Credit Where Credit is Due

by: deciminyan

Wed Oct 26, 2011 at 10:17:47 AM EDT

Republican elected officials are fond of taking credit for accomplishments they had nothing to do with. Take, for example, Jon Runyan, whose robocalls make it sound like he’s not actively working to dismantle Social Security while he touts a modest increase in payouts. But the self-aggrandizement of the huge Congressman from South Jersey pales in comparison to that of our governor, who plays the false credit game like a pro. And the mainstream media is an enabler that he manipulates masterfully.

In a page 3 article in today’s Philadelphia Inquirer, the reporter opens with:

“More than $147,000 in federal block grant funds has been distributed by the Christie administration to five major New Jersey food banks…”

While this sentence is technically correct, the article leaves the reader with the inaccurate impression that the funds for these grants are due to the generosity of the Christie administration. An administration official is quoted as saying:

“By working together, the Christie administration is giving a healthy boost to people facing hard times”

Nothing could be further from the truth.

The last time I checked, federal funds come from the U.S. government, not Trenton. If the governor wants to take credit for the redistribution of our federal tax dollars, so be it. But the hypocrisy of the statement that the administration is giving a boost to the poor can’t go unchallenged, as it was in the Inky article. The governor eviscerated social safety net programs in this year’s budget while increasing the payouts to his millionaire businessman friends. It would be good if the Inquirer would provide some in-depth reporting instead of just parroting the administration’s press releases.

One of the agencies that is receiving federal funds from this grant is the Food Bank of South Jersey. In these difficult times, I’m sure the $20,000 it is getting will make a difference for scores of indigent families in the area. But in the overall landscape of poverty in the Garden State, this is a drop in the bucket.

In a Blue Jersey Focus interview last week, Valerie Traoré, the CEO of the Food Bank of South Jersey, told us that the Delaware River Port Authority is sitting on $2M in funds that has already been allocated to helping to alleviate the hunger problem in South Jersey. While the governor does not control the DRPA directly, in the past, he has used his humungous bully pulpit to get what he wants from this and similar agencies. He can use his taxpayer-funded twitter geek and his taxpayer-funded web site to pressure the DRPA to release these much needed funds (which were allocated in 2009) to help his fellow New Jerseyans. If he does so, I’ll be among the first to give him credit for doing the right thing.