Friday, June 29, 2007

Thick headed and thin skinned


No, this post is not about Adam Puharic or Bill Barham, as much as the headline would apply.

It's about Jon Corzine. Corzine has employed a Geico spokesman to write speeches for him. Ironically, the Governor resembles another, more familiar Geico spokesman.

At yesterday's media event where the Governor signed the state budget and made a big deal of using his line item veto to reduce the budget by .03%, he also "angrily lashed out" at critics of his plan to "monetize" the state's toll roads.

"Monetize" is a euphemism for borrow money. Whether you call it a sale, lease or creating a new authority, the Governor wants to borrow billions of dollars today against the future toll receipts of the Garden State Parkway, the New Jersey Turnpike, and the Atlantic City Expressway. Toll increases would be a given. What is also a given is that if we borrow $15 billion today we'll end up paying back $30 billion over time and that the Governor's old Wall Street palls will make millions in fees for putting the deal together.

If you disagree with the Governor, you are a demagogue who is not serious about solving the state's fiscal problems, according to him.

The people of the State of New Jersey have made it very clear that we don't want to sell or lease our tolls roads. So the Governor says he will "go out side the box" to do the same thing. Well Governor, we don't want you to borrow billions more of our future incomes to dump down the Trenton black hole, no matter what box you wrap it in.

And, we do have a solution to the state's fiscal problems: Cut spending.

Beware New Jersey. Jon Corzine doesn't care about what you want. He, and the guy he's put in charge of "monetizing", Kris Kolluri, think they know better than you and what's good for you. We've seen that first hand here in Highlands and Sea Bright. What they are trying to do to us, impose their will over our overwhelming objections, is what they will do to all of us with the toll roads and maybe the lottery. They will push, bully, insult and threaten.

Let's push back. Call the Governor at 609-292-6000 and tell the nice aide that you don't want the state's assets monetized. Tell the Governor that you oppose the Highlands-Sea Bright Bridge project as proposed.

Yesterday we found that the nice aides would not record our names or addresses for the Governor. So let's keep calling and raise the tally! Call two or three times a day if you like. Call until he angrily lashes out and calls us names and says we're not serious or don't know better. Then call some more.

Do it now.

1 comment:

Downtowner said...

this bridge thing. i think it has a couple of different sides to it. something that has bugged me about the bridge is that it is constantly going up and down because some guy with a yacht wants to take it for a ride.

once or twice a day isn't such a big deal, but it isn't once or twice a day that it happens. so a taller bridge may be an idea.

but there is a lot going on with this subject.