What a Moron!

"Jonny B Goode" makes the case at InTheLobby that Governor Corzine is resorting to McGreevey/Whitman type gimmickry to prevent property taxes from rising next year when he is up for re-election by allowing municipalities to defer half of their payments into the pension system until 2012.

Obviously, Corzine is assuming the economy will be in better shape in 2012. There is good reason to make that assumption. Our economy is cyclical. It expands and contracts. In recent history the expansions have been long and the contractions have been short. We haven't had a prolonged contraction in 70 years since the Great Depression. If our economy is not in the midst of an expansion in 2012, we will all be looking back on today's tough times as the "good old days" and none of these gimmicks will matter because life as we know it will have fundamentally changed. That could happen, but it probably won't. It is rational to consider our current economic "crisis" as a correction of irrational excesses of the expansion and to expect that after a tough year or two or three that the economy will start growing again.

If you believe we are in the midst of a catastrophic collapse of our global economic system, it would be rational to start hording commodities, canned food and ammunition.

If you believe we are in the midst of a correction, you should rationally prepare to get through the tough times by spending and saving wisely. To the extent that you can, you should invest your savings wisely. If the economy is going to be expanding in 2012, 2009 is a good time to be making good investments. Which is why our financial genius governor is a moron to be deferring investments into the pension system.

The New Jersey pension system made bad investments in 2007 and 2008. New Jersey's pension fund is down $23 billion so far this year.

By postponing the pension payments Corzine is missing a huge opportunity to recover the losses suffered in the recent crash.

The good news is that Corzine has acknowledged that raising taxes during a recession is bad policy. Yet, road taxes, also known as tolls are rising on Monday. What a moron.

He has also said that next year's budget will be reduced by 10% or $3.3 billion. But, the projected deficit is $5 billion, on top of a projected deficit in our current budget of $1.2 billion. How is Corzine going to cover $6.2 billion in deficits with $3.3 billion in spending cuts? Pension payment deferals, tax increases and whatever other gimmicks the elite morons can think up.

Where is the change?