I was among the many Conservatives disappointed YET AGAIN, by the Garden State’s elective malfeasance when that state’s GOP got behind Party hack Chris Christie instead of the true Conservative, Steve Lonnegan in this year's GOP Primary.
I was disappointed, but NOT surprised. I used to look longingly across the Hudson, not much, and for a long time now...New Jersey is every bit as corrupt, over-taxed and over-regulated as New York is.
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Last time around, they virtually tanked the Governor’s race by pushing another ill-conceived and ill-considered political hack, Douglas Forrester, over the maverick, Libertarian/Conservative Brett Schundler, who’d transformed Jersey City, winning in a town with a Democratic registration edge of better than 4 to 1!
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The GOP’s backing the more Moderate and politically connected Christie over Steve Lonnegan may yet come back to haunt that star-crossed Party. That state’s PRIMARY issue is its property tax burden, the highest in the nation and yet Christie seems to have NO PLAN on how to exactly deal with that.
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As Phil Mulshine of the Newark Star Ledger recently wrote, “New Jersey's constitution gives the state legislature the power to distribute proceeds of the state's income tax to aid local education and partially relieve the burden of property taxes. But in a succession of school-funding cases over the years, the state Supreme Court has taken control of the $11 billion Property Tax Relief Fund.
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"The result is a perennial property-tax crisis. The court sends more than half of the state aid to 31 largely urban "special needs" school districts, the special needs of which were for the most part created by decades of Democratic mismanagement. The remaining 554 largely suburban towns fight over the rest.
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"Perhaps the best example of the court's profligacy is Asbury Park. With beautiful beaches and historic downtown served by a train line to Manhattan, the city could rank among the most desirable destinations on the coast. But a succession of corrupt and incompetent administrations turned the town into a wasteland.
"The public schools produce dismal test scores. Yet thanks to the court they are subsidized at almost incomprehensible levels. The city gets $29,895 per-pupil annually in education aid from the state. The total per-pupil cost exceeds $35,000 annually— enough to ship the kids off to prep schools where they would get top-notch schooling and room and board. The average per-pupil cost across the state is about $18,000.
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"It's impossible to solve New Jersey's property-tax problem without addressing the imbalance in state education funding."
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That’s been the problem for the New Jersey GOP and, for that matter, for the entire Northeast’s GOP – the Moderate Republican hierarchy can’t make effective arguments for Reaganism and Conservatism. They’ve mistakenly come to believe that such arguments can’t be made (“Well, if we can’t make them...”) but truth be told, it’s merely a matter of their being unable to make an argument for an ideology they don’t really subscribe to or believe in.
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Brett Schundler PROVED that such arguments CAN be made and in the heart of liberal Democratic urban areas. But does the northeast GOP support and recruit the likes of Brett Schundler?
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No, they revile them.
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For that reason, the northeast’s GOP has become a cancer on the body politic and a blight on the national GOP.
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The GOP's RINOs are BOTH moral cowards and people devoid of any real ideas.
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That was clearly on display today in the “ACORN Republican,” Dede Scozzafava abandoning the GOP slot in the race for New York’s 23rd District, allowing Mike Steele and Newt Gingrich to save a little face by belatedly jumping on the surging Hoffman bandwagon.
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The National GOP acceded to the NYS GOP in endorsing Ms. Scozzafava, claiming it was “safer to go with a Moderate” (and by “moderate” they mean a card check-supporting, ACORN-loving, big-government tax and spender)...yeah that sounds about right.
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Look, the National GOP desperately NEEDS to take stock of itself. Haven’t the Moderates, the Rockefeller-wing of that Party humiliated you guys enough?!
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Either straighten those dopes out or simply excommunicate them from your Party. They’re KILLING YOU!
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So, by comparison, just how bad are things in New Jersey? Well, again, according to Mr. Mulshine, “Suburban property taxes are high because the state Supreme Court has turned the property-tax system into a massive scheme to transfer wealth from the suburbs to the cities.
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“Thanks to the court's meddling, Mendham gets back in education aid a mere 4% of the tax dollars paid by its residents to the state. That's typical for a suburb. Asbury Park gets back 800% and Newark 600%. “During the spring primary race, both of Mr. Christie's opponents said they would confront the court to win equal funding for the suburbs. Both also said that, with four openings expected on the court in the next governor's term, they would use the opportunity to remake the court.”
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Why?...WHY?...WHY???
Why does ANY Republican support this inane kind of “FROM each according to his abilities or worth and TO each according to his needs or wants?”
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That’s NOT a winning strategy at all. Besides, when voters are faced with a choice between a tepid Liberal (“moderate” Republican) and a confident, full-blown liberal ("progressive" Democrat), they’ll choose the REAL liberal (the Democrat) EVERY time! At least THAT candidate is adhering to some set of "core values."
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The GOP can’t afford to offer “Liberalism-Light.” Simply put, no one wants that. They’re faced, for better or worse, with offering Conservatism, or nothing at all.
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Think I’m wrong? Guess again. As Mr. Mulshine concludes, “Meanwhile, independent candidate Chris Daggett has proven how potent property tax reform is. He proposes expanding sales taxes and using the proceeds to fund a 25% property-tax cut. It's not a great plan. But with it Mr. Daggett, a 59-year-old former Republican who served as an environmental administrator under President Ronald Reagan, climbed to double digits in the polls.
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“Most observers believe Mr. Daggett's following is at Mr. Christie's expense and could pave the way for Mr. Corzine to win re-election with much less than 50% of the vote. A race that was supposed to be a Republican runaway is now too close to call. The Republican's reticence on what should have been his strongest issue may end up costing him the governorship.”
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Read it and weep you northeast RINOs.
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See Phil Mulshine's full article in the Weekend Journal (10-31-09) at
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703574604574499722466073690.html
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