Op-Ed: Congressmen Holt and Pallone on the Environment and Energy

by: Rush Holt and Frank Pallone

Sat Jul 29, 2006 at 08:00:00 AM EDT

Unfortunately, President Bush and the Republican majority in Congress have taken a totally different tack.  They view environmental protection not as an opportunity for a better future, but as a hindrance to corporate bottom lines.  Rather than protecting public health and our natural world, they have sought to reward campaign contributors by loosening critical environmental regulations.

Nowhere is this failure more evident than in federal energy policy.  Our country is in critical need of policies that lead us to a sustainable energy future to end our unhealthy dependence on fossil fuels.  Rather than adopting meaningful measures to increase fuel economy standards in cars, promote energy efficiency, and encourage the use of renewable sources, however, Republicans have chosen to give tax breaks to oil, gas, and coal companies even at a time when these companies are raking in record profits. 

This backwards energy policy, which pretends that we can drill our way out of our energy problems, is making the looming threat of global warming even worse.  Unfortunately, President Bush and Congressional Republicans have blinders on when it comes to global warming, alleging falsely that scientific opinion is divided as to whether human behavior is a contributing factor.  Such a failure of leadership is inexcusable.  We need to wean ourselves of our addiction to fossil fuels and take concrete actions to reduce the threat of global warming in the long term.

Our responsibility to protect the environment continues at the local level.  It is essential that we preserve open space and wetlands, which play a valuable role in decreasing the frequency and severity of floods like the ones that have hit towns throughout Central New Jersey in recent years.  We also need to protect our beaches and oceans from the threat of offshore drilling or other sources of pollution that could pose threats to beachgoers and to marine life.

Protecting our natural environment should be a primary responsibility of all levels of government.  This nation – and especially New Jersey – needs leadership from its elected officials to put the public's interest in protecting the environment, seeking a sustainable energy future, and preventing dangerous global warming above corporate interests.

Op-Ed: The Iraq War Quiz

by: Asm. Gusciora

Sat Jul 22, 2006 at 08:00:00 AM EDT

Make sure you read all the way to question #12, which proves that NJ Members of Congress are wiser than the man in the White House.

The great military thinker, Carl Von Clausewitz, theorized that “war is the extension of politics by other means.”  Many Americans today feel that President Bush’s commitment of U.S. troops to Iraq has been a rush to judgment whereby much of the hostilities could have been avoided had we allowed the UN arms inspectors to finish their job.  After all, then-U.S. presidential candidate George Bush in 2000 reasoned (hard to believe by himself) that we were simply not the “world’s police.”  In making up your own mind about the War in Iraq, I thought the following would be helpful:

1. Of the 19 terrorists who hijacked planes on September 11, 2001, how many were Iraqi nationals or were trained in Iraq?

  a. 18
  b. 12
  c. 6
  d. 0

2. Other than the United States (130,000+ troops) or Great Britain (8,000+ troops), which three nations have sent the next most troops (6,000 combined)?

  a. Russia, Germany, Spain
  b. Germany, Australia, New Zealand
  c. Spain, Greece, Australia
  d. South Korea, Italy, Poland

3. Which Western Hemisphere nation below is a member of the U.S. led “Coalition of the Willing”?

  a. Canada
  b. Mexico
  c. Brazil
  d. El Salvador

4. Which of the following countries from the original U.S. led coalition is still participating in ground operations in Iraq?

  a. Spain
  b. New Zealand
  c. Norway
  d. Albania

5. Last year, the Bush Administration poured more than $70 million into school construction projects in Iraq.  What amount of federal dollars allotted to New Jersey schools was cut from the federal budget?

  a. $47 million
  b. $96 million
  c. $150 million
  d. $318 million

6. How many New Jerseyans could receive healthcare coverage if all the money New Jersey taxpayers are paying for the war in Iraq went to healthcare instead?

  a. 100,866
  b. 285,950
  c. 920,765
  d. 1,216,716

Op-Ed: A Discrimination Emergency in The Bluest of States

by: Steven Goldstein, Garden State Equality chair

Sat Jul 15, 2006 at 12:28:06 AM EDT

  You don't have to look far for victims.  One of them is progressive leader Jacqui Charvet, who spent her entire life in New Jersey, never wanting to live anywhere else, until discrimination recently forced her to move thousands of miles away.  Jacqui was an active member of Garden State Equality and had been communications director of the Gender Rights Advocacy Association of New Jersey, the state's transgender organization.  She was as devoted to progressive activism in New Jersey as they come.

  By profession, Jacqui was and remains a computer technician and web designer.  When she began her job search in 2002, she applied to companies across the state.  As she received rejection after rejection, some employers were painfully honest:  They would not hire Jacqui because she is transgender.  It didn't matter that she has impeccable credentials, state-of-the-art knowledge and one of the warmest, most engaging personalities imaginable.  Employers could not get past their own prejudice.  One potential employer sneered right in Jacqui's face:  We won't hire you because we're looking for a real woman.

  Jacqui's stack of rejections piled up into the hundreds, as did her days of not having a job.  In fact, years passed without Jacqui's being able to surmount New Jersey's discrimination emergency against the transgender community.  She was unemployed in 2002.  2003.  2004.  2005.  2006. 

  After all those years of pain, Jacqui finally found a job earlier this year – in Florida of all places.  Imagine that:  Jacqui was able to conquer discrimination by moving from New Jersey, which we at Garden State Equality call The State That Doesn't Hate, to Florida, the State That Doesn't Rate on any progressive scale.  The biggest loser is New Jersey itself, now experiencing a brain drain with the loss of Jacqui and other qualified transgender citizens who have had to leave the state.  Adding insult to injury, Jacqui's got Jeb Bush.

Op-Ed: New Jersey higher ed cuts spell disaster

by: Kim Pearson

Sat Jul 01, 2006 at 12:38:15 PM EDT

The colleges and universities have announced a number of drastic measures that they will take if the cuts go through, including increasing class sizes, cutting student aid, cutting programs (and in some cases, faculty lines), freezing hiring, deferring maintenance, and hiking tuition. At TCNJ, we’ve been told to expect to spend the first week of January, 2007 without a paycheck. Op-ed writers have been quick to characterize the proposed cuts as counter-productive and short-sighted. It’s also been widely noted that New Jersey is contemplating these cuts at a time when states such as Pennsylvania are increasing their investment in higher education.

The state’s underinvestment in higher education has increased the burdens on college students and their families. A white paper posted to the website of the Hall Institute found that inconsistent state funding practices over the last 15 years have caused tuition prices at state colleges to rise faster than the rate of inflation. According to the paper, entitled Making Public Higher Education Affordable in New Jersey, “Even taking account of state and federal financial aid, public higher education has become unaffordable for low and lower middle income families, and threatens soon to become unaffordable for the middle class. Since higher education is a powerful generator of opportunity and increased wages, the State faces a tremendous loss due to its failing commitment to higher education.”

Op-Ed: Taxes Kill? Not Necessarily

by: Jon Shure

Sat Jun 24, 2006 at 08:00:00 AM EDT

If death and taxes are certain, what about the political death that comes from voting for taxes?

The fear of losing one’s job because of voter backlash runs deep among New Jersey politicians. Just say “1991” and they freak. The battle of the budget this season is colored by legislators acting as though supporting Governor Corzine’s proposed sales tax increase was like jumping into a pit of poisonous snakes.

But, if you look at election results over the 40 years that New Jersey has been imposing broad-based state taxes, the heebie-jeebies are unwarranted. Yes, 1991 was a disastrous year for Democrats who did the right thing and voted for the Florio tax increases that—had they not been repealed—would have left this state in far better shape than it is today. The income tax cuts of 1994-96 alone cost New Jersey over $15 billion in lost revenue.

But 1991 turns out to be closer to the exception to the rule than the rule itself.

New Jersey’s sales tax came to be in 1966, under Gov. Richard J. Hughes, a Democrat. Actually it was the Republicans’ idea. Hughes wanted an income tax, couldn’t get it and settled for what was then a 3% sales tax. In the legislative elections the following year it wasn’t even an issue.

New Jersey finally got an income tax in 1976. People thought that would be the end of Gov. Brendan Byrne, another Democrat. They started to refer to him as OTB, for “one-term Byrne.” But the guy got reelected in a landslide the next year.

In 1981, Tom Kean gets elected Governor, echoing the Republican supply-side mantra that helped Ronald Reagan become president the year before. Kean promised to cut the income and sales taxes. Instead he raised both, with a lot of help from Democratic legislators. Kean was reelected with an ungodly 70% of the vote. The late Alan Karcher, who was Assembly Speaker and did a lot of heavy lifting for the tax hikes, loved to tell about how Kean was begging behind closed doors to get enough Dem votes to pass the tax hikes, only to go before the press and say he’s holding his nose while signing them. Smart.

Then there was the millionaires’ tax of 2004. When we at New Jersey Policy Perspective first called for an upper-bracket tax increase to help balance the state budget and recapture some of the windfall from federal tax mostly for the rich, conventional wisdom said no way. Legislators felt they couldn’t vote for a tax increase and survive. A year and a half later, with groups like ACORN, Citizen Action and the NJEA mobilized in the Fairness Alliance and canvassing like crazy, the equation was reversed. They couldn’t vote against this tax increase and survive.

In last fall’s Assembly elections, not only did no one lose their seat because of voting for the income tax hike, no one even got attacked by an opponent for doing so.

So, here we are, staring down another budget crisis. We’re paying the price for a decade or so of bad decisions that almost always were made because the people we elected—from both parties—thought we couldn’t handle the truth. They forgot how to pay the bills; thought the party could last forever.

There are ways out of this. And they don’t have to involve hurtful spending cuts or meanspirited attacks on state workers’ benefits. We can raise the money this state needs. Take the sales tax, for example, which Corzine wants to raise. NJPP put out a report the other day showing how the tax—which turns 40 on July 1—needs a giant overhaul. It taxes the transactions of a generation ago, but today people spend more on services than goods, and many of those services didn’t exist 40 years ago. And it is riddled with inconsistencies, many of which hurt lower income people. Laundry detergent is taxed but taking clothes to the cleaners isn’t. Renting a car is taxed but hiring a limo and chauffer isn’t—that sort of thing.

Facing those problems would bring in billions of dollars a year in new revenue, and we wouldn’t even have to raise the rate above the current 6%. You could use some of that new money to raise the state income tax threshold, expand the Earned Income Tax Credit and do other things so low-income people would still come out ahead—and the state would be on the road to fiscal health.

All it would take is a little courage. And a better reading of history than what we get from people who think 1991 is the whole story.

Jon Shure is president of the liberal think tank New Jersey Policy Perspective.

New Feature - Weekend Op-Ed

by: Thurman Hart

Fri Jun 23, 2006 at 09:19:59 AM EDT

Tomorrow, our first Op-Ed will be presented by Jon Shure of New Jersey Policy Perspective.  In upcoming weeks, Professor Kim will stop by, as well as Congressmen Holt and Pallone, and our new NJ Public Advocate.