Washington has been consumed with a protracted and distracting debate that tied the need to raise the Nation's debt limit to budget cuts. All reasonable people know that default was not an option. The failure of the country to pay its bills would have a catastrophic effect on the economy and on the lives of all Americans for years to come. This was a debate we shouldn't have been having. Every day and every hour that was spent in this battle was time that wasn't devoted to job creation or economic growth.
I voted against the deal that was made to end the crisis that paralyzed Congress and threatened the economy. A default had to be avoided, but this was not the best way to do it. First and foremost, the plan does nothing to create a single job and does nothing to aid the ailing economy. In fact, it could cause both immediate and long-term harm to the country's economic well being and to our ability to pursue economic opportunities.
"It is astounding that the Republicans claim to want to help the economy, but instead are cutting over 600,000 jobs, nearly 18,000 of which will be in New Jersey," said Senator Menendez. "It used to be that Republicans understood that transportation investment was necessary to spur economic growth and create jobs. Now, I guess they think if we give the rich enough tax breaks they will get off the golf course, get in a bulldozer, and start building roads."
Michele Bachmann says we can reduce unemployment by eliminating the minimum wage. Is that the kind of economic "recovery" we want—$4 and $5 and $6 per hour jobs? Van Jones is absolutely right. Too many of us are already sacrificing plenty. Too many of us are already paying for Wall Street’s recklessness with our personal austerities and anxieties. The Tea Party’s solution is to discredit our ideals and dismantle our government. But we can do better. We can build a movement to make OUR democracy work for OUR American Dreams. Let’s take the first step together by meeting on July 16th to get acquainted and share ideas.
Watching "National Small Business Week" and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's "small business" summit unfold over the last two weeks, real small business owners like me can only watch and wonder.
We wonder if the bankers and insurers who drove the global economy off a cliff really believe they can steal our identities without anyone so much as commenting. We wonder whether due diligence exists in any large-scale institution, as our representatives at every level of government, in the mainstream media, and even in academia allow yet another corporate fraud to go unchallenged.
Well, this small business owner, with 9 employees and a 33 year old woodworking company, isn't about to let them get off scot free this time.
Make no mistake, the U.S. Chamber's "America's Small Business Summit" is a carnival of big business spin bought and paid for with millions of dollars corporations have taken from average Americans. Those usurious credit card interest rates, debit fees and penalties average Americans fork over every day, those outrageous health insurance premiums, or for that matter the tax breaks, abatements and subsidies big companies wring out of state and local governments - these all pay for the distortion and misrepresentation that was on full display down in our nation's capital. And all in the name of "small business."
The companies who underwrote this snake oil show are big corporate brands. Just take a look at the lists of sponsors. Some names that will jump out at you are Sam's Club (a subsidiary of Walmart), Travelers, FedEx, AFLAC, VISA, AT&T, Raytheon, Google, Microsoft... if it sounds more like "Multi-National Corporations Week," that's probably because it is.
But wait, there's more! Thanks to the Citizens United decision, corporations that once had to figure out clever ways to evade election laws and flood the halls of Congress and state legislatures with wheelbarrows of cash can now do so with impunity. This week in Washington, DC is no exception. It's all about rolling back new banking regulations, like swipe fee reforms. And by all means let's do away with the first health care law actually designed to help small businesses (instead of insurance companies). Corporate cash in politics, who's afraid of that big bad wolf?
Why, you might ask, are the traditional business lobbies more interested in fronting for big banks and big insurance than in supporting policies that will actually help small businesses? Well, you could start with the fact that the insurance industry secretly gave the U.S. Chamber $86 million in 2009 to fight against health care reform. Indeed, the bulk of the Chamber's budget that year came from a very short list of anonymous big money donors.
So where are the real small business owners? We're holding the fort at our businesses, hanging on, struggling to weather the storm of the economic devastation wrought by Wall Street and the other sponsors of the sideshow in DC. On Main Street, the "let Wall Street run free" rhetoric now spewing forth in the name of small business is an insult. Tight credit, laid off customers, shuttered local plants, nonexistent local banks (replaced by Citi, Wells Fargo and B of A) are the real threats to Main Street, not swipe fee regulation.
On Main Street, we have each other's backs, we care about the condition of the roads, our schools, and our health care system... because they are ours. If corporate America has its way, our kids will go to corporate schools, our roads will be leased to corporate operators and our health care system, well, that's already been bought and sold and bought and sold again in corporate deals that leave critical community institutions, from the family practitioner to the community hospital, in critical condition.
It is time we take our country back for sure, take it back from Walmart and Raytheon, Halliburton and Citibank. Let's tell the big corporate players we see through their con. You can't invoke small business if you're a giant corporation, you can't call yourselves American if you evade your tax obligations with offshore corporate headquarters, and you can't fool us any more. Main Street is onto you.
Governor Christie is using his taxpayer-funded political rallies to promote his reverse Robin Hood agenda.
According to the Star-Ledger's Megan DeMarco, Governor Christie is once again twisting the facts by taking credit for the slow but steady Obama economic recovery. The governor is claiming that the unexpected increase in state revenue, reported at yesterday's Assembly Budget Committee meeting, is due to his economic policies. This completely ignores the fact that the country as a whole is starting to see the impact of the economic stimulus.
Hopefully the mainstream media will not simply reprint the governor's lies and talking points, but will provide a critical analysis of why our state's economy is lagging the national recovery.
Is our fate determined by the vagaries of Wall Street? That's the message delivered by David Rosen, Legislative Budget and Finance Officer in his testimony this morning before the Assembly Budget Committee.
While revenue from corporate business taxes is down, this is more than offset by an increase in gross income tax revenues. And the majority of that increase is from state taxpayers with income over $1 million.
Rosen presented a chart showing a strong correlation between the Standards and Poors 500 index and the gross income garnered by the state from income tax on millionaires.
How did we get onto the subject of good vs. bad teachers?
The issue is the economy. It rises and falls, so too should public spending.
Let's not be distracted by raising some pay, while lowering, or replacing, others. Let peer review handle that.
The idea is to cut total spending in line with what is happening to the rest of our middle class.
Unions have important roles. Look at coal mining conditions now, to before. Unions kept corporations from perpetuating inhumane conditions on unknowing 'scabs'.
Regarding payroll, the unions and 'owners' together should be responsible enough not to agree to suicide pacts, as happened in the auto industry......
This logic goes for schools. Ask just how education will be continued if many homeowners have to sell their kitchens and baths in order to pay school taxes?
The NJEA should push for eliminating regressive school taxing, and aligning with our middle class better.
In the grand scheme of things, the lockout of the NFL players is a trivial blip. The disaster in Japan, the famine in Africa, and the destruction of the American Dream by the Corporate Tea Party are more important than football, and will fundamentally impact world history.
But many of us are football fans. We enjoy watching the Eagles make their annual futile attempt to garner Super Bowl rings. Rumor has it that there are even some fans of the Giants and Jets in New Jersey.
Certainly, the NFL provides an economic boost to the cities in which it plays - an important factor in these troubled economic times. So how can today's labor-management impasse be resolved?
A report just released by the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics finds that New Jersey had the second worse job loss of any state in January 2011 - 13,000, behind only Georgia at 15,300. Even more significantly, the Bureau of Labor Statistics finds that only 4 states in the entire country had statistically significant declines in employment. Overall, the nation gained 63,000 jobs.
Of course, jobs are the most important issue in NJ right now. And Christie frames his whole agenda as "Jersey Jobs."
I guess reducing taxes on millionaires, Christie's out of state trips, and vetoing all of the Legislature's economic development bills just isn't working so well for New Jersey.
This isn't completely NJ focused, but there are obvious implications and connections to NJ, given that Gov. Christie is firmly in the corporate for-profitization of many services
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I put "privatization" in quotes because it is really corporatization, and quite frankly is a much better term for the further theft of taxpayer dollars for the well connected corporate class.
The arguments that the right and the pro-corporate/"free market" crowd make are in direct conflict with the entire rationale for privatization corporatization of public services - regardless of whether it is the school system, toll collecting, motor vehicle inspection (all of which have been done/proposed in New Jersey), or taking it a step further, the fire department. It goes something like this:
Corporations are supposed to maximize profits and their responsibilities lie with their shareholders and increasing shareholder value. So, cutting corners (BP, anyone), using cheaper materials (as we have seen in building houses as compared to decades ago, or even in household goods that break down after a few years) or reducing quality control in order to make more cheaper or do more with less. Even if this isn't all willful and there are just fewer people doing the job, there is inherent quality control issues from less people doing more. All in the name of maximizing profit and being accountable to shareholder value.
Contrast this with the basic premise of public service - to serve the public. There is an underlying goal of making sure that the public receives the services that it needs as opposed to the services that a private company wants to deliver based on cost and interpretation of the contract, regardless of needs.
Now, let's take the argument for corporatization of services - it goes something like this:
What "the great deficit debate" really boils down to is one thing: priorities.
Deficits weren't a priority when nearly all Republicans and a good number of Democrats voted for the ill conceived and ill advised invasions and occupations in Afghanistan and Iraq close to a decade ago. They weren't a priority when tens, if not hundreds of billions went to waste or were just "lost" in Iraq - not knowing if they ended up in the hands of those who were the stated enemy. They weren't a priority when billions of no-bid contracts were handed out like candy, with no accounting.
There were some in Congress, including my Representative, Scott Garrett, who weren't yet elected when the first vote was taken to start the folly in Iraq. However, he, and his ilk have been present for all or most of the subsequent economy killing votes to continue funding these disasters with our children's, grandchildren's and great-grandchildren's money. There wasn't even a hesitation on most of this - even with the very basic premise that cutting taxes in conjunction with a war is unheard of and pretty much unprecedented.
To me, one of the kickers of this request, from Newark's West Ward councilman, is the last line directed at Gov. Chris Christie: "In this instance, please be pro-business." - promoted by Rosi
The recommendations of the Governor's task force to eliminate the Urban Enterprise Zone program (UEZ) is ill-timed at best and potentially disastrous to small business survival, stabilization and growth in urban areas like Newark at the worst. When President Obama is providing small businesses with help via tax credits to spur hiring and other incentives for technology and investments in our national economy, the state of New Jersey could potentially strike a blow against small businesses for short term budget in urban areas that are barely holding on.
Urban areas, like Newark, have a hard enough time encouraging, supporting, and working collaboratively to develop small businesses in robust economic times for many reasons: access to capital, technical training, staying afloat during that critical first two years, and the fighting the negative ( and some would say racially prejudicial/inaccurate) perceptions of crime and safety. In harsh economic times, the UEZ is not only helping to sustain small businesses, but also the jobs they provide. The UEZ program has created real opportunities in places like Newark, Jersey City, Bayonne, Trenton, Rahway, etc. and an understanding of its history and real results will clarify these facts separate and apart from short term and myopic opinions that do not take into account the total impact and provisions of the program.
The UEZ program was enacted in 1983 with a duration of 20 years. The program has worked so well that....
A look at the benefits to businesses, after the jump.
Yes, this gets to New Jersey, and to Christie - toward the end. The phenomenon of a Christie or a Scott Walker, who go down so easy for the business class, doesn't just "happen". This post is one writer's view of the preamble.
- promoted by Rosi
The economy is a tenuous thing and so easily bruised and broken. We are teetering on a very terrifying edge and the right wing pro-corporate press and message machine is spending billions all over the country to push us over.
Between the manufactured news we see repeated on Fox News, with Rush Limbaugh and around the clock and right wing business interests paying for political ads and skewed polls, it gets harder and harder to hear the truth between the lies.
There was a time in this country that many communities lived in and under the control of what became known as "Company Towns". It seems that there is a calculated and concerted effort to return to that model of economic oppression for the whole of the country.
It wasn't unusual for a company to take ownership of an industry specific area and build a fiscal slave system on it. The premise was pretty simple, control the jobs and access to the money and you control the community. Now we have governors looking to the new "Company Store" owners for guidance and support in their efforts to kill off the last vestiges of labor rights and collective bargaining.
Between 1945 and 1975, the country enjoyed a period of pro-union, pro-labor middle class growth and prosperity, where a single income could buy a home, send a couple kids to college and afford a family a vacation once or twice a year. This period was considered America's "Golden age". We made what we used, what we bought what we needed from local businesses and had pride in our jobs and country.
I was extremely pleased the President Obama's State of the Union speech last night focused on our future. While the GOP's rhetoric is focused on the past and stoking fears about our debt, the President took on the difficult task of outlining a vision for America's future that includes encouraging American innovation AND debt reduction. President Obama hit the nail on the head when he said, "the future is ours to win. But to get there, we can't just stand still," we need to move our country forward in order to stay ahead of other nations in an increasingly competitive global economy.
America can no longer rest on the successes of the past to ensure prosperity for the future; we must take an aggressive approach to catalyzing innovation through strategic investments in physical, technological, and human capital. It is a matter of national and economic security that we step up our efforts to maintain our leadership and unleash American ingenuity at every level to create new industries and new jobs.
In order to meet the President's challenge to spur innovation, create clean energy, expand high-speed rail, and reduce the debt, we must recognize:
1. Innovation is the Key to Economic Growth
2. Strategic Investments Can Promote Innovation
3. Today's Education Will Shape the Future
Yesterday, Governor Christie conditionally vetoed the housing legislation that was passed by the Legislature earlier this month. In doing so, he called on the Legislature to adopt revised legislation that would allow municipalities to completely exclude lower-income households.
His proposed amendments would allow municipalities to determine their housing obligations and would reimpose growth share, a failed system that has been rejected twice by the courts as unconstitutional because it allowed municipalities to avoid their regional low- and moderate-income housing obligations.
Should the proposed amendments become law, New Jersey's housing policy will be set back four decades as New Jersey's most wealthy, job-rich towns can keep out regular working people who are bus drivers, waitresses, and public employees. We are very disappointed that the governor has sided with wealthy towns that have a history of unreasonably preventing starter homes and apartments from being built.
The decision also puts the Governor at odds with the business community, who called on him to sign the legislations he conditionally vetoed. The business community believed the legislation would be successful in helping the economy rebound. Unfortunately Governor Christie has chosen to side with the discriminatory towns, and rejected the demands of the business community.
The governor's press statement is available here. The conditional veto he signed is available here.
As reported in the Philadelphia Inquirer today, the creation of jobs and construction of homes are jeopardized in New Jersey by Gov. Christie's inaction on removing regulatory barriers to development of starter homes. The article points out that in the Governor's State of the State speech last week he spoke of "finding the path to growth" in New Jersey, but yet has failed to make progress on a number of policies important on economic stimulus, including housing reform.
As the Inquirer article reports, NAIOP New Jersey Chapter, New Jersey Business & Industry Association, International Council of Shopping Centers, New Jersey Builders Association and the New Jersey Chamber of Commerce have all signed a public letter to Governor Christie. While the letter praises the Governor for his efforts to make New Jersey "more business friendly and a place that will incentivize investment"; it also implores him to sign S1/A3447 as a "workable affordable housing policy" needed to "accelerate economic growth". The letter mentions support for the bill's elimination of the Council on Affordable Housing, elimination of the 2.5 percent commercial development fee, and clear municipal obligations.
The letter describes a workable affordable housing policy as one that will " a) provide those who desperately need affordable housing with the opportunity to find such housing; b) create a system that allow municipalities to more appropriately manage growth, including both market rate and affordable housing; c) create realistic and attainable affordable housing goals that allow development community to work hand in hand with local governments. . ."
We share the business community's desire for a workable housing policy that will help the economy rebound. While we believe that the municipal obligations in S1/A3447 are too low, we agree that the bill does provide a workable and predictable framework to get homes built. If Gov. Christie does not move forward with the legislation, he has an alternative route to get the economy moving and homes built: complying with the Appellate Division's order to expeditiously develop new COAH rules.
The Appellate Division of the New Jersey Superior Court has ordered the Christie Administration to stop delaying new COAH rules for municipal obligations for low- and moderate-income homes. These new rules would return to the predictable, well-known system in place in the 1980s and 1990s in New Jersey which created nearly 60,000 homes affordable to low- and moderate-income people. The Court is requiring a sworn certification from DCA Commissioner Lori Grifa every two weeks on progress towards new rules, with the first certification due on January 28, 2011. The Court also said that it would consider appointing a special master to oversee the agency depending on the content of the first report.
The order, which is available here, comes after the Christie Administration openly admitted to the Court that it would not meet a court-imposed deadline of March 8, 2011 for implementation of new rules for the Council on Affordable Housing (COAH). The Court in an October 8, 2010 decision invalidated COAH's prior rules as unconstitutionally giving too much discretion to municipal regulation. The Christie Administration, in a January 10 filing with the Court, said that it was not working on the rules and would not meet the deadline, even though the Court had already explicitly denied COAH permission to delay adopting the rules, a decision that COAH has now appealed to the New Jersey Supreme Court.
The foot- dragging by the Administration has a detrimental domino effect. Municipalities are reluctant to build needed starter homes because they are waiting for potential changes in obligation with the third round COAH rules or new housing legislation. Builders are stuck not knowing if their projects will move forward, and working families, low-income seniors and those with special needs are missing out on housing opportunities.
The "path to growth" Gov. Christie seeks for New Jersey cannot occur without a workable and constitutional resolution of the state's housing policy that will provide predictability for the business community and municipalities and meet the market demand for starter homes throughout the state.
I say this with all seriousness, as it has become more and more evident over the past year that Chris Christie is more interested in "being the Governor" and picking fights with anyone who crosses him (or in some instances, just crosses his path). But when it comes to the hard part like actually dealing with the structural issues in the state - whether it be the property tax costs, the pension system, the amount of debt, the ARC tunnel, funding of particular programs, the transportation fund.....you name it, and the general theme is as follows:
React with short term fix that doesn't address long term solution;
Scapegoat anyone who questions;
Demonize anyone who is in the "targeted groups" (public workers, unemployed, individuals buried in snow, other elected officials, etc.);
Verbally attack anyone who points out inconsistency between prior statements and current actions;
Ignore underlying issue;
Distract and create diversion by creating another manufactured controversy or pat self on back for something minor or expected from someone who should be doing their job.
Mayor Cory Booker was a guest on Sunday's Meet the Press, in case you missed it. Interesting that Booker advanced 2 of his key themes for that national audience - bi-partisanship and working with Gov. Christie, and - in his remarks about White House policy - clearly acting as an apologist for President Obama, or at the very least offering explanation for the president and portraying his policies in positive light.
Joining Mayor Booker on the MTP roundtable were NBC News Chief Foreign Affairs Correspondent Andrea Mitchell, former GOP congressman Joe Scarborough of msnbc's Morning Joe and GOP strategist Mark McKinnon of "No Labels".
Among topics; DADT & military preparedness, Obama and his compromised tax cut bill, 2012 elections, Booker on "our liberal base", the Afghanistan War & troop withdrawal, national economy trouble, DREAM Act, and the launch of the No Labels political group. And finally, Time Magazine's Person of the Year (and Newark benefactor) Mark Zuckerberg.
In case you missed it, Gov. Christie was featured in a piece called State Budgets: Day of Reckoning in last night's 60 Minutes on CBS (show was late, after football). The focus was the looming (or present) financial crisis some states are facing - spending more than they're taking in, and living on federal stimulus funds that will run out, failing to meet obligations and maintain a safety net for people in need. Christie's the main interview. I'm watching it as I'm posting it. Steve Kroft's interview is notable for what it asks; for example, he asks Christie about the years NJ governors skipped pension fund payments, but Christie sidesteps and Kroft lets him (though overspending by governors of both parties is mentioned in the first Web Extra, posted after the jump). Notable too, is what isn't asked. Kroft doesn't deal with the $400 million federal education dollars Christie blew, nor did he ask about Christie's tendency to find money for what's important to him, like the $65 million he scratched up to maintain Bergen County's blue laws. ARC Tunnel funding is discussed, but from the standpoint of Christie saying he can't pay for it, with no attention to most of the long-term impact of that decision, and how that will cost us, or what we now owe the feds for that.
Below: the entire segment shown last night (13:50 min).
After the jump: 2 interviews with Christie, plus one about him.
Web Extra #1: Can New Jersey's Finances Be Fixed?
Web Extra #2: How It Got So Bad
60 Minutes Overtime: Steve Kroft talks about Christie.
As Rosi just posted, Governor Christie is crowing about job creation despite no evidence that the uptick in new jobs is a result of anything he has done, and that he killed thousands of permanent jobs while costing the state well over $100 million in killing the ARC tunnel project.
This comes on the heels of Alex DeCroce declaring that jobs are "on the back burner" for the Republican agenda (and after Christie's "economic" section of his website was essentially blank) and then making a stunning statement on unemployment benefits, only to turn his comments into a lecture on how other people should act.
So, as eloquently put by Democratic Party Chairman Wisniewski put it, Every Republican legislator should weigh in (no pun intended) on whether they agree with their leaders that jobs are on the back burner, whether "the mission is accomplished" and what their leader says about the unemployed essentially being lazy because of the good life of a few hundred dollars per week in unemployment benefits.
And he is right - these two men - Christie and DeCroce are two of the leaders of the NJ Republican Party. What they say represents their party's views.
Additionally, I'd like to know how the tens (or is it hundreds) of thousands of unemployed New Jerseyans who have been out of work for weeks or months (or years) and have been trying to find work feel about the Republican Party's views of the current economic situation. And more importantly, will they remember this come 2012?
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