitude wouldn’t be tolerated for a split second in the job market!

Hey look – I didn’t like Governor Jon Corzine one bit. I thought he was an arrogant, limousine liberal who was completely out of touch with the everyday man and woman on the street. I thought that Governor Corzine was the epitome of arrogant during his time in office. Yet, when I spoke with him and when I went and listened to him talk, I would have NEVER treated him the way these liberal losers are treating Governor Christie. Who do these jerks think they are? Talk about “do as I say and not as I do,” huh? Good grief…

Governor Christie is the man. Thank God he is our Governor.

FOX News Projects a Christie Win

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) – In an April 19 story about Gov. Chris Christie’s payroll, The Associated Press reported erroneously that he is spending nearly $2 million more on salaries a year than did his predecessor, former Gov. Jon Corzine.

Treasury Department figures show the correct higher amount is about $440,000.

Because the AP had incomplete figures for all those on Corzine’s payroll – some were paid by other departments but still worked for the governor – the AP also erroneously reported that twice as many people in Christie’s office earn $100,000 or more than they did in Corzine’s.

Treasury figures show 34 people making $100,000 or more in Christie’s office, compared with 24 for Corzine in April 2009.

Corzine had a payroll of $8.43 million for 118 people, not $7 million, according to Treasury figures. Christie has 117 employees, including himself, with a payroll of $8.86 million per year. Unlike his multimillionaire predecessor, Christie collects the $175,000 salary allowed under the law.

Based on those payroll figures, the average annual salary for Corzine staff in April 2009 was $71,440; the average under Christie is $75,726.

Contrary to what most folks might believe, the story here isn’t the disparity between the administrations and their salaries. No. The story here is that the Associated Press didn’t do any of their homework in publishing the initial story. And for New Jerseyans, the larger story here is uncovering even more of the half-truths from the Corzine administration. Here’s a guy who had no connection to the average New Jerseyan and was thrown out of office a few months ago. Yet, as time goes by and our state takes the common sense approach to balancing our budget, we are still uncovering the type of “politics” garbage that we all hated about Corzine and his crew.

Come on – how could the Corzine administration legitimately not have included these “mobility” (i.e. de facto) Governor’s office members in their original figures? That’s why Corzine isn’t Governor any more – New Jersey doesn’t want the double talk or the double speak any more.

And can someone at the Associated Press please learn a lesson from this story? How hard would it have been to look at the data behind the information submitted by the Corzine administration versus the information submitted by the Christie administration? Any high school student can master that level of “research” yet the public shouldn’t expect this from the Associated Press? Unacceptable.

Well, once again we have a situation where the Associated Press did almost no fact checking once the information was put in front of their biased little faces. Either that or they blatantly wanted to produce a story that was heavily negative against Governor Christie. Anyway, here’s the response coming out of the Governor’s office to the Associated Press’ unbelievably inaccurate story:

An Associated Press story late today made several false statements and faulty assumptions about the Governor’s Office payroll costs under Governor Chris Christie when comparing it against payroll of the prior administration.

The AP story falsely stated that Governor Christie’s payroll was nearly $2 million more than that of the prior administration. Payroll and staff reports on both the Governor’s Office website and given to the Asbury Park Press as part of an OPRA request show the total salary of all employees to be $8.9 million for 117 employees.

The AP story erroneously reported that the Corzine Administration salary total was only $7 million. In fact, there were a large number of employees not included in the Corzine Administration numbers. Adding those employees – so-called “mobility” personnel on loan to the Governor’s Office from other departments – would bring the total salaries to more than $8.3 million for the Corzine Administration. The difference covers at least a dozen of these “mobility” personnel utilized during the Corzine Administration, with a total salary of more than $1.1 million between them.

In contrast, the Christie Administration included and identified by name all its employees – including approximately 15 people on mobility from other agencies – when it posted the administration salaries two weeks ago on the Governor’s Office website, which was also the identical information provided to the Asbury Park Press at the same time.

“We have gone to great lengths to be open and transparent in all regards, including in the reporting of salary and personnel,” said Press Secretary Michael Drewniak. “In the AP’s haste to get out of the gate first, it did so with a story that was half-reported, full of errors of fact and omission and despite administration warnings that it was wrong. We hope the AP will retract its story.”

The AP story also reported that the Corzine Administration had only 17 people earning salaries of $100,000 or more. In fact, there were at least an additional nine employees earning more than $100,000. Again, the story failed to include “mobility” employees or seek to verify all 2009 salaries in the Corzine Administration.

Also, in comparing the total salary numbers between the administrations, the AP story failed to note that Governor Christie receives a salary of $175,000, as allowed by law. His predecessor declined a salary due to his independent wealth.

The story also doesn’t take into account the new position of Lieutenant Governor, which has no budget. The Governor’s Office provides some staff and resources to support the Lieutenant Governor’s Office, which by statute does not include any staff.

Finally, Governor Corzine was unmarried during his term and, therefore, had no staff for a First Lady. The First Lady, Mary Pat Christie, has two staff members in the Office of Protocol.

Wait, so when you compare apples to apples (which you really can’t do because this Governor is taking a salary, this Governor has a wife, and this Governor has a Lieutenant Governor) it turns out that Corzine still remains the king of reckless spending?! WOW, I’m shocked! (sarcasm)

While I wouldn’t run the numbers myself, I’d assume that if you add up how much MORE it would have cost to run the Corzine administration with all of these additional expenses, his budget would have been in excess of Christie’s $8.9 million total Governor’s Office budget. But why would any of the mainstream media sources want to actually run those numbers anyway? Idiots…

In recent years, we have allowed the problem to become bigger through a series of one-time gimmicks that have worsened our situation. This year, for example, some state employees will be given an 11% salary increase, at a cost of $300 million to the taxpayers, while many New Jerseyans are lucky to even have a job. Incredible.

Are you serious? How can any public employee justify an 11% salary increase when people are losing jobs in the private sector left and right? This is ridiculous. This is the type of public excesses that drove Jon “Money Bags” Corzine out of office and brought in a no-nonsense reformer like Chris Christie. An 11% salary increase in the midst of an economic mess? Talk about certain public employees being out of step with the economy…

$700 million in one-time revenues came in from granting amnesty to tax cheats in another gimmick that was used to paper over problems. As usual, our government spent it all in one year, and built that much more spending into the budget for this coming year, with no way to pay for it now or in the future. So too were federal stimulus funds for education irresponsibly spent all in one year — and then simply added into the budget, with no way to pay for it this year.

Some people are getting mad at Chris Christie for his strong budget address (not this voter, but others out there). Where is the outrage at the previous administrations (both Republican and Democrat) that have had these gigantic influxes of cash and doled the funds out without any long term planning? How many intelligent people get a raise at work or a bonus check and have their first thought immediately be, “How can I spend all of this money right away?!” One billion stimulus dollars spent for educational purposes by Jon Corzine as he tried to buy the election last year. Absolutely disgraceful. I wish he could be sued for his misuse of public (i.e. OUR) funds.

Over the course of two decades, time and again the State has borrowed to pay its every day bills. You wouldn’t do that in your own home, and we shouldn’t do that with your tax dollars. The result is overwhelming. Outstanding direct debt has ballooned from $3.9 billion in 1989 to $33.9 billion last year. And total debt, including all obligations, has tripled from $17 billion to over $51 billion, just since 2002. Our debt is equal to an obligation of $4,100 for each and every man, woman, and child in this state 130% higher than in 2002.

Damn right we wouldn’t do it in our own homes, but if you DID do that in your own home, you might find yourself on your ass with no roof over your head. When you spend money like an idiot, bad things happen. At least Chris Christie has the political fortitude to say that in public and to add that he intends to make the system right. And I don’t know about you folks, but adding $30 billion in direct state debt over a 21 year period is absolutely unacceptable, damn it.

That is bad enough, but as you know, more than half of what the State spends every year is sent to local governments, in the form of aid for municipal government and school districts. And local government has exercised even less control. Spending at the local government level has risen 69% since 2001.

How many times have I railed away on this blog about the need to remove the corruption at the local level? Enough is enough of people pocketing a few thousand here and a few thousand there. Enough is enough with people getting hired who are unqualified or are politically associated or blood related to local politicians. Enough is enough with property taxes increasing to maintain a bloated local school system that doles out an unbelievable amount of cash to unnecessary school administrators (take a look at what goes on in Camden). Enough is enough already, damn it.

Even now, in the depths of a great economic crisis, local governments and school boards can’t hold back on the pressure that comes from the public sector unions. What is the proof? While New Jersey’s private sector lost 121,000 jobs just in 2009, New Jersey’s local governments added 11,300 new municipal and school employees. 11,300 new government employees paid for by your taxes just this last year. 11,300 new employees added while you are struggling to keep your job and pay the bills. We must give the voters the tools to stop the madness and stop it this year.

If reading that last paragraph doesn’t piss you off, then you must not really give a shit about what’s going on in our state. And I made that last line bold to make a point that most citizens don’t understand. The Governor is NOT the one who can destroy the corruption at the local level – the corruption that might exist in your hometown or in a local school board. YOU ARE THE ONES WHO NEED TO BUST THAT CORRUPTION! That’s it! That’s the key! The Governor is going to give you the tools to get it done, but the action has to come from you! In other words, the most the Governor can do to actually make the policy changes that are necessary at the local level is advocate on our behalf and he’s doing that day in and day out. It is up to US, at citizens of our local municipalities, to make sure that our elected officials do what is right. And if you don’t have the guts to stand up and make your local elected officials do what is right, then you deserve whatever you get.

We have worked to ensure that no school district in New Jersey will face a reduction in aid that is greater than 5% of their school budget– so school districts will face a budget cut that is 4% less than the cut in state spending as a whole. During a crisis worsened by the election year foolishness of our predecessors, we keep school aid cuts at less than state spending cuts.

Make no bones about it, folks – Governor Christie is doing the right thing here. If anyone can’t live within a budget that, in this economy, has revenue reduced by 4% – 5%, then they are living too far outside of their means. No one is going after teachers – teachers are awesome and they do a job that is truly a service to the public good. No one denies that at all. However, do you really need all of the excess administrators making six figure salaries at the district level? Of course not. I go on Facebook and I see all of my young friends who are teachers that are bashing Christie because they are probably going to lose their jobs and I have three immediate thoughts:

First, much of the grammar and spelling in these Facebook updates are horrendous (let alone crude) and I don’t want New Jersey’s kids learning from these morons (who I really all love, but if you can’t spell “Governor” or if you attack Christie for being fat, then you shouldn’t be a teacher, period).

Second, most of the stuff I’m reading in their Facebook updates are nothing more than rehashed propaganda and lies from the New Jersey Education Association (NJEA aka the “Teacher’s Union”). This tells me that my younger friends are brainwashed.

Third and finally, these folks are misdirecting their anger. Getting angry at Chris Christie is the dumb man’s argument. Think of a moron saying, “He going to cut funding and, uhhh, he then cut my salary and, ummm, I no job.” Idiots. You want to get mad at someone? You want to get angry at someone? Go get your school district’s budget and find out where money is being wasted. Teachers are certainly NOT wasting money. But how many school districts have three and four Assistant Principals and Vice Principals? How many Board Secretary subordinates are there making $5,000 here or $10,000 there? If you serve on a school board, are you not inherently accepting a job that is a volunteer position? Why do some school board members get stipends?

You want to get mad at someone and you want to direct your anger somewhere? Direct that anger towards the fat cats that might exist in your own districts. Direct that anger toward the few school districts in this state that exist, but have no actual schools in their super small towns (for the rest of the nation reading this entry, yes – we have that in New Jersey).

I LOVE when citizens get fired up over their government, but don’t be ignorant about your anger. Direct your anger to the right place – to the local and county-level excesses that the Governor cannot single-handedly change because he’s not a king (or at least think he is a king like President Obama does).

The leaders of the union who represent these teachers, however, have used their political muscle to set up two classes of citizens in New Jersey: those who enjoy rich public benefits and those who pay for them. That has created a system that cannot be sustained a system fueled by mandatory dues of more than $700 a year taken out of every one of the nearly 200,000 teachers’ paychecks.

Political muscle fueled by intimidation tactics, political bullying and smears of public officials who dare to disagree. This conduct has set up an unfair system. Is it fair to have any public employees getting 4-5% salary increases every year, even when inflation is zero %, paid for by citizens struggling to survive? It is fair to have New Jersey taxpayers foot the bill for 100% of the health insurance costs of teachers and their families from the day they are hired until the day they die? Is it fair that teachers have a better, richer health plan than even state workers and pay absolutely nothing for it?

I believe rank and file teachers know this is not fair and that we can no longer afford to burden our taxpayers with these costs and runaway taxes. The union bosses will tell you, as they always have each time their empire is threatened, that they are protecting our children. This tired song has grown old and inaccurate. Is the way our children learn affected by whether the union gets free family health insurance for life for its members? Does a child learn more if the union gets 5% taxpayer funded raises every year for its members? This is nonsensical and self-serving and we all know it.

You tell ’em, Governor Christie! Enough is enough with this absolute abomination of a system! Get ’em, Christie! This is why we voted you into office!

So I ask those of you in the legislature, and all of the citizens of our state, to join me — in pitching in, in working together — not only to share in the sacrifices we must make today, but in forging the path to a better tomorrow. The journey starts today, and I know it will be worth the effort.

I’m with this Governor. We need these reforms NOW (we actually needed them a decade ago, but we have to make the changes now to get the ball rolling). Battling against the entrenched education interests is the first step. Let’s get this state going in the right direction again so we can afford tomorrow!

Looking at the Mt. Arlington Results

Last year I tended to look at the power of the third party candidates to see whether or not it would be worthwhile for a third party to centralize its efforts in a single town. I thought I’d do the same thing for the 2009 results.

In Mt. Arlington, Chris Christie drew 1,130 votes for Governor while the then-incumbent Jon Corzine drew 512 votes. In total, 154 ballots were cast for third party candidates which includes 136 votes for Chris Daggett. In truth, that’s not that bad for the third parties during an election cycle that was pretty well-publicized and emotionally-charged in New Jersey. It is clear, though, that Mt. Arlington remains a strong Republican district and that whatever crossover support Corzine enjoyed in this particular district prior to the election evaporated.

In total, 1,808 ballots were cast in Mt. Arlington. Of those ballots, 1,732 were cast in person at polling stations and 76 were cast via vote by mail ballots. Again, this isn’t a bad turnout for the vote by mail contingent (myself included) and it shows that the intent of the change in election law to allow more people to use vote by mail ballots is being realized by the people. And though the percentage of the vote that came through vote by mail ballots was only 2.07%, I still think that if a third party could find a way to energize a local base, then it could enjoy some degree of success at the local level and possibly build on that success regionally, then at the state level, and then possibly at higher levels of government.

With the recent showing of Doug Hoffman in the NY-23 congressional district special election, it would appear that there is a real desire on behalf of the people to see something new from their politicians. The people want more choices than simply “R” or “D” and I still think that the building a strong base at the local level is the best way for third parties to pop up and begin providing more choice to the voters.

The Associated Press and CNN are calling Republican challenger Chris Christie the winner of the New Jersey governor’s race, based on exit polling.

The actual results are still pretty close: Christie’s ahead 49% to 44% with 81% of the precincts reporting. But Christie is doing extremely well in Republican strongholds in Ocean, Monmouth, Morris and Somerset counties, while holding his own against Gov. Jon Cozine in key swing counties, including Bergen and Middlesex counties.

Christie would become the first Republican to win statewide office since Christie Whitman, who also defeated an incumbent Democrat, Jim Florio.

And there you have it. Republican voters in New Jersey have had enough of dealing with the cross-talking and ultra-liberal Jon Corzine and he’s lost his job because of it.

FOX News Projects a Christie Win

That said, I do think that it is important to remember that this is New Jersey and, even though 83% of precincts have reported and the vote stands at 49% for Christie and 44% for Corzine, anything can happen. But for now – it’s exciting to know that the voters in New Jersey made the right decision by getting rid of Jon Corzine. The Republican Governors Association has already called this win (along with the big win in Virginia earlier tonight) a turning point for the Republican Party. Their website boasts that comeback begins with Virginia and New Jersey…and so let the drums begin beating for 2010 already, huh?

It looks like the vote by mail ballots have not been counted yet in New Jersey. As a guy who votes by mail, I’m a little concerned about that. Stay tuned for additional information as the night – and the vote counting – continues… And hey, is anyone watching the Mayoral election in New York City right now? With 85% of the vote counted, incumbent Independent Mayor Michael Bloomberg is up with 50% of the vote to his opponent’s Thomson’s 47% of the vote. That’s significant when you consider that Mayor Bloomberg spent upwards of $100 million on this campaign and some estimates have Thompson’s expenses at just $3 million. Definitely something to watch in New York City.

But be wary, folks. Large portions of Camden and Essex counties and many of the New York City suburbs have not reported their election results yet. These are areas that are notorious for voting the Democratic ticket for no reason other than that it is the Democratic ticket. These are also areas where there was talk a few weeks ago about a gigantic increase in vote by mail ballot applications along with some talk about the possibility that ACORN was helping to register voters. Something tells me that if these counties come in strong for Corzine (which everyone expects them to) and in enough numbers to sway the vote that there is going to be an explosion of citizen rage in this state.

We’re tired of corruption in New Jersey and we’re tired of paying for crooked politicians and their lies.

The major X factor in all of this are the Democratic counties in New Jersey, namely Essex, Camden, and Hudson counties. These are counties where a large portion of the population votes for the Democrats just because there is a “D” after their name on the ballot (that’s not even a joke). Unfortunately, many of our fellow citizens in these counties believe that the Democrats will help them with their struggles…even though they haven’t done a damn thing for this state in the last 20 years. But I digress.

Again, with 35% of the vote counted, Christie has a 10 point lead over Corzine.