He didn't say it quite like that, but that is the translation from Libonics to English.
Here's Max Pizarro's piece from Politickernj:
State Senate President Steve Sweeney (D-West Deptford) today praised Gov. Chris Christie, not for any moral victory but for the governor's political savvy in making teachers the problem - even as Christie himself in part perpetuated the problem.
"He's cut school funding dramatically but he has people thinking it's other people who are the problem," said Sweeney, referring to the governor's $820 million in state cuts to education funding.
"He found a villain in the teachers, and he's saying, 'It's not me, it's these guys over here. Politically, it was a masterful job. He cut the funding to cause taxes to go through the roof, so it's his lack of funding causing school budgets to go up. And people are angry."
Sweeney said he doesn't need the governor to tell him to heed the voices of the people. He's at the gym every morning, and hears his burdened constituents.
But Christie has presented a false choice, Sweeney argues, between a year-long teachers' wage freeze and finished budgets with tax hikes under the state cap.
"I'm taking to teachers who are taking a freeze, and you're still laying off teachers," Sweeney said. "Obviously , I'd rather have everyone working than no one working. But the fact remains, the teachers are absorbing the sole brunt of this governor's cuts."
Sweeney and his Democratic trough swilling brethren are grasping at straws to keep the gravy train going. It is over Steve. We have more government than we can afford. Chris Christie is not part of the problem. He is the leader with the back bone to provide the solutions.
I wonder if the focus groups and polling that Sweeney told Tom Moran he was doing predicted the massive school budget defeats. If not, Sweeney better start focusing and polling beyond Middletown Mike's readership.
I really hope Sweeney believes his own spin and forces a show down over Christie's budget by closing down the state government in July. Then we will have some real savings and we'll find out how much waste there really is, i.e., anything we don't miss when the government is shut down.
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6 comments:
"We have more Government then we can afford"
Your right about that Art,
What you and the people who voted against the budget have wrong is that we don't have too much government at the local level where all the anger is directed.
we have more government then we can afford at the state level. We have more state government then we can afford intruding at the local level. We have more state government then we can afford regulating the hell out of everything we do.
State officials have blamed local government, local school boards,local government employees, teachers for the problems THEY 9both democrats and republicans)have created.
Let's see if Christy goes after the real perps
wow, Mr. Union-boss, triple-dipper,free. dir., Sen pres., etc: guess the voters are only stupid when it doesn't help YOU and your pals!.. how sick and disgusted are we all??.. here's one of the best examples of why!
too much government is also at the national level; too many people demand entitlements and services they can't pay for; home rule supporters have been a part of the equation preventing us from consolidating and gaining an economy of scale in public employment, especially administrative costs. Hopefully, this fiscal crisis will cause people to understand jut how expensive home rule is. We just can't afford it any longer.
Home Rule is not the cause of high property taxes.
property taxes are high because of the lack of Home Rule.
It is high because of development rules stuffed down our throats by the State government and the Courts.
It is high because the state makes local government spend money they don't want too.
Home rule is not the problem true home rule is the solution.
To Anon 9:20PM
Home Rule supporters, who will not allow local services to be consolidated are a part of the problem, don't kid yourself. No argument that another major part of the problem are federal and state mandates and ridiculous court rulings (Mount Laurel and Abbott comes to mind).
If you ignore the economic benefits consolidation of services would bring, you are ignoring economic reality. Of course, living in New Jersey, one would need to be most cautious that we are not providing crooks with a concentration of power to more easily fleece us.
It is a fallacy that there are economic benefits to consolidation of school districts.
If consolidation saved money your larger school districts would cost less and that is simply not true.
This became evident to the Corzine admin. and they backed away from it and now Brett Schindler has recently said they are not looking for consolidation but want to encourage districts to Share services.
Shared services between Schools and Municipalities and between school districts can save money. Consolidation does not.
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