Last November, voters in New Jersey and Virginia tried to send a message to President Obama by electing Republican governors in the only gubernatorial elections held in 2009. But while conservatives were excited about Virginia's Bob McDonnell, they were less enthusiastic about New Jersey's Chris Christie.
Christie had been largely viewed as the more moderate candidate in the primary, in which he defeated conservative Bogota Mayor Steve Lonegan. What is more, while the Republican base was delighted to witness the defeat of Democratic Gov. Jon Corzine, conservatives were skeptical that Christie could make much of a difference in New Jersey.
Just a few short months later, however, Chris Christie has become an emerging conservative hero, mostly by standing up for fiscal sanity in the Garden State. Almost immediately upon taking office, he passed pension and benefits reform. That meant public workers must contribute toward their own health care and it also created a formula for determining the pensions for newly hired employees. He also signed an executive order on transparency, forcing government agencies to post expenditures online with a search engine attached.
It's starting to earn him national attention. Writing in the Wall Street Journal, William McGurn noted, "If he is to survive the headlines about budget cuts and pull New Jersey back to prosperity, Mr. Christie knows he needs to put the hard choices before the state's citizens, and to speak to them as adults. He's doing just that."
And at a "Newsmaker Breakfast" sponsored by The American Spectator and Americans for Tax Reform last week, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich said, "Christie is actually trying to fundamentally change New Jersey..." In a world where politicians are rewarded for taking the easy road, the portly and rumpled governor of New Jersey has become a rare commodity – an elected official willing to make hard decisions, despite the fact that he knows it will cost him politically.
Christie has been in office only a few months, but his hard-line on cutting New Jersey's unwieldy $10.7 billion budget deficit has already taken its toll on his polling numbers. In just a few months, his approval ratings have plummeted. Local officials and Democrats are angry that he wants to cut spending, and that he won't let them raise taxes. At the same time, Christie may be doing exactly what is needed to save his state from further economic calamity. Perhaps this is what we should have expected from a man with the moxie to tell Governor Corzine, "man up and say I'm fat."
Despite the criticism, Christie has stayed the course, which for him means addressing New Jersey's devastated state finances by dramatically cutting spending. Grover Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, recalls that the last New Jersey Republican governor, Christine Todd Whitman, "started to fight with the unions and there was screaming and blood on the floor, and she kind of backed down." In terms of how Christie is doing, Norquist quips, "Christie 2.0 is doing better than Christie 1.0."
But it's not easy. Chris Christie's bold action on the budget reflects the sad realities facing the state. For his troubles, Christie has been accused of championing a "slash-and-burn budget." Cutting spending is a popular idea right up until the time a governor actually trims a specific program. At that point, whoever's ox has been gored tugs on the heartstrings of the public and the media by portraying the spending cutter as mean-spirited. Just to give you an idea of how it works, an ad funded by the New Jersey Education Association that is running in the state says Christie is "attacking teachers, school bus drivers and lunch ladies,"
It's political smears like that one that petrify politicians into kicking fiscal problems down the road – and induce governors and legislatures (and presidents and congresses) to ignore painful, but necessary fixes to their own economies. the upshot is that spending almost never gets cut, and taxes continue to rise to cover it. High taxes exacerbate the effects of a sour economy, and a vicious cycle ensues.
For this reason, Chris Christie's political courage is impressive. "How it happens is, you raise spending out of control," Christie explained on Morning Joe. "Over the last twenty years, spending has averaged 16 percent increase a year on the state level ... and you raise taxes 115 times in the last eight years, so you kill your revenue base. You do the two of them, it's a double-whammy..."
But whether Christie can turn New Jersey around or not, his willingness to make bold decisions – and stand firm on them -- may just help Republicans who are running in 2010 overcome the public's skepticism as to whether, once in office, they really will cut spending and not raise taxes. It very well may be that Christie's efforts in New Jersey will send a signal to Republican voters that help is on the way, and that it's not just politics as usual.
Sunday, April 18, 2010
Rep[ublican History
What do Republicans have against history? You'd think conservatives would know a lot about the old times that they presumably want to conserve? First the TX textbook crowd decides Thomas Aquinas is more relevant to US history than Thomas Jefferson. (Somebody tell Michele Bachmann to quit wearing shirts quoting Jefferson) Then the governor of VA forgets that a little ole thing called slavery might have had just teensy weensy bit of relevance in the Civil War. & now Newt can't recall that his shutting down the government backfired. If memory serves correctly, Newt & Clinton flew home from a funeral & Newt didn't get to sit up in the front of the plane with Clinton -- that & not any more lofty reason was the proximate cause of the shutdown
Saturday, April 17, 2010
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Baxter's Fav SCOTUS Prospects
Pamela Karlan – Stanford Professor, Yale Law, reliable liberal. Is America ready for it’s first openly lesbian justice? I hope so.
Jennifer Granholm – Governor of Michigan, Harvard Law, great combination of education and practical experience. Downside? She’s not Protestant, which will leave the court without a member of the nation’s largest religious group.
Elena Kagan – Solicitor General, Harvard Law, should be the most confirmable of the three. Center/Left – defers to government on security issues. Downside? Also not a Protesttant – not that it should matter.
These are not predictions – though Kagan appears to be the conventional wisdom favorite. These are my personal favs. They are united by one quality – they are all young – 50 and under. The last 3 GOP picks were relatively young men that will be around awhile. Obama’s first selection was a 55-year-old smoker. He needs to think in terms of longevity…
Tuesday, April 13, 2010
It is theirs
Much as Conservatives oppose "Obamanation", he and the Democrats got their way.
The economy is theirs, we can argue forever regarding the cause but the proposed solution has been purely Democratic.
Their stimulus.
Their Health care.
Their management of TARP, GM and Unions.
Their management of the expiration of the "Bush" tax cuts.
Conservatives have steadfastly opposed their solution and essentially contributed no votes.
So now it is their unemployment, their health care costs, their taxes, their...everything.
Soon, in November, we are going to have a referendum and voters will see success and support what has been done (or be willing to wait for success) or...
They are going to exact retribution.
We shall see.
The economy is theirs, we can argue forever regarding the cause but the proposed solution has been purely Democratic.
Their stimulus.
Their Health care.
Their management of TARP, GM and Unions.
Their management of the expiration of the "Bush" tax cuts.
Conservatives have steadfastly opposed their solution and essentially contributed no votes.
So now it is their unemployment, their health care costs, their taxes, their...everything.
Soon, in November, we are going to have a referendum and voters will see success and support what has been done (or be willing to wait for success) or...
They are going to exact retribution.
We shall see.
Flawless
If you think that Snooki getting socked in the kisser during an episode of "Jersey Shore" epitomizes life in the Garden State, you haven't been paying attention. The best reality show on television today isn't running on MTV. It's in Trenton, where Gov. Chris Christie is offering the voters a dose of Reagan Republicanism—with a Jersey twist.
When he was elected back in November, Mr. Christie's victory was thought to augur growing disenchantment with Barack Obama. For the former federal prosecutor, however, his victory was primarily about local disenchantment with New Jersey's overtaxed economy and spendthrift government. Now he is in the thick of what will probably be the defining moment of his governorship: the attempt to enshrine his vision for the future in the state budget.
Budgets are serious business, but it's been a long time since anyone in New Jersey has been serious about the budget. This year, gross mismanagement and accumulated fictions have left state taxpayers a $10.7 billion gap on a total state budget of $29.3 billion. Mr. Christie's answer is simple: "a smaller government that lives within its means."
However quaint that may sound, when you have to cut nearly $11 billion in state spending to get there, you are going to get a lot of yelling and screaming. Most comes from the New Jersey Education Association, hollering that "the children" will be hurt by Mr. Christie's proposals for teachers to accept a one-year wage freeze and begin contributing something toward their health plans. What makes the battle interesting is the way Mr. Christie is throwing the old chestnuts back at his critics.
Here are a few examples, culled from his budget address, public meetings and radio appearances:
The children will be the ones to suffer from your education cuts. "The real question is, who's for the kids, and who's for their raises? This isn't about the kids. Let's dispense with that portion of the argument. Don't let them tell you that ever again while they are reaching into your pockets."
Your policies favor the rich. "We have the worst unemployment in the region and the highest taxes in America, and that's no coincidence."
Why not renew the 'millionaire's tax'? "The top 1% of taxpayers in New Jersey pay 40% of the income tax. In addition, we've got a situation where that tax applies to small businesses. I'm simply not going to put my foot on the back of the neck of small business while I want them to try to grow jobs by giving more revenue to New Jersey."
Budget cuts are unfair. "The special interests have already begun to scream their favorite word—which, coincidentally, is my 9-year-old son's favorite word when we are making him do something he knows is right but does not want to do—'unfair.' . . . One state retiree, 49 years old, paid, over the course of his entire career, a total of $124,000 towards his retirement pension and health benefits. What will we pay him? $3.3 million in pension payments over his life, and nearly $500,000 for health care benefits—a total of $3.8 million on a $120,000 investment. Is that fair?"
State budget cuts only shift the pain to our towns. "[L]et's remember this, in 2009 the private sector in New Jersey lost 121,000 jobs. In 2009, municipalities and school boards added 11,300 jobs. Now that's just outrageous. And they're going to have to start to lay some people off, not continue to hire at the pace they hired in 2009 in the middle of a recession."
Isn't your talk of 'stopping the tax madness' just another 'Read My Lips' promise? "[Mine is] much better than 'Read my lips.' I'm sorry, it's just much better. Much stronger. . . . It's gonna be how my governorship will rise or fall. I'm not signing a tax increase."
In some ways, Mr. Christie can speak bluntly precisely because the state is such a mess. Indeed, that's one reason he won election in a blue state. The challenge remains daunting: No governor has yet succeeded in turning around a state as overtaxed and overspent as New Jersey. Indiana under Gov. Mitch Daniels probably comes closest, but Indiana was not nearly as bad as New Jersey.
If he is to survive the headlines about budget cuts and pull New Jersey back to prosperity, Mr. Christie knows he needs to put the hard choices before the state's citizens, and to speak to them as adults. He's doing just that. One reporter for the Newark Star-Ledger summed up Mr. Christie's rhetoric this way: "[F]inally we have a governor who is as teed off as the rest of us at how government spending and taxes have skyrocketed over the past decade."
It's far too early to declare Mr. Christie's Jersey-style Reaganism a success. But it's the one reality show truly worth watching.
When he was elected back in November, Mr. Christie's victory was thought to augur growing disenchantment with Barack Obama. For the former federal prosecutor, however, his victory was primarily about local disenchantment with New Jersey's overtaxed economy and spendthrift government. Now he is in the thick of what will probably be the defining moment of his governorship: the attempt to enshrine his vision for the future in the state budget.
Budgets are serious business, but it's been a long time since anyone in New Jersey has been serious about the budget. This year, gross mismanagement and accumulated fictions have left state taxpayers a $10.7 billion gap on a total state budget of $29.3 billion. Mr. Christie's answer is simple: "a smaller government that lives within its means."
However quaint that may sound, when you have to cut nearly $11 billion in state spending to get there, you are going to get a lot of yelling and screaming. Most comes from the New Jersey Education Association, hollering that "the children" will be hurt by Mr. Christie's proposals for teachers to accept a one-year wage freeze and begin contributing something toward their health plans. What makes the battle interesting is the way Mr. Christie is throwing the old chestnuts back at his critics.
Here are a few examples, culled from his budget address, public meetings and radio appearances:
The children will be the ones to suffer from your education cuts. "The real question is, who's for the kids, and who's for their raises? This isn't about the kids. Let's dispense with that portion of the argument. Don't let them tell you that ever again while they are reaching into your pockets."
Your policies favor the rich. "We have the worst unemployment in the region and the highest taxes in America, and that's no coincidence."
Why not renew the 'millionaire's tax'? "The top 1% of taxpayers in New Jersey pay 40% of the income tax. In addition, we've got a situation where that tax applies to small businesses. I'm simply not going to put my foot on the back of the neck of small business while I want them to try to grow jobs by giving more revenue to New Jersey."
Budget cuts are unfair. "The special interests have already begun to scream their favorite word—which, coincidentally, is my 9-year-old son's favorite word when we are making him do something he knows is right but does not want to do—'unfair.' . . . One state retiree, 49 years old, paid, over the course of his entire career, a total of $124,000 towards his retirement pension and health benefits. What will we pay him? $3.3 million in pension payments over his life, and nearly $500,000 for health care benefits—a total of $3.8 million on a $120,000 investment. Is that fair?"
State budget cuts only shift the pain to our towns. "[L]et's remember this, in 2009 the private sector in New Jersey lost 121,000 jobs. In 2009, municipalities and school boards added 11,300 jobs. Now that's just outrageous. And they're going to have to start to lay some people off, not continue to hire at the pace they hired in 2009 in the middle of a recession."
Isn't your talk of 'stopping the tax madness' just another 'Read My Lips' promise? "[Mine is] much better than 'Read my lips.' I'm sorry, it's just much better. Much stronger. . . . It's gonna be how my governorship will rise or fall. I'm not signing a tax increase."
In some ways, Mr. Christie can speak bluntly precisely because the state is such a mess. Indeed, that's one reason he won election in a blue state. The challenge remains daunting: No governor has yet succeeded in turning around a state as overtaxed and overspent as New Jersey. Indiana under Gov. Mitch Daniels probably comes closest, but Indiana was not nearly as bad as New Jersey.
If he is to survive the headlines about budget cuts and pull New Jersey back to prosperity, Mr. Christie knows he needs to put the hard choices before the state's citizens, and to speak to them as adults. He's doing just that. One reporter for the Newark Star-Ledger summed up Mr. Christie's rhetoric this way: "[F]inally we have a governor who is as teed off as the rest of us at how government spending and taxes have skyrocketed over the past decade."
It's far too early to declare Mr. Christie's Jersey-style Reaganism a success. But it's the one reality show truly worth watching.
Friday, April 9, 2010
What a shocker! :),
Democratic Rep. Bart Stupak, targeted for defeat by Tea Party activists for his crucial role in securing House approval of the health-care overhaul, said Friday he would retire from Congress this year.
Tuesday, April 6, 2010
The Drumbeat Begins
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE6355N520100406
Obviously, my drumbeat began some time ago, but we are hearing more and more about the necessity of additional revenues.
Social Security was supposed to fall into deficit around 2015-2016 according to projections as late as 2008. The deficit will arrive this year. Our fiscal circumstances are much bleaker than most folks realize.
This is the new Era of Responsibility and our leaders will be facing many big issues, like it or not. We'll see if the GOP acts responsibly or decides that political expediency trumps all. With the views of the Republican base and the Tea Party movement, it will take courage that I do not see on the right side of the aisle.
Monday, April 5, 2010
RESPONSE
I'm having a hard time following, Jim; I think a demagogue is a person. And 'appauding' must be a typo. Other than that I assume you are taking up the Ayn Rand torch in her absence.
About a hundred years ago, we had a widespread national problem when some successful business owners cut costs by treating their employees like chinese peasants. So we established a few guidelines.
Then about 80 years ago, the financial markets collapsed after a run up in prices was fueled by excessive leveraging of paper investments and boisterous animal spirits. ('Animal spirits' being the economist's euphemistic shorthand explanation for why otherwise intelligent people invest irrationally as a herd.) As a consequence, several well designed laws were put into place to prevent financial institutions from engaging in wild short term speculation with other people's savings.
Beginning about 30 years ago, believing that we had entered a new more rational era, we repealed those laws. Not altogether surprisingly, their repeal has had a disastrous outcome.
What we should probably do is go back to separating depository institutions from proprietary trading activities. Also, we need to register financial transactions so that market participants are well informed. This simple strategy would provide immediate relief to investment markets. Lenders, borrowers, and speculators would all feel that they were once again on solid ground -- able to assess risk in a stable business environment.
It seems to me that the recent financial collapse has caused a widespread fear of further financial ruin. This seems to be surfacing as a lot of talk about socialism, anarchy, totalitarianism, and the like.
I don't see the relevance. The top tax rate, the year I was born (1959) was 91%. It's much lower now.
I do see the deleterious effect of irresponsibly biased mass media. I do see the pernicious loss of my personal rights. And as a businessperson I am all too aware of the explosion in regulations of all types.
So, I support political fixes to these problems and apply the maxim that 'Less is More.'
However, I'm far more concerned about tracking my cholesterol or my blood pressure than I am about terrorists. And I really don't see the commies making a big comeback anytime soon.
Luckily for us, advances in technology are and will continue to improve productivity in the workplace. The internet is only beginning to reap benefits -- with much more to follow.
One possibility is that life has never been better, and that it will continue to improve.
About a hundred years ago, we had a widespread national problem when some successful business owners cut costs by treating their employees like chinese peasants. So we established a few guidelines.
Then about 80 years ago, the financial markets collapsed after a run up in prices was fueled by excessive leveraging of paper investments and boisterous animal spirits. ('Animal spirits' being the economist's euphemistic shorthand explanation for why otherwise intelligent people invest irrationally as a herd.) As a consequence, several well designed laws were put into place to prevent financial institutions from engaging in wild short term speculation with other people's savings.
Beginning about 30 years ago, believing that we had entered a new more rational era, we repealed those laws. Not altogether surprisingly, their repeal has had a disastrous outcome.
What we should probably do is go back to separating depository institutions from proprietary trading activities. Also, we need to register financial transactions so that market participants are well informed. This simple strategy would provide immediate relief to investment markets. Lenders, borrowers, and speculators would all feel that they were once again on solid ground -- able to assess risk in a stable business environment.
It seems to me that the recent financial collapse has caused a widespread fear of further financial ruin. This seems to be surfacing as a lot of talk about socialism, anarchy, totalitarianism, and the like.
I don't see the relevance. The top tax rate, the year I was born (1959) was 91%. It's much lower now.
I do see the deleterious effect of irresponsibly biased mass media. I do see the pernicious loss of my personal rights. And as a businessperson I am all too aware of the explosion in regulations of all types.
So, I support political fixes to these problems and apply the maxim that 'Less is More.'
However, I'm far more concerned about tracking my cholesterol or my blood pressure than I am about terrorists. And I really don't see the commies making a big comeback anytime soon.
Luckily for us, advances in technology are and will continue to improve productivity in the workplace. The internet is only beginning to reap benefits -- with much more to follow.
One possibility is that life has never been better, and that it will continue to improve.
Sunday, April 4, 2010
So - if you aren't ready to eliminate those programs that Americans strongly support, you have to be HONEST and acknowledge the need to massively raise revenues. We have a structural deficit.
Can you say Condescending?
When we repeatedly state how to manage the budget and then you state we don't and make comments like this...well then aren't we feeling pretty.
How to balance the budget, which by the way, college grads most of us, "understand". By structural, you mean...we promised too much.
First stop digging a hole.
Stop funding the rest of the stimulus which has been a big, huge waste of money.
Don't implement health care "reform" which is going to really bust the bank.
Implement tax cuts to stimulate the economy, lower the unemployment rate, and raise revenue by growing the economy.
Raise the retirement age.
Reduce Colas
Institute market based health care reform to reduce costs by increasing patient participation in their care, including Medicare.
Now...that may or may not "balance" the budget (probably would) but it would not, as is happening now, take the deficit into hyper drive, due to the L/P/S drive to take over the American economy.
Your side is a joke. Like we did not see this coming from a mile away.
First it was, if we could just return to the Clinton era tax rates. Now, we need an excise tax on the wealthy to pay for health care. And best of all, now we need big tax increases to pay for the "supply side deficits" which until 2007 were a small part of GDP (and would have been absent if the L/P/S had let there be cuts in the proposed increases of programs-let me guess, you have conveniently forgotten your party's demagogue), without ever considering, "hey lets first quit digging a bigger hole".
Socialism, government control of industry, taking the productivity of the people to pay for governments control. Why are you "scared" of the word? It is what the "o" is doing. Its true.
You also seem to be throwing in the towel on controlling the growth of government and its spending (or in your case appauding), which is in contrast to the purpose of the Tea Party Movement.
Through out history, idiots have deemed an "overreaction" to objections about loss of freedoms. But history has given us lots of Hitler's and other tyrants of the same ilk.
Our government is controlling a larger share of the economy, spending money of future generations, creating a ever growing workforce to support itself, attacking industry after industry and you are not worried? Fool.
Can you say Condescending?
When we repeatedly state how to manage the budget and then you state we don't and make comments like this...well then aren't we feeling pretty.
How to balance the budget, which by the way, college grads most of us, "understand". By structural, you mean...we promised too much.
First stop digging a hole.
Stop funding the rest of the stimulus which has been a big, huge waste of money.
Don't implement health care "reform" which is going to really bust the bank.
Implement tax cuts to stimulate the economy, lower the unemployment rate, and raise revenue by growing the economy.
Raise the retirement age.
Reduce Colas
Institute market based health care reform to reduce costs by increasing patient participation in their care, including Medicare.
Now...that may or may not "balance" the budget (probably would) but it would not, as is happening now, take the deficit into hyper drive, due to the L/P/S drive to take over the American economy.
Your side is a joke. Like we did not see this coming from a mile away.
First it was, if we could just return to the Clinton era tax rates. Now, we need an excise tax on the wealthy to pay for health care. And best of all, now we need big tax increases to pay for the "supply side deficits" which until 2007 were a small part of GDP (and would have been absent if the L/P/S had let there be cuts in the proposed increases of programs-let me guess, you have conveniently forgotten your party's demagogue), without ever considering, "hey lets first quit digging a bigger hole".
Socialism, government control of industry, taking the productivity of the people to pay for governments control. Why are you "scared" of the word? It is what the "o" is doing. Its true.
You also seem to be throwing in the towel on controlling the growth of government and its spending (or in your case appauding), which is in contrast to the purpose of the Tea Party Movement.
Through out history, idiots have deemed an "overreaction" to objections about loss of freedoms. But history has given us lots of Hitler's and other tyrants of the same ilk.
Our government is controlling a larger share of the economy, spending money of future generations, creating a ever growing workforce to support itself, attacking industry after industry and you are not worried? Fool.
Friday, April 2, 2010
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