Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Liberalism: Do You Agree We've Had Enough of It? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Honey_Bee who wrote (84657)	5/28/2010 12:06:28 AM
From: Hope Praytochange	3 Recommendations Respond to of 224744

A New Boss Rocks New Jersey Leadership: New Jersey's tough new Republican governor is setting a national example for how to restore fiscal sanity. If only he had some spare time, Washington could sure use Chris Christie. 'Meet the new boss, same as the old boss," as the Who song goes, sure doesn't apply to the principled, tough-as-nails Garden State chief executive who is fast becoming a national rock star on fiscal responsibility. Faced with revenue holes exceeding $400 million this year and $365 million next, Christie refuses to budge from his pledge not to raise taxes. Unlike your average, big-spending Northeast politician, Christie actually had his eye on the long-term well-being of the state government when he took office in January. Staring a projected $2.2 billion deficit in the face, he made it clear New Jersey was in a full-blown emergency, and he used the fullness of his powers. Springing into action as soon as he took office, Christie signed executive orders that "aggressively utilize every authority at my disposal to ensure the maintenance of a balanced state budget." Executive Order No. 14 in particular will go down as a fiscal Emancipation Proclamation, freeing Jersey taxpayers from their special-interest slave masters — especially the entrenched government worker unions. "I reserve the right," Christie stated, to take additional emergency measures "to protect the health, safety and welfare of the people of this state, and to ensure the continued provision of essential state services." He froze state aid going to more than 500 school districts — and without bowing and scraping to the state lawmakers who think the money never runs out. Christie described them early this year as "those who continue to defend the old ways of selfishly protecting turf, who stay in the corner defending parochial interests." Having insisted on a spending freeze upon taking office, the three-quarters-of-a-billion-dollar shock the state just got isn't throwing his administration into the panic that might have been expected. With the 2010 shortfall already covered, Christie now says of the $365 million fiscal 2011 number, "we're going to be able to solve that problem without any new taxes at all and without any real significant cuts." He told WCBS News on Wednesday, "I think we're going to be fine." On top of that, "we're not raising taxes," he told the New York City TV station. "That's it. It's not happening." The state's heavily Democratic legislature may well wage war against Christie this year, resisting enactment of a budget without tax increases next month. Christie wants still more cuts in New Jersey's bloated, politicized finances, and he wants a referendum on the ballot this November to cap the state's crippling property taxes. The legislature, on the other hand, wants to soak the rich with targeted tax hikes. What Christie understands, and what those whose mess he is forced to clean up don't, is that taxing "the other guy" isn't really taxing the other guy. The targets of any "millionaire's tax" are employers and investors and entrepreneurs. The tax man isn't taking cash from treasure chests in drawing rooms of spacious mansions. Their wealth is invested; it's employing people who aren't rich. And when you increase their taxes you're robbing not them, but their employees of their jobs in many cases, and their raises or benefits in others. From all indications, Christie is gutsy enough to handle the big-spending status quo-ists. On Tuesday, he told the Manhattan Institute, "you have the head of the teacher's union standing up at this rally saying, 'We are not the problem.' There have never been more incorrect words spoken in front of the statehouse in Trenton — and that is a high bar, ladies and gentlemen." The next time some of the more cowardly Republicans in Washington forget what they were elected to do, let them look to New Jersey and listen to the boss.