We are our own enemy in NJ

I have met the enemy and he is us. The governor successfully has the population fighting with state workers and teachers, who don’t make much more than the average resident and whose benefits are only slightly better, in lieu of us questioning how much money is being spent on all the duplicate administrative expenses in all levels of government across the state. And that doesn’t even include the additional funds the governor has added to his staff’s payroll. In the governor's world, it is ok for us to hate on the teacher who makes $45,000 for wanting a raise of 4%, which I agree that in this economy where many equally educated persons received a much smaller raise, if any, seems high, but it is ok for a position on his staff, already making twice as much as the teacher, to get a 10-20% raise over last year.

I hate hypocrites but we the People are the ones with the messed up priorities. We care more about lowering investments in our future by reducing education spending then care about extra money wasted on administrative expenses (and for those who say talent to work in the government’s office requires money, well, good news — it is a buyer’s market; there are plenty of very highly educated people under or unemployed right now).

Why not rally against all those wasteful politically connected positions? In this connected world, where we are all wired and, more importantly, dependent on state funding, home rule is less important. I’d rather pay for teachers or police then pay for the friend of a friend’s daughter to have a $60,000 administrative job at the municipal building where she spends the majority of her time talking to co-workers in other offices because she doesn’t have enough work to fill her days.

However, since tearing each other apart seems to be what gets attention, I guess I'll follow the rest of the sheeple. Our great-grandparents made sacrifices for our grandparents and our grandparents made sacrifices for our parents. However when it was our parents generation's turn (roughly the baby boomers) they demanded tax cuts that have destroyed investments in our country's future, leaving roads, schools and our general infrastructure in dire shape as we attempt to compete in the global 21st century knowledge based economy with a 1950s mentality all so they could enjoy a leisurely retirement when they are done raping the economy. In the meantime, I am waiting for the funding for my town's senior citizen center to come up for a vote. Revenge is a dish best served cold.

How was that? Did I sound angry enough? Did I correctly unfairly blame an entire population for the view who drank our Machiavellian governor's kool aide by blaming teachers and not the official corruption we allow? Oh, darn, there I go again -- calling the governor names in lieu of laying out the facts as to why I believe we have erred in taking out our anger over excessive spending on those who actually do the work while those who make the decisions get ever richer on our tax payer money. But I must admit, it is much easier, and more fun, to just throw statements out there.

New Jersey's Machiavellian Governor

He has spent all his time attacking teachers and lower level state workers, many of whom are not that well paid and are our friends, neighbors, family or ourselves. In the meantime he has not done a thing, at least publicly, to tackle the real corruption and waste brought about by patronage jobs nor spoke of eliminating high level, six figure positions in state government. Even the majority of the 1,300 out of 63,500 executive branch level jobs he is cutting appear to be lower level employees directly involved in providing services to citizens. And people wonder why NJ Governor Chris Christie has declining popularity poll numbers? Ha.

This reminds me of upper management in a friend's company. When they announced wage freezes last year for all employees, somebody asked if that included bonuses, which only higher level management received. After some hemming and hawing they admitted the freeze did not include bonuses. As soon as they showed that we were not really all in this financial mess together, people started leaving the meeting (higher ups were in a separate location anyway).

While I agree that state spending needs to be cut, and generally support the cuts, the Governor has not shown we are all in this together. When the Governor stops picking on people who actually work for a living, providing services that citizens actually use, and starts emptying cubes and offices in state and county offices across the state of patronage jobs, he will have my full support. Until then I just see another Machiavellian who is having us, the mice, fight over the crumbs, because some of us have bigger crumbs, while the high level politically appointed fat cats keep their tax payer funded cheese.

Bread and circuses in NJ continues

The government, especially the Republicans, have done a wonderful job over the last decade of championing the uneducated and uninterested over the highly qualified. Questioning is bad, following what the conservatives want is good. Al Gore is a boring policy wonk who should not be President because he is too dull and knowledgeable. Sarah Palin is qualified as President because she knows the common person. What a bunch of horse hockey! I don't want my equal to run the country. The world is a dangerous place. I want someone better then me.

The other thing to congratulate NJ government on is the shifting of the public's ire from their own corrupt friends to people who actually do work. Granted the teachers' unions haven't helped themselves by rejecting 4% raises out of hand as too little when professionals, as equally qualified and educated in their own fields as teachers, are happy to get a 2.5% raise in this economy. Still, I want teachers to be adequately compensated. The world and the economy are more knowledge intensive. Our survival as a nation will depend on our children being able to compete and surpass our competitors.

So, going back to my previous point, congratulations to the government for changing the public's ire. Now those friends of friends at all levels can continue to hide their high school graduate children in $75,000 patronage jobs at town halls that would pay, maybe $25,000 on the open market. All those 6 figure patronage jobs in Trenton will also be safe. But woe be the one who actually does something useful and tries to do the same.

Yes NJ is in a bad financial situation as we reap the "rewards" of past choices. Yes change needs to be done. And I generally support the governor for tackling the state's long term financial problems. However, until I hear the governor announce he is cutting state patronage jobs by 20%, which should include getting local party bosses to reduce their patronage levels (which probably won't happen as that would reduce their influence), all I hear from him is that he is shifting tax burdens to the local levels, as towns scramble to cover lost aid, while doing nothing to get rid of the silent state corruption our taxes pay for.

So don't worry high school secretary whose father knows the right person to let you make more money then many more qualified persons in various fields, you're safe. But if you fill our potholes, check out our library books, process my lawsuit against the contractor who took my money and ran or, worst of all, teach our children to be productive citizens -- look out! You're in the crosshairs.

Money for nothing and tax cuts ain't happening

NJ's Governor has finally realized the state is broke and wants to slash the state's budget by a few billion. Yay. He wants to do this, in part, by freezing the salaries of state workers or even ... gasp .... laying them off. Do the state workers getting their salaries frozen or, possibly being laid off, include political appointees who don't really provide anything not already being done by the people actually doing the work? Cause that I approve. If he's going to noose a few guys at the motor vehicle office, meaning I spend a day instead of just an hour or so conducting my business, then I might have a problem.

Personally, I'd like to see the Governor attack the bureaucracy. If you don't personally serve the public, or can someway prove you directly supervise or work with those who do, you should expect to be forced to justify your position. Can't do it, expect to look for a new job or take additional responsibilities. As to salary freezes and benefit reductions: my company will still have raises, but the percentage will be dropped to about 2%. Benefits aren't being reduced per se, but we'll have to pay more.

By the way, if we ever get the finances in order, we really need to invest in automating our back offices. How much head count is needed to answer questions or provide directions to the public that could easily be provided automatically via the internet? For example, I needed to call an office for some information on how to do something and, more importantly, fill out some forms. Why did I call? Because the information wasn't available on the internet. Instead, I spoke to a real live person, which was nice in this day of automated service, who gave me the information I needed. When I hung up, I realized that the information could have been provided on the internet. That made me wonder: how much of our human resources expenses could be reduced by simply investing in a better computer system?

Of course, financial problems aren't limited to NJ. There is a chance that interest on the national debt will eat up most of the federal budget by 2010; not some time in the future -- this year. This is what happens when you pay the minimum on your credit card balance. Let's face it, the economic "boom" of the 00s was from maxing out the country's credit cards. Worse, we don't really have anything concrete to show for it. I could understand it if we had plowed the money back into our nation's infrastructure, as an investment into our economy that would pay for itself in the coming decades, but that would've been duller than the fun we had.