Healthcare motion to proceed scam: Tell NJ Senators to Vote NO!

On another Saturday night special, Senator Harry Reid will bring to the floor the vote for the healthcare bill motion to proceed tomorrow evening. Several Democratic Senators have deluded themselves into believing that they can vote to proceed and then have political cover by voting the heathcare bill down later own(ast it passes with a simple majority). But that kind of strategy only works when campaigning down the road and the citizens are asleep. I can assure you that when we reach the 2010 elections and beyond, no one will be asleep. Every senator who is complicit in this mess of a bill will be held accountable.

Living in New Jersey, many of us are used to our senators ignoring our requests in order to vote lock step with the Democratic establishment. And there is no doubt that Democrats support this bill. But Republicans don't and Independents don't. And Frank Lautenberg and Robert Menendez are supposed to represent all of us. Call them.

Lautenberg, Frank R. - (D - NJ)
324 HART SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510
(202) 224-3224
Web Form: lautenberg.senate.gov/contact/routing.cfm

Menendez, Robert - (D - NJ)
528 HART SENATE OFFICE BUILDING WASHINGTON DC 20510
(202) 224-4744
Web Form: menendez.senate.gov/contact/


There aren't going to listen but they should have to hear from you anyway.

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NJ vs NY Tax War - A battle worth losing

American's for Tax Reform had an article tuesday discussing the battle going on between NJ legislators and NY legislators. Since there is only one thing both of those esteemed groups of politicians take seriously, you can guess what the article is all about:

New York and New Jersey are locked in an epic battle. The fight: which state can raise the tax burden the highest until virtually every resident and business just leaves.

The article proceeds immediately into a depressing mode:

In mid-march, we reported on New Jersey's attempt to turn the Garden State into a depopulated ghost town by raising $1 billion in taxes on individuals, businesses, homeowners, and consumers. As a result of having raised more taxes than any other state since 2002 (a combined $22 billion), the Garden State has seen hundreds of thousands of residents flee for low tax states like Pennsylvania and Florida.

It is so sad that we in New Jersey are routinely listed in case studies as one of 4 states that you really do not want to emulate-in any category. But there was at least some good news.

In a resounding victory for fiscal imprudence, the budget will give the Empire State the worst-ranked business tax climate in the nation - stealing the number one spot away from rival New Jersey.

Read the entire article here.

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NJ's Do Nothing Legislature Returns

From this article in NJ.com:

The summer silence at the Statehouse ends Monday when the Legislature returns from a 12-week break. Leaders hope to spend the rest of the year fine-tuning a new housing law, tightening ethical standards and passing long-delayed reforms of the government's power to seize property through eminent domain.

Senate President Richard Codey (D-Essex) said lawmakers also will hold hearings aimed at combating underage binge drinking "so we can save lives on our college campuses" and cracking down on diploma mills.

This is so indicative of the useless legislature we have in this state. Businesses are leaving, people are being priced out, local municipalities are running out of money because Trenton has taken it all and what do they want to work on? Free housing, fake ethical standards and eminent domain. Oh, and binge drinking. They are complete clowns. But they at least are admitting the truth:

"I don't think we're going to be all that busy," predicted Assembly Minority Leader Alex DeCroce (R-Morris).

And Codey concedes "there's no universal, overriding issue that everybody's engaged in."

Really? Nothing pressing. Losers every one.

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Give This Non-Profit More Profits!

What would you do with 7.7 million dollars?

Are your property and state taxes going up by 13%?

The questions are related, and you should be outraged.

Let's put ourselves in Governor Corzine's mindset by reading what he said in his Governor's Statement to the FY09 Budget (many links in this post are in PDF). Emphasis in this text block is mine, to highlight things I'll talk about later.

The $32.87 billion budget I signed today makes a clear turn towards long-term fiscal responsibility, rather than continuing the past practices of pushing tough budget choices off until the future.

The Fiscal Year (FY) 2009 budget makes an unprecedented cut of $600 million from the budget I signed last year, the largest absolute reduction in State history. It relies on nearly $3 billion of actions to reduce spending to offset the mandatory and inflationary growth in the budget in order to achieve the overall $600 million reduction.

This budget reduces the size and cost of government and allocates necessary reductions in a fair and equitable manner....

In February, when I delivered an austere budget message for Fiscal Year 2009, I stated that we were facing a structural gap of approximately $3.2 billion between our expected revenues...and our anticipated spending..., based on mandatory spending and inflationary increases....

In May, the State Treasurer updated the revenue and spending projections and announced an additional gap of approximately $200 million between spending and revenues. This increased structural gap again was closed primarily with spending reductions and adjustments to areas of the budget that were projected to increase. The most important of those new reductions came from our paydown of $650 million of debt, allowing a decrease of spending on debt service by $135 million.

This budget reduces the cost of State government by nearly $300 million...In this regard, the budget provides for a reduction in the operating funds for every Executive Branch department. Departmental budgets have been directly reduced by approximately $184 million, or by an average of about 5% each.

That $7.7MM I mentioned is .02% of the total budget, or 0.24% of the expected gap in revenues.

It's 1% of the $650MM debt paydown, and 5.7% of the amount that we pay just to service our debt.

It's 2.6% of the $300MM that Corzine cut out of the state budget, and 4% of the departmental budget cuts.

What if you really wanted to spend the $7.7MM instead of using it to be fiscally responsible by paying down debt?

Well, despite the Governor's claims of austerity, there are places in the budget with net increases. He says that the budget "protects vital programs" such as "property tax relief and school funding" and "vital programs that improve public safety, protect vulnerable citizens, and otherwise meet the needs of the citizens of this State."

Like what, you ask? Please note that I am not, for the purposes of this post, arguing against any of the following allocations:

• $2 million for the purchase of 250 new state trooper vehicles


• $3.5 million for a new State Police recruit training class that will graduate approximately 100 new troopers


• $8 million for an expansion of the NJ FamilyCare program


• $12.5 million to DDD to provide community residential placements and home-based services to persons on the Community Services Waiting List


• $15 million to Division of Mental Health Services for housing and support services for 200 people currently residing at five state mental health hospitals and 100 clients currently living in the community


• $15.5 million to annualize placement and day program costs for 100 developmental center clients transitioned in FY 2008.


• $24 million for the Division of Developmental Disabilities (DDD) to transition 125 clients from the seven state developmental centers into community residential placements and day programs


• $52.5 million for the State Rental Assistance Program, $19 million of which will continue support to 2,100 currently subsidized families and $15 million of which will provide vouchers for 1,500 additional families


• $60 million as an additional subsidy to NJ Transit, a 20% increase from the $298.2 million subsidy in FY 2008.

And "vital programs" like Planned Parenthood Federation of America, which received 7,700,000 dollars from the State of New Jersey. Not only did they get to keep their money, they got an increase of a quarter-million dollars from the state.

This is completely free money to them, by the way, because they're a tax exempt organization.

Planned Parenthood's annual report says that they have excess funds to the tune of one hundred fifteen million dollars ($114,800,000), while you're being asked to cope with property tax increases because Governor Corzine wants to pay them eight million dollars ($8,000,000) that he won't give to municipalities.

Don't take my word for it. Download the annual report and take a look at page 14, where it shows Government Grants and Contracts at $337MM (one-third of their operating budget), excess of revenue over expenses at $115MM, and an increase in net assets year over year from $839MM to $951MM, or 13%.

Is the 13% profit that Planned Parenthood had this year more or less than the increase in your property taxes?

This is the "clear turn towards long-term fiscal responsibility", the "unprecedented cut of $600 million", the "mandatory and inflationary growth", an allocation of "necessary reductions in a fair and equitable manner", an "austere budget".

Register your disgust with your assemblymen and state senators, and send a message to the governor here. This was my message:

I understand that almost $8MM is allocated in the state budget for Planned Parenthood, an organization that has profits of $115MM. I further understand that this is an increase of almost a quarter-million dollars from the FY08 budget. This funding should be cut completely, immediately, rather than allow to grow.

At a time when we claim to be working in austerity conditions, and when we are talking about additional taxes being placed on industry to make up shortfalls, and when property taxes are rising to compensate for decreased state subsidies, it's unconscionable that we provide corporate welfare to any organization such that they have excess money and we citizens do not.

Thank you.
Jake Freivald
[Address redacted]

Full disclosure: I hate Planned Parenthood and am firmly pro-life. But this is something that you should be outraged at regardless of your position on abortion.

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Roche HQ Moving from NJ to California

The Newark Star-Ledger reports that one of our largest pharmaceutical companies is leaving New Jersey:

After eight decades in New Jersey, the drugmaker Hoffmann-La Roche is changing its name and moving its headquarters to California, the latest blow to the Garden State's reputation as "the nation's medicine chest."

The moves, part of parent company Roche's proposed $44 billion takeover of the California biotechnology firm Genentech, will result in the U.S. subsidiary assuming the Genentech brand name, and will mean big changes for the company's 3,240 workers in [its Nutley-Clifton campus in] New Jersey....

...the state will lose jobs with the closing of Roche's U.S. headquarters in Nutley, the shutdown of its New Jersey manufacturing facilities by 2010 and a consolidation of finance and information-technology operations.

The story says that NJ had 20% of US pharma jobs in 1990, and now has less than 14% -- a decline that occurred because NJ only held the line on pharma jobs while pharma and medical manufacturing jobs increased nationally from 207,200 to 296,000.

To be fair, the story says that it's not totally clear whether there will be a net job loss -- there will still be some R&D taking place at the Nutley-Clifton campus, and some of Genentech's jobs will move here -- but it's never a good thing to have a headquarters leave the state. It would be a lot less troubling if it weren't consistent with a bad trend for New Jersey. If we created a more positive business climate (by which I don't mean subsidies, like Corzine wants to do for stem-cell research), then it wouldn't be hard to choose us over tax-hungry California.

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Even When It's Private, It's Public

When a Republican says that private investors should invest in a particular technology, they mean that (a) the legislature has been investing with our tax dollars, which should stop, or (b) outside investors should be encouraged to invest through tax breaks and other incentives.

When a Democrat says that private investors should invest in a particular technology, they mean that they want to create a new layer of bureacracy.

Great idea. It would be funny if it weren't so pathetic.

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Senator Robert Singer, RINO?

I don't know Senator Singer, but this article from my favorite radio station, Jazz 88, bothers me:

But Senator Robert Singer, who has worked to fund stem cell research through legislation, says New Jersey will not be a leader in it because as companies cut jobs here, they add more to the ranks in other states like California. Singer says New Jersey used to be a welcoming place for big pharmaceutical companies, but not anymore.

This guy is a Republican? How about making New Jersey a welcoming place for pharmaceutical companies -- and every other kind as well -- by cutting spending, rather than by providing corporate welfare?

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Educating kids in cities - finally some sense

From this article in Newsday.com:

As New Jersey struggles to improve its poor, urban schools, the liberal-leaning state is considering a measure generally favored by conservatives _ government-backed scholarships to help pay for children to attend private schools.

Seven states and Washington, D.C. offer publicly funded school voucher programs, and New Jersey lawmakers are considering a variation for students attending some of its poorest schools, mostly in bigger cities.

"We cannot continue to look at things the way we have in the past or else this state will not be able to keep its place as one of the best," said state Sen. Raymond Lesniak, D-Union.

In a state where we have fake education initiatives like the Abbot directive from the judiciary which has only served to funnel money into corrupt politicians pockets, we finally have some concern for a real program that can work. When you have many private schools in inner cities closing due to lack of enrollment, and those same schools can educate children more effectively for 25% of the costs, why not err on the side of helping kids. But alas, everyone doesn't see it that way.

But the plan faces fierce opposition from groups who contend the state should be focusing efforts on improving poorly performing urban schools.

"Bad policy, pure and simple," said Joyce Powell, president of the state's largest teachers union.

Ah, the teacher's union. New Jersey's largest political donor to it various state assembly and senate members. Apparently, the teacher's union is more about protecting the teacher's union than teaching kids. I would love to know why the teacher's union has so much money to spread around purchasing political influence in our state.

But parents and advocates from the state's poorest cities are pressing New Jersey lawmakers to approve the measure.

Carmen Alvarado raised five children in one of the nation's poorest cities and saw enough to know she prefers a private school education over public schools.

"Schools where you worry more about your children's safety and whether they will come home at night," Alvarado said.

The Rev. Reginald Jackson, director of the New Jersey Black Ministers Council, said doing nothing would "foolishly continue down the same path."

"This legislation is not anti-public school," Jackson said. "It is pro-quality education."

Interesting to see what the parents of these kids have to say. It's really simple New Jersey. Do you want to continue to have judges throw money to corrupt organizations like the NJ Schools Construction Corp or would you rather utilize an established network or private schools in many cases right in the neighborhoods where the poor children need the most help?

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Gill's Bill is Fishy

To understand your legislators, read their press releases. The PR for Senator Nia H. Gill's "Save New Jersey Homes Act of 2008" shows how little Gill (D-Essex and Passaic) understands the current fiscal crisis.

She says, "New Jerseyans are losing their homes at an alarming rate due to foreclosure and the home loan crisis which is going on nationwide." Fair enough, foreclosures are up. But then she adds:

The Legislature has an obligation to create a statutory scheme to allow protection for consumers who are struggling to live with the effects of a crisis created by the subprime lending practices of some predatory mortgage lenders.

Okay, I get it: mortgage lenders are evil. (Never mind the fact that nobody would own houses without them.) The best response to evil people is to pass laws that prevent them from hurting you (unless the evil person is Willie Horton, in which case the best response is to put him on furlough). So how should the New Jersey Senate's new law protect homeowners from "predatory mortgage lenders"?

The bill...would require mortgage companies to notify borrowers at 60 and 30 days prior to the date that the interest rates on their home loans reset. These notices would include information regarding the current interest rate under the introductory terms of the mortgage, the date at which the interest rate resets, an explanation of how the reset interest rate would be calculated, and the best estimate by the creditor of the amount of the monthly payment after the reset date. The notice would also include a list of alternatives the borrower can pursue prior to the reset date, including refinancing or renegotiating with the creditor, or applying for an extension on the introductory interest rate.

Ah, the solution is nagging -- forcing mortgage companies to spend millions on mailings to tell people things that they should already know.

Typical Democrats. In Godless, Ann Coulter said that writing letters to the New York Times is what people who don't fight do when they think they're fighting. This is the Senate's letter to the Times. It won't do anything -- if anything, it's an additional economic strain on an already strained industry -- but it will make them feel like they did something.

Where's the beef, then? Apparently, the Senate bill calls for more bureaucracy to ensure that

borrowers would be able to apply for an extension on the introductory mortgage interest rate, up to three years, if they could not afford the monthly mortgage payments after the interest rate resets. They would have to complete a certification of extension prior to the reset date, indicating that they do not have sufficient monthly income, after deductions for necessary living expenses, to pay the monthly payment on the post-reset mortgage, and that they agree to continue payments during the extension period of principal and interest calculated at the introductory rate. Eligible borrowers would still have to pay back the interest deferred during the extension when they sell their homes, and would forfeit the deferment of interest if the borrower fails to make regular payments during the extension.

...in other words, it puts the burden of absorbing the cashflow crunch onto the lender.

So the evil predatory mortgage lenders will be forced to spend more money on notifications to people and to do the things that they do anyway to avoid foreclosures, regardless of the lender's financial situation. This is in an industry that has seen billions of dollars in writedowns and tens of thousands of layoffs. The result is that they'll be more conservative in their loan-making, which will make it less likely that people will be able to afford New Jersey housing. (And have I mentioned property taxes recently?)

Good thing our legislators are spending their taxpayer-funded salaries thinking up ideas like this.

The press release for the Assembly's version of the bill (A-2780, link in PDF) deals with this fact in an even funnier way.

Finally, the legislation would benefit mortgage lenders by providing them with a continuing revenue source. Many lenders have had to close due to declining revenues linked to the loss of mortgage payments coupled by the additional expenses of having to own and maintain foreclosed properties. Lenders have stated they do not want to be real estate owners, particularly since the drop in real estate values means many cannot recoup their original investment.

Interesting. Before this bill, was there a requirement for lenders to foreclose on their borrowers? If not, then how does this "provide" them with a continuing revenue source? It simply forces them to do things that, if it were in their best interest, they would do anyway.

And as long as we're talking about their press release, consider their justification for the bill:

According to published reports, foreclosure rates in February 2008 – the latest month for which such statistics are available – were up 60 percent nationally over the same time from last year. A total of 223,651 homes received at least one notice from a lenders related to an overdue payment, with nearly half of the homes slipping into default for the first time.

New Jersey saw 53,652 foreclosure filings in 2007, a 34 percent increase over 2006.

Nationwide, over 2.2 million foreclosure filings – including default notices, auction sale notices and bank repossessions – were reported on 1.3 million properties in 2007, a 75 percent increase over the prior year. In excess of 1 percent of all U.S. households were in some stage of foreclosure during the year.
Industry analysts estimate that nationwide another 1.5 million mortgages are due to reset in 2008 and that as many as three million subprime mortgages could end up in foreclosure over the next three years.

They're trying to mislead us somewhat, of course -- the 2.2 million filings are up by 75% nationwide, but we're talking about 1.3 million properties -- but even if you look at the things they say in a straightforward way you see that things aren't as bad as they seem.

• "Nationwide, over 2.2 million foreclosure filings...were reported...in 2007, a 75 percent increase over the prior year", but "New Jersey saw...a 34 percent increase" in filings. That tells me that we're doing half as badly as the rest of the country.
• "In excess of 1 percent of all U.S. households were in some stage of foreclosure during the year" tells me that more than 98% of all U.S. households are not in dire straits.

Which makes this comment by Assemblyman L. Harvey Smith (D-Jersey City) all the more galling: "We must act, and act swiftly, before an entire generation of New Jerseyans are forced to join the ranks of the homeless."

I'm convinced that we need to reform our school system just so we can stop calling 1% of New Jerseyans "an entire generation" and to stop calling a 50% increase "a half a penny".

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NJ - Hamilton about to lose new Genesis Biotech project

From today's Trentonian, it looks like the writing is on the wall for Hamilton to lose a 1000 jobs business due to typical New Jersey anti-business dithering:

Word broke this week that the developer of the research facility has become discouraged by a year of being mired in local red tape as well as intensified inflationary pressures.

State economic development officials on the state level in Pennsylvania, meanwhile, have lately made an offer to woo the project to their side of the river.

In response, Mayor John Bencivengo hastily fired off a letter to Corzine requesting financial or any other help in keeping Hamilton competitive.

It seems that New Jersey can't seem to get its act together even when it means new jobs. What is sad is that while the Governor is always ready to propose a new tax on those already living here, he doesn't seem to have time for new business UNLESS is has to do with his doomed stem cell initiatives. But alas, he is weighing in:

“We heard back from the governor’s office that they are sensitive to the situation, and they’re going to do everything in their power to ensure that Genesis stays here,” Angarone told The Trentonian yesterday.

This is strange as well. Why would one have to "hear back" from a Governor who allegedly should be right in the middle of this process. You can be sure that Ed Rendell has his hands in incentives PA intends to give this company to go to Pennsylvania.

But then the developer dropped the bomb that the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania had offered the temptation of some juicy “incentives” — which, in an inflation-saturated age, could pose a real threat to Hamilton keeping the project.

Sad. Read the entire article here.

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