I ask Senate President Steve Sweeney . . . Who cared in the ten years the Democrats were in control?

Gov. Christie and Senate President Steve Sweeney have traded barbs as Christie assailed the "do nothing legislature." Sweeney tells Christie save the tough talk for somebody who cares.

OK Steve . . . before Chris Chrisite, who really cared? Was it the State Senate or the State Assembly that stood up for the pockets of the taxpayers? Two administrations of pork spending and raising taxes to the levels it is at today. Actually 3, if you throw in Florio. Whether you like Christie or not, agree with his policies or not, he is doing what he promised when he when he ran for election, he said “I will not raise Taxes.” He didn’t wait a few months like his predecessor and announce, “Oops” I made a mistake.

Neither McGreevy nor Corzine attempted to reign in taxes. A Democrat controlled legislature for over 8 years, had 115 separate tax increases, and now they are indignant over Christie who has been in office for a short time. What did the Democrats do about all the private sector jobs lost during that time?

State spending and tax revenues climbed more than twice the rate of inflation from 1980 to 1990. State-government employment had outpaced population growth. The U.S. population grew in the 1980's by 10 percent, as state employment grew by almost 30 percent.

A study by the American Legislative Exchange Council showed that state-government pay grew at a faster pace than private-sector pay. For every dollar increase in compensation received by private-sector workers, state-government workers received $6.30.

Both 1990 and 1991 were record tax increase years for New Jersey, while expenditures surged, and no reduction in spending. In 1991 state spending rose by 10 percent and in 1992 it grew by 12 percent. In 1992 alone spending rose 26.0 percent in New Jersey.

Bottom line is that Florio, McGreevy, and Corzine were governors who tried to fight budget deficits with major tax increases. All it did was hurt the state’s economy and did little to put on cork on the flowing bottle of red ink.

After pledging no new taxes, (where have I heard that before… was it Corzine?) Florio shoved and ram-rodded through the legislature a "bilk the rich" $2.8-billion tax hike to bestow a massive infusion of funds to the inner-city schools. Immediately sinking the economy into a deeper into recession, while business bankruptcies increased by 150 percent, 300,000 jobs were lost, and the unemployment rate rocketed to 9.1 percent--the highest in the nation. Governor Florio declared that his tax hike was an unavoidable dose of bitter medicine to balance the budget. The truth of the matter is that Florio was among the three biggest spending governors in the nation. In 1991 the budget grew by 8.4 percent; that increase was followed by a 1992 budget expansion of 26.1 percent (the third largest in the nation). In his first two years the budget grew by more than $3,000 per family.

Corzine picked up the baton and continued the tradition, and now the Democrats want to point the finger and switch the woes of the state on a Governor who took office on January 19, 2010. After a year and 4 months, the state’s problems are now the fault of Chris Christie.

Florio lied along with Corzine when they said they wouldn’t raise taxes, and now the Democrat legislature is doing whatever they can to force Christie to renege on his promise of not raising taxes.

I ask Sweeney . . . who cared in the ten years the Democrats were in control?

Obamanomics and the Pea

Obama will push Congress to raise the limit on the national debt, permitting the government to borrow more to meet its financial obligations. Now he wants to raise taxes on top of that, so more can be collected to pay down the previous deficit he created. Obamanomics = Problem solved . . . it’s only a matter of time before we dig ourselves into another hole playing catch-up, and the root of the problems remain.

The raising of taxes will only go towards paying down the old debt, while the new debt climbs to new heights. By Obama saying he will tax the rich is sort of like the game of "thimblerig" keeping your eye on the pea, while the shells are being shuffled around. In Taxing the rich there is no pea under the shell, it only creates the illusion that something is being done.

Failure to raise our debt ceiling only means the Treasury cannot borrow more money; it isn’t the end of the world. By forcing government to limit spending it will increase its proceeds.

Defaulting on our creditors and refusal to pay interest on our debt is not caused by a failure to raise the debt ceiling. The federal government collects over $2 trillion in annual tax revenue, which is much much higher than what we pay in interest.

What politicians are saying is they would rather default on our creditors than cut their precious spending and upset special interest groups. They are saying that votes are more important than the “full faith and credit of the United States”.

It is nothing more than a threat to avoid making the hard decision; the reality is no one wants to do anything about it. To do otherwise, would mean losing those votes.

Like you or I, we must live within our means or suffer the consequences. Government is no different and the $2 trillion it collects in taxes is no small chicken feed.

Even if the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy were allowed to expire, the federal government would have only raked in an extra $40 billion this year, quite a ways off from eradicating the $1.6 trillion dollar budget deficit the Obama administration will rack up this year.

By Obama extending the Bush tax cuts for two years the federal government will take in roughly $81.5 billion less from those making over $250k, but $463 billion less from those making less than $250k.

Even if Obama not extended the Bush tax cuts and taxed the rich, his deficit for this year would have still been over $1.3 trillion. The taxing the rich cry is a diversion and another intrusion on class warfare.

Bottom line is the federal government has a spending problem . . . not a revenue problem. This year alone spending is over double what was spent in any year prior to 2005 and the national debt has increased 300% since 2007. By not controlling spending taxes will only continue to climb higher. Once all the rich are taxed where do we go to pay down the next deficit?

If we do not face the problem head on, sooner or later the problem will come to us. To paraphrase an old saying . . . “ If we do not change direction, we may end up where we are heading.”