Chris 'The Boss' Christie

The next time some of the more cowardly Republicans in Washington forget what they were elected to do, let them look to New Jersey and listen to the boss.

And ain’t that the truth, huh? I’m so sick of hearing about how the people in Washington, DC are deficit spending (i.e. spending our future tax dollars that haven’t even been collected yet). I’m so sick of hearing about how all of these government support programs are going to go broke before I’ll ever have a chance to access them as an older person or a person in need. Enough is enough. There are millions of people across this country, like me, who voted for change in the last Presidential election. What did we get? We traded a big spending Republican President for an even bigger spending Democratic President. It’s crap.

Real change has to start somewhere and it is starting right here in New Jersey. Governor Christie is doing to this state’s budget what we hope the 112th Congress does to our national budget – make the income match the expenses or (even better) make the income exceed the expenses. It’s not that hard, folks. It’s Budgeting 101. If I can make these types of budget decisions on a daily basis in my household, then why can’t the people in Washington, DC or the people who used to run Trenton make these decisions, too?

It’s a very simple procedure: if you have ten dollars and you want to buy something that costs fifteen dollars, you can’t afford to buy it so you look for an alternative or you wait until you have enough money to buy the item. Our Governor, Chris “The Boss” Christie, knows this and I’m glad that he’s bringing this fiscal responsibility to Trenton. Lord knows that this state needs it!

They’re a pretty good option for those parents living in an area where they do not trust the local district and cannot afford private school for their kids.

What has always amazed me about charter schools in New Jersey, though, is how they are placed so far behind the starting line and yet still achieve the success that they achieve. Alexis King, the founder and lead person of Hope Academy Charter School in Asbury Park, puts it best in a recent op-ed:

The original New Jersey law called for charter public schools to receive 90 percent of funding for each child in a traditional district school. This has not happened across the board. Statewide in New Jersey’s 62 charter public schools, children are funded on average at 78 percent and in some schools as low as 65 percent of district school funding.

But for Hope Academy, where we teach children in kindergarten through eighth grade, the state has reduced funding in the proposed state budget from about $14,000 per child this year to less than $12,000, even though it provides nearly $26,000 per child in Asbury Park’s district schools. So for us the ratio is now less than 50 percent and barely half of what the original charter school law says our children should have.

There are a few different things going on here. First, I’d prefer to leave the conversation about whether or not more money should be spent on urban students than suburban students. To a large degree, I think the answer is clearly “no,” but such a simplistic response doesn’t take into account all of the complexities of the current school funding formula.

Second, and more importantly and germane to this conversation, is the fact that a quality school like Hope Academy is getting their funding cut to such a dramatic degree. Unreal. It’s hard to imagine that this is allowed to take place in a state that is so liberal that it’s supreme court has suggested that each student has a right to an equal education (where is that in the Constitution again?). For such a progressive state, this is shocking.

This conversation, though, will likely be overshadowed by the fact that the entire school funding formula has been the focus of debate. Personally, I think the entire school funding formula needs radical change from the bottom up.

The poll of registered voters found that 90 percent agree that the state budget is in a serious fiscal crisis. Sixty-nine percent said state government has not managed its finances well over the past three years.

And 58 percent don’t think the state government is in a good position to deal with the current financial crisis.

However, only 22 percent have read or heard a lot about Corzine’s state budget plan, the poll says.

I would link the Daily Record article, but they pull their articles offline after a few days and you wouldn’t be able to get there (just go to their site and look for it today – should be one of the top stories). The article shows the inherent bias in New Jersey’s major media outlets in favor of Governor Corzine with lines such as, “Corzine has ‘not been doing a good job communicating the soundness of this budget or the necessity of the cuts that he’s making,’ Murray said.” Really? A reporter actually took this obviously biased quote from the Director of the Polling Institute and used it verbatim in the article? So anyone reading this article quickly may only recall later on that Corzine has a sound budget and that cuts are a necessity. Moronic work on behalf of Gannett.

Those of us who live in New Jersey can feel the change coming. Governor Money Bags ran on a platform of understanding that the common man in New Jersey is hurting and struggling to make ends meet under the weight of the state’s taxes with property taxes being the biggest burden. So what does he do? He increases the sales tax, does away with the property tax rebate, and adds a large variety of new taxes and fees. Governor Corzine has broken the back of New Jersey’s middle class. If such strong familial and community bonds didn’t exist throughout this state, we’d be losing people left and right to our neighboring states.

Corzine is ripe to be kicked out of office…now let’s see if the Republicans can put up a decent enough candidate in Chris Christie to actually change this state for the good!