State of the State: New Jersey and the Governor's Election

My blogs are usually intended to be as impartial as possible as well as geared towards almost anyone. However, for this post, I am focusing on the current proceedings in my state, New Jersey. Anyone who follows politics or the news in general should be aware of the fact that there are only two states that have races for governor on November 3rd. New Jersey, along with Virginia, have much of the spotlight of the nation on them. In 2006 and 2008, we saw the Democratic Party make major strides in Washington DC. They won back Congress in the first election and the White House in the second one. Many, including, myself who follow politics are using these two elections in New Jersey and Virginia as a yard stick for the midterm elections of 2010. Personally, I feel that if the Democrats retain both statehouses; it is not going to create too much momentum going into 2010. On the flip side, if New Jersey and/or Virginia elect a Republican governor I doubt it will cause an overwhelming change in the direction of the country. It will however give the Republican Party something to work off of against the Democrats' policies.

That is all good and well, but sometimes in politics and campaigns, things start to get foggy. People might start with a clear outlook but the mud starts to get slung around and often many get disconnected with politics and the race at hand. Or they might start to question why they should vote for one candidate or another based on an ad or an interview. In a perfect world, ads would be more like informational ads, but the current state of politics doesn't allow for such...civil behavior. The only way to run a campaign is to spend lots of money on (in my opinion what are mostly pointless ads at times) and essentially campaign against your opponent instead of for yourself. Its not I'm (insert name) and I'm running for (insert position) and this is what I have done and what I could do. Its I'm (insert name) and I'm running for (insert position) and my opponent did this (usually something that should be viewed negatively) and will not do this. And then ask the viewer, "do you really want this man running your (nation, state, county, city, etc). This attitude is not something new, its just a lot worst when media and publicity is everywhere and there is no way to escape it.

That is where I hope to come in and what I hope to get most people who fall into all those "traps" that are set from when a candidate begins running for office until election day. As mentioned, this post is intended for all those in New Jersey and who should be going out to vote on November 3rd. My goal is to lay out what each candidate has done and what they plan to do. I will try to even clear the names and focus on the issues. Often times you might be surprised when you see issues and views that match yours but usually see the person and turn off the channel before you see what is being shown.

Here are the what the candidates bring to the table:

Governor Jon Corzine:
Dealing with the national economic emergency: As the governor said in the State of the State, the economy is priority 1, priority 2 and priority 3. The Corzine administration will continue to work tirelessly to address the immediate hardships caused by the crisis, ensure that all New Jerseyans are treated fairly, and see to it that the state is poised to prosper once the recovery takes hold.

Creating jobs and putting New Jersey on a sound fiscal footing: Recovering from the current crisis is just the beginning. Governor Corzine will keep looking for ways to stimulate job creation even as he continues to stabilize the state’s long-term financial practices.

Providing affordable healthcare for all: Even as the Obama administration makes progress on a national healthcare plan, Governor Corzine is ensuring that all New Jersey resident have access to appropriate and affordable healthcare.

Keeping education a top priority: New Jersey schools – from preschools up to universities – are second to none. The Corzine administration will continue to make sure progressive education programs are funded and our children have the chance they deserve.

Protecting the middle class: Too often in a fiscal crunch decisions get made that place undue burdens on the middle class. Governor Corzine has vowed to defend the middle class and find innovative, progressive ways to generate the revenues needed to fund essential programs and balance the budget.

Be a partner, not an obstacle: Governor Corzine’s partnership with President Obama, his cabinet, Democrats in the US Congress and here in New Jersey is well-known. As the country moves in a new, more progressive, direction that attempts to undo to the damage of the Bush years, it’s critical that New Jersey has a leader who is in sync with that vision and will not let New Jersey get left behind.

Tough times call for experienced, tested leadership. New Jersey needs a governor with the expertise to address the complicated challenges posed by the global economic meltdown.

From the outset, Governor Corzine made it clear that dealing with the economy – easing the pain of working families while building a foundation for future prosperity and growth – is far and away his administration’s top concern for 2009.

Because Governor Corzine took steps to get the state’s fiscal house in order during his first three years in office, New Jersey was better positioned to weather the storms of this global economic tsunami. As the first state in the nation to pass an economic recovery and stimulus plan, New Jersey is ahead of the curve in mitigating the effects of the recession.

Jon Corzine is the first governor in almost six decades to decrease state spending. But he has managed to reduce the size of the budget without instituting a broad-based income tax increase and without hurting the people hit hardest by the recession. He has stayed true to his core values by increasing funds for education and children’s health care; providing property-tax relief to seniors, so that elderly New Jerseyans are able to stay in the homes where they raised their kids; and bolstering programs that serve the most vulnerable among us.

Governor Corzine is creating jobs – particularly in the fields of transportation, school construction, and energy – while simultaneously investing in the state’s future infrastructure needs. He accelerated $2.8 billion in transportation projects, generating an estimated 26,000 jobs directly (and 45,000 jobs indirectly), as well as fostering urban economic development via new initiatives like the Urban Transit Hub Tax Credit and the Neighborhood Revitalization Tax Credit.

Governor Corzine also recognizes the interconnectedness of where we live, where we work, and where our kids go to school. That’s why he has continued to put local issues first. His administration has provided more direct property tax relief in four years than any other in New Jersey’s history – nearly $7 billion paid directly back to homeowners.

He has also consistently lowered the statewide increase in school tax levy during his time in office, and created the Live-Where-You-Work program to provide low-interest mortgages to homebuyers in towns where they are employed.

All of this adds up to a comprehensive plan that aims to keep New Jersey's middle class going strong during this global recession, and beyond.

Governor Corzine came to Trenton in 2006 to put New Jersey’s fiscal house in order; alleviate our citizens’ property tax burden; broaden access to quality, affordable health care; and strengthen our state’s education system.

Though there is still much work to be done, over the last four years, we have accomplished a great deal, even as we’ve had to confront the longest, deepest economic crisis since the Great Depression.

Because of Jon Corzine’s strong leadership, New Jersey is already gaining thousands of new private sector jobs; our median family income leads the nation; and, our public school students rank at the top of the country in reading and math.

Governor Corzine reshaped and resized state government. He eliminated and consolidated departments, sold state cars, tore up gas cards and closed office buildings. He reduced the state workforce by 7,000 employees and achieved additional savings by increasing the retirement age from 55 to 62, capping pensions, and asking state workers to contribute for the first time toward the cost of their health care. This year, he even negotiated a 7.5 percent wage cut for public employees.

Because Jon Corzine made the right choices, he is the only New Jersey governor in over six decades to reduce the size of state government. The budget that he signed into law on June 29th is $1.8 billion smaller than the first budget he signed in 2006.

Even as he made government leaner and more efficient, Governor Corzine launched a first-in-the-nation Economic Assistance and Recovery Plan; instituted a new school funding formula; expedited billions of dollars in new school construction; made meaningful and lasting reforms to ease our state’s property tax burden; enrolled 80,000 more children in the state’s health insurance program; and, took a child welfare system that was once rated among the worst in the country, and made it one of the best.

Governor Corzine expanded property tax relief for seniors, enacted ethics, fiscal and government reforms, created a comprehensive anti-crime plan, and established cutting-edge strategies to protect our environment and generate clean energy.

Especially in times like these, it is essential that our leaders hold firm to our core values and show the courage to do the right thing.

Jon Corzine has been, and will continue to be, guided by the same values that he has championed since his tenure as your U.S. Senator. He believes in the constant pursuit of the common good – in our responsibility to nurture our children, honor our seniors, and protect those among us who are most vulnerable. He fights every day to advance and protect these priorities.


Chris Christie:
•He believes we can and we must lower taxes. Lower taxes will invite back businesses, jobs, employees, residents and students. More people paying taxes means more revenue.
◦Reduce the personal income tax. This year alone, Jon Corzine raised income taxes by $900 million.
◦Reduce corporate business taxes. Jon Corzine raised taxes on businesses by $270 million this year.
◦Restore property tax relief for everyone.
◦Eliminate the “double-taxation’ on New Jersey S-Corporations.
◦Eliminate special interest labor union giveaways that increase taxes. End the use of project labor agreements on public construction projects which ultimately raise costs and taxes.
◦2/3 majority vote to impose new tax or to increase existing tax.

•He believes we can and we must control spending and enforce accountability.
◦Use the line-item veto.
◦Elect independent state auditor.
◦Eliminate 2/3 political patronage jobs.
◦Eliminate pensions and benefits for part-time workers.
◦Immediate freeze on proposed new agency rules and regulations.
◦Sunset provisions for all new programs after 4 years.
◦Transparency – put everything online with searchable databases.

•He believes we can and we must fight for priority programs like education and our urban communities, without fail.
◦CityTrak. Enforce accountability to demand results. Measurable goals will save money, ensure efficiency and encourage innovation. ◦First Houses Program. ◦Exempt new residents from income tax.
◦Retaining New Jersey’s urban minority students by expanding New Jersey Education Opportunity Fund.

•He believes bringing sustainable, quality jobs to New Jersey’s the key to our future.
◦Create the New Jersey Partnership for Action to promote economic growth and job creation. Just look at PA….what we need is an executive who makes this their number one priority.
◦Garden State Growth Zones. Combing existing economic zones to create a super zone to attract new private investment and jobs.
◦Putting New Jersey Back to Work. Focus on worker retraining for unemployed New Jerseyans and connecting with them with businesses looking for a specific skill set.
◦Provide grants for public four year institutions and community colleges for renewable energy related curriculum and training.
◦Renew NJ and the Choose New Jersey Energy Campaign. Consolidate all renewable energy manufacturing efforts and have New Jersey undergo a brand makeover to market and sell New Jersey’s resources to energy producers, innovators and developers.
◦Incentivize energy manufacturing with tax credits. 100% of the corporate business taxes or the insurance premium tax for any wind turbine and manufacturing facility that locates in New Jersey.
◦New Jersey will create higher-paying clean energy production jobs in the next four years. Commit to a 5/1 ratio of higher-paying, clean energy production jobs to lower paying, efficiency jobs. While New Jersey has one of the strongest renewable portfolio standards in the country, according to the US Energy Information Administration, the state actually ranks 43rd when it comes to generating renewable energy.


Chris Daggett:
Make New Jersey Competitive
In a world of increasing competition, New Jersey is simply not competitive. We were not competitive before the national economy crashed, and we are not doing what we need to do to make New Jersey competitive in the new economy that will emerge one, two or three years from now, when this Great Recession finally ends.
We not only have to worry about losing jobs to China and India, but to New York and North Carolina. We must make the investments needed to create high-paying jobs, cut the high cost of living in New Jersey and doing business here, and reform a regulatory climate that makes relocation firms rank New Jersey near the bottom as a place to start or expand a business.
This isn’t just about jobs — it’s about people.
We keep losing middle-income families to Pennsylvania because our property taxes are too high, retirees to Florida and Wyoming because of high income and estate taxes, and young people because they cannot find jobs or afford homes. We need to cut the size and cost of government at all levels, dig our state government out of a deep financial hole created by both political parties, and make our tax structure competitive with other states.
It’s not going to be easy, but as New Jerseyans, we all have a stake in our mutual success.

Rein in Property Taxes and the State Budget
There is no magic here. We have spent and borrowed our way into a deep hole, partly due to the national financial crisis, but in even greater measure due to failed state and local budgetary policies of several administrations and both political parties. Our governor and legislators seem to have forgotten that the state was in terrible financial straits before this national financial meltdown.
Between federal, state and local taxes, New Jerseyans probably bear the most punishing tax burden in the nation, especially when you factor in the high cost of living. As difficult as it is to fill a $5 billion budget gap for the budget that begins this July, it will be that much more difficult the following year for the next governor. What happens when the $2 billion in federal stimulus money is gone? What happens when Governor Corzine’s “temporary” surcharge on the income tax goes on and on? What happens when the “one year only” elimination or reduction of property tax rebates ends? And where will we be when the savings from the givebacks demanded from state workers all disappear?
We need permanent solutions to fix a state government that is perpetually too broke to make the investments needed to make New Jersey competitive. Our state is about $38 billion in debt and we will eventually have to come up with more than $80 billion to fund the long-term health benefit and pension obligations for teachers, local government employees and state workers. Combined, that comes out to about $15,000 in debt for every man, woman and child in New Jersey – rich or poor, employed or unemployed, retired on a fixed income or just beginning preschool.
But the state budget isn’t even the biggest problem. Every year, local officials demand that our state budget put more and more money into funding state aid to schools and towns, property tax rebates, and senior citizen property tax freezes just to hold down the annual rate of increase in local property tax bills.
Property taxes, not state taxes – local spending, not state spending – are the biggest problems. These are self-inflicted wounds, and we need a governor willing to start talking seriously about reducing the real cost drivers of ever-rising salary, health care benefit and pension costs and the price we all pay to fund 566 municipalities and more than 600 school districts in the name of home rule.

Invest in New Jersey’s Future
The problem with being broke is that it prevents the state from making the investments needed to create high-income jobs in New Jersey.
We rank first in the nation in per-pupil spending on K-12 education, but near the bottom in supporting our universities and colleges and in building research centers to retain and attract the cutting-edge companies that create the high-paying jobs that must be the cornerstone of New Jersey’s economy.
We need to make New Jersey first in the new green economy, and we can start by making our state the center of the offshore wind industry that will soon spring up along the Atlantic Seaboard from Maine to North Carolina.
Because we are the most densely populated state in the nation, we must expand our mass transit capacity and fix our crumbling highways and bridges. We need to give our pharmaceutical and biomedical companies what they need not only to survive but to thrive.
We need to market our natural attractions, beginning with the priceless New Jersey Shore, and that means putting money into tourism promotion – not taking it away.

Provide a Healthy Environment
More than ever before, a strong environment and strong economy goes hand in hand. Protecting our state’s environment and slowing the release of chemicals that increase global warming – which we first warned about and started to address through an executive order issued when I was the Commissioner of the state Department of Environmental Protection 20 years ago – is important to every human being who eats and breathes in New Jersey. The state that creates the research capacity to provide innovative solutions to our environmental and energy needs will be the home of the next Silicon Valley. That state should be New Jersey.
We need to control development in the Highlands and the Pinelands to protect our water supply, and we must live up to the promises made to those whose land value has been significantly reduced as a result. The State Plan makes sense and should be finalized and implemented. It also makes sense to re-think the mandates of COAH that have pushed thousands of units of “builder’s remedy” housing into suburbs without achieving the Supreme Court’s original goals, and we must start building affordable housing in our mass transit served cities and towns where jobs are located.

Find Practical Solutions for the Council on Affordable Housing (COAH)
We have a practical and moral obligation to make available affordable housing for our citizens of limited and modest means. Yet neither Republicans nor Democrats have been able to resolve the issue, and through their inaction, they have forced the New Jersey Supreme Court to issue directives to municipalities. Too often, the party in power has pressed its own agenda without properly engaging the other party, the various constituencies and the general public. The result has been court case after court case and little progress in building affordable homes.
We need to convene an affordable housing task force, led by the governor and including legislative representatives, housing advocates, builders and any other appropriate interest groups, over a specified timeframe to work through the various issues to reach an agreement. It will take months of meetings and a great deal of hard work and compromise, but it is the only way to get the job done. When the work is completed, legislation can be written to formalize the agreement.
Without the governor’s active participation, the problem will not be resolved. The issue is too important and its history too fraught with emotion and hard feelings. It will take calm, measured and forceful leadership, not the polarization of the recent past between the political parties. As with the state budget and the economy, the more nonpartisan the governor, the greater the likelihood of success.

Improve the Quality of Education
Education is critical to the future prosperity of New Jersey. For more than 35 years, in response to numerous New Jersey Supreme Court cases, we have spent billions of dollars on improving urban education, with very little to show for it. Despite spending more than $20,000 per student, high school graduation rates remain abysmally low in Newark, Camden and numerous other urban school districts. Even worse, in some cases as many as 90 percent of the graduates need remedial help in basic skills of reading, writing and mathematics before being able to attend or succeed in college.
This is not just a financial and educational issue, it is a moral issue. Whatever works best for each student should be utilized – public, private, religious, charter, vocational or home-based schools. We must set rigorous standards, improve teaching, and cultivate greater parental involvement, and we must coordinate with social service agencies. We cannot accept excuses, we cannot fail, and we cannot just continue to throw more money at the problem.

Implement Regulatory Reform
We have no choice but to address the burdensome and complex regulatory structure of New Jersey, which is related directly to many of the other problems facing our state. Few, if any, people in or out of government understand the many and often byzantine rules of the various departments of state government. Many hours and much money are wasted with consultants and lawyers trying to understand, or arguing over interpretations of, regulations.
We need to convene widely representative task forces in virtually every department of state government, but especially environmental protection, education, transportation, community affairs, and health and senior services, with the goal of addressing overlapping, conflicting, redundant and contradictory regulations. There should be no intent to roll back or dilute existing requirements, but simply to make them easier to understand and follow. It is a project that will take two to four years, and it will not get much attention, nor have any media appeal, but if we don’t address it, we will never improve the efficiency, effectiveness or costs of government.
We face many other important issues – the state’s declining infrastructure ; the lack of affordable health insurance and the soaring costs of health care; the protection of the environment and slowing the release of chemicals that increase global warming – the list is long. But the times of greatest turmoil are often the times of greatest opportunity. We must seize the moment to rethink the services provided by government and to make the necessary changes to improve its effectiveness and efficiency. Most important, we must make government live within the means of its taxpayers.


With all that said, I hope if you were not sure about these three candidates; you have a better idea. You can't take everything mentioned by all three to be guarantees, but at least they are credible information for the most part as opposed to all the ads you have been blasted with. Its most important that you go out and vote. If you favor the way the state is going, then it is smart to reelect Jon Corzine. If you disagree with the way the stae is going, then it would be wise to vote for either Chris Christie or Chris Daggett. Most important, though, at least for the majority of the state are the issues of health care, education, and jobs. Taxes obviously on many voters minds, but a little fact that you might not realize is voting for or against Corzine won't make a big difference. So vote based on the issues that truly differ among candidates. The state and nation have made progress and in my opinion, bringing back Jon Corzine will do the best to continue the progress. BUT ABOVE EVERYTHING ELSE, JUST VOTE!