Garden State Patriot

May your 2009 be mighty fine!!!

I work for a small business with less than 10 employees. According to Corzine’s new paid family leave bill, I will be forced to pony up my hard-earned money to subsidize other people’s time off – unless, of course, I’m willing to put my job at risk. Just why should someone like me be forced to pay taxes for a program that doesn’t even guarantee me that my job will be there if I decide to take advantage of the benefit? And we thought liberals like Corzine were the ultimate champions of ‘fairness.’ Guess not.

New Jersey employees will see payroll taxes increase on Jan. 1 when withholding begins for the state’s paid family leave program.

Employers will begin withholding .09 percent next year and .12 percent in 2010 and beyond from payrolls to fund the program, which provides employees with up to six weeks of paid leave to care for a newborn, newly adopted child or a seriously ill family member during any 12-month period. Beginning July 1, employees will be eligible to receive up to two-thirds of their pay, up to a maximum of $546 per week in 2009, under the program.

The legislation, which was signed into law by Gov. Jon. S. Corzine in May, permits employers to require employees to use up to two weeks of paid sick leave, paid vacation time or other leave at full pay, when taking the leave. Workers must provide prior notice to employers of their intent to take the paid leave and provide a doctor’s note in cases of a serious health condition. Employers with fewer than 50 employees will not be required to hold the jobs of those who take leave, under the legislation.

Some in the media have been comparing Caroline Kennedy to Sarah Palin – even coining the silly phrase ‘Palin-ized.’ But Caroline Kennedy is no Sarah Palin. Sarah Palin is a self-made woman. She didn’t use a man or a last name that some bestow royalty upon to get where she is. Palin has actually run a government. She has more in common with the so-called ‘working family’ than any Kennedy ever could. Quite frankly, any comparison between the two is an insult to Palin. 
Of course, let’s just wait and see if SNL belittles Mrs. Kennedy in the same manner they did Sarah Palin considering her lack of experience, as well as her stumbling-type speech as witnessed here.

Looks like Obama will have yet another test of his ’steely spine’ come January 20th. Israel has unleashed an attack against Islamic Hamas militants in response to recent rocket attacks. This time one wonders if Israel will actually continue the fight until there is victory. Otherwise, we will just see this kind of ‘wash, rinse, repeat’ cycle of violence.

It is clear, after all, that the recent ‘truce’ did nothing for the cause of peace. It has only allowed Hamas to recover, restock their weapons and gradually become even more of a threat than they were before.

Better start stocking up on Coke and Pepsi because apparently Governor Corzine is getting ready to follow in the footsteps of New York’s Governor Paterson. According to a story in the Bergen Record regarding New Jersey’s expected $5 Billion budget shortfall the Governor…

…would not rule out tax increases in the vein of those proposed in New York State last week on about 140 goods and services, including music and video downloads, and soft drinks.

Paterson’s budget is an utter disgrace for the people of New York. In fact, here are some other details from Paterson’s mind-boggling proposals:

• Eliminate the sales tax exemption for clothing and footwear priced under $110 and replaces it with two, one-week exemption periods for clothing and footwear priced under $500. Localities will have an option to join the state in offering this exemption.
• Impose a sales tax on entertainment-related consumer spending, including but not limited to, movie theaters and sporting events.
• Impose a sales tax on transportation-related consumer spending, including but not limited to, taxis, limousines and buses.
• Repeal the current state sales tax cap of eight cents per gallon on motor fuel and diesel motor fuel.
• Impose sales tax on television and radio services provided by cable, satellite or other similar means.
  Increase the tax on wine from 18.9 cents per gallon to 51 cents per gallon, and the beer tax from 11 cents per gallon to 24 cents per gallon.
• Impose an additional 18 percent rate of sales and compensating use taxes on fruit drinks that contain less than 70 percent of natural fruit juice and non-dietetic soft drinks, sodas and beverages.

Of course, the Gov continues to toss out the ‘everything’s on the table’ line, but I think we all can see where this is headed. New Jerseyans, who already taxed to their limit, are just going to be asked to pony up more. Let’s just hope if this happens, New Jersey voters will tack it on to their already long list of grievances against this failed Governor come next November.

Economic crisis. Billion dollar budget gaps. The looming specter of budget cuts, state worker layoffs draconian tax increases. Yet, Governor Corzine finds $6M to make sure we, and our children, can safely cross the street. After all, without his help we couldn’t possibly do that all on our own.

Gov. Jon Corzine today announced the New Jersey Department of Transportation will award $4 million in Safe Routes to School grants and $2 million in Safe Streets to Transit grants.

“These programs are critical components of New Jersey’s 5-year pedestrian safety program,” Corzine said. “Providing kids and commuters with safe facilities to walk and ride their bikes can encourage mass transit use, improve quality of life and prevent childhood obesity.”

NJDOT’s 2008 Safe Routes to School initiative will provide grants of $8,000 to $300,000 for projects in 33 municipalities. The grants will be used for local projects to encourage children to walk and bike to school, including the creation of safer walkways, bikeways and street crossings near schools.

The Safe Streets to Transit program helps counties and municipalities improve access to transit facilities and all modes of public transportation. The initiative will provide grants to 15 municipalities statewide that will help install and upgrade sidewalks, pedestrian barriers and improve lighting and drainage on roadways upon which transit facilities are located.

All the best to you and yours this holiday season!

‘Twas the Night Before Christmas 
(or A Visit from St. Nicholas)
by Clement Clarke Moore

‘Twas the night before Christmas, when all through the house
not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse.
The stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
in hopes that St. Nicholas soon would be there.

The children were nestled all snug in their beds,
while visions of sugar plums danced in their heads.
And Mama in her ‘kerchief, and I in my cap,
had just settled our brains for a long winter’s nap.

When out on the roof there arose such a clatter,
I sprang from my bed to see what was the matter.
Away to the window I flew like a flash,
tore open the shutter, and threw up the sash.

The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow
gave the lustre of midday to objects below,
when, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
but a miniature sleigh and eight tiny reindeer.

With a little old driver, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.
More rapid than eagles, his coursers they came,
and he whistled and shouted and called them by name:

“Now Dasher! Now Dancer!
Now, Prancer and Vixen!
On, Comet! On, Cupid!
On, Donner and Blitzen!
To the top of the porch!
To the top of the wall!
Now dash away! Dash away!
Dash away all!”

As dry leaves that before the wild hurricane fly,
when they meet with an obstacle, mount to the sky
so up to the house-top the coursers they flew,
with the sleigh full of toys, and St. Nicholas too.

And then, in a twinkling, I heard on the roof
the prancing and pawing of each little hoof.
As I drew in my head and was turning around,
down the chimney St. Nicholas came with a bound.

He was dressed all in fur, from his head to his foot,
and his clothes were all tarnished with ashes and soot.
A bundle of toys he had flung on his back,
and he looked like a peddler just opening his pack.

His eyes–how they twinkled! His dimples, how merry!
His cheeks were like roses, his nose like a cherry!
His droll little mouth was drawn up like a bow,
and the beard on his chin was as white as the snow.
The stump of a pipe he held tight in his teeth,
and the smoke it encircled his head like a wreath.
He had a broad face and a little round belly,
that shook when he laughed, like a bowl full of jelly.

He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
and I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself.
A wink of his eye and a twist of his head
soon gave me to know I had nothing to dread.

He spoke not a word, but went straight to his work,
and filled all the stockings, then turned with a jerk.
And laying his finger aside of his nose,
and giving a nod, up the chimney he rose.

He sprang to his sleigh, to his team gave a whistle,
And away they all flew like the down of a thistle.
But I heard him exclaim, ‘ere he drove out of sight,

“Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!”

According to a report from the non-partisan Tax Foundation - which earlier this year found New Jersey to be the overall worst state in the country for taxes – 13 state counties rank among the nation’s Top 20 worst for property taxes.

The counties on the list (based on median taxes paid) include:

3 Hunterdon New Jersey 7,708
4 Bergen New Jersey 7,370
5 Somerset New Jersey 7,201
6 Essex New Jersey 7,149
8 Morris New Jersey 6,977
9 Union New Jersey 6,727
10 Passaic New Jersey 6,673
13 Monmouth New Jersey 6,360
14 Hudson New Jersey 5,865
17 Sussex New Jersey 5,677
18 Middlesex New Jersey 5,575
19 Mercer New Jersey 5,457
20 Warren New Jersey 5,228

All these taxes yet Governor Corzine and the Democrats in Trenton still find themselves with an ever-growing budget gap. Quite simply, our state government has spent us into oblivion and NJ taxpayers can’t afford it anymore.

Link: County in the Top 10 for Taxes

Kudos to State Senator Gerald Cardinale! Cardinale blocked Bergen County Executive Dennis McNerney from being placed on a panel to “study the consolidation of towns and school districts.”

Cardinale cited his opposition to McNerney’s appointment, firstly, because the Democrat is known to favor consolidation. Secondly, Cardinale also rightly points out that recent study commissions have been stacked with people pre-disposed to arrive at conclusions that the Governor and Legislature desire. In fact, this was the case with the recent recommendations from a state panel on gay marriage. From the Bergen Record:

Cardinale, the veteran Republican from Demarest, says he will not support McNerney’s nomination to the Local Unit Alignment, Reorganization and Consolidation Commission.

Cardinale, who can use “senatorial courtesy” powers to blackball a gubernatorial nomination from Bergen County, believes McNerney will simply rubber stamp “preconceived” recommendations to merge smaller towns with larger ones.

McNerney is an unabashed champion of small-town consolidation and authored a report in February calling for the merger of 35 Bergen towns with 10,000 or fewer residents. “I firmly believe that the root of excessive property taxes lies in the overabundance of small local governments in the state,” McNerney wrote in an Op-Ed piece.

 Further…

Cardinale’s objections extend beyond McNerney. He believes the nomination fits a pattern by Corzine and the Democratic-controlled Legislature of stacking study commissions with members predisposed to reach conclusions favorable to Corzine’s controversial legislative aims. “It’s time for it to stop,” he said

Of course, McNerney’s claims regarding property taxes and small local governements are complete and utter hooey. The fact of the matter is local governments are actually far more efficient than governments in places like Jersey City or Newark, which spend far more per capita than the smaller towns and municipalities. If we allow Trenton to start merging New Jersey towns, it will only lead to more government, more bureaucracy and higher taxes. 

In fact, gubernatorial candidate and State Director of Americans for Prosperity in New Jersey, Steve Lonegan, exposes this Trenton scheme in his book Putting Taxpayers First. Here are some excerpts (from Chapter Six: The Myth of Consolidation):

It is disturbing to listen to elected officials willing to throw “home rule” (what built this state) under the proverbial bus. These cries for consolidation are cheap sound bites from elected officials with no knowledge of the importance and the effectiveness of local government. Those who spout this nonsense either have no understanding of this issue or simply are willing to sacrifice self-government for political purposes. I don’t know which is worse.

The term “home rule” has been coined by the liberal media, which advocates consistently for onerous centralized government. The rights of individuals to self-govern are seen as being at odds with the need of the government to rule with central authority. The term “home rule” is most often treated by the media with contempt since they equate the concept of self-government with selfishness.

This interpretation is rather curious, as the right to rule over one’s own home has long been considered sacred. Giving up the right to determine one’s destiny is something any healthy person should fight to avoid, which is why the socialists have such a need to create entrenched constituencies for big-government programs – in other words a dependent populace that relies on hand-outs from Big Brother. 

At first blush such big-government welfare programs might appear to be borne from a populist mindset, but in fact these programs characterize an elitist world view. Such programs are created by ultra liberal collectivists who believe from the depths of their patricial cockles that the proverbial unwashed masses are incompetent to govern themselves. And since home rule stands in the way of imposing elite central authority, steamrolling over it is a key goal of collectivists. Fundamentally eliminating home rule is to indicate that a man’s home is not his castle; it is only through the benevolence of the State that his “home” is made possible.

 Steve goes on…

Governor Corzine and his minions would like to turn New Jersey’s wide array of small towns and municipalities into scapegoats for the problems their policies have created. In a July 28th article published in The Record by Senate Majority Leader Richard Codey, he states “New Jersey currently has 566 municipalities, 616 school districts and 186 fire districts, which along with our 21 counties rely on property taxes to fund their operations.” Codey makes this statement as if the numbers of local governing entities alone are sufficient to explain New Jersey’s sky high taxes. And unfortunately, many ill-informed politicians are coalescing around the false solution of forcing merger of municipalities.

And Steve is 100% correct. This effort to merge our municpalities is essentially a dagger to the heart of the very type of democracy our Founders desired for us. It is an incremental step toward more government control over our lives. One that Steve rightly concludes “must be resisted at every turn.”

I had to do a serious double take when I saw this headline: Plummeting gas prices / Time right to raise the gas tax. But that’s exactly what the Press of AC thinks we should do in the midst of the worst economic crisis since our President was a peanut farmer from Georgia.

The silver lining of this national economic crisis is falling gas prices. Fact is, some observers are wondering whether prices will plummet to $1 per gallon – which was what they were nearly 30 years ago.

It’s common economic wisdom not to raise taxes during a recession. Still, the one tax hike that does make some sense is an increase in the gasoline tax. A modest increase in the 14.5-cent state tax would barely be noticed by motorists who just a few months ago were faced with $4-per-gallon prices. Yet one penny on the gas tax raises an estimated $50 million.

Of course, they only want to see this in place temporarily. Yes, yes, no need to worry if the gas price suddenly spikes back up (which I bet it will) because Corzine, et al, will then rescind it. We just have to trust them.

We have long stressed that a gas tax is a user tax on motorists and should be channeled solely into the Transportation Trust Fund, not diverted into the general budget. But these are extraordinary times. Gov. Jon S. Corzine and lawmakers should explore the feasibility – on a short-term basis only – of diverting some revenue from a gas-tax hike into the existing budget to help fill the huge gap left by crashing sales- and income-tax revenues.

You know, I think I have a better proposal for the Press of Atlantic City. How about a 20% tax on every dumb article and proposal they have. I’m sure that would turn New Jersey’s deficit into a surplus in no time.