The Spirit of Bipartisanship

According to our Speaker, a new spirit of bi-partisanship reigns. Our Board list the other day contained more Republican-sponsored bills than were probably posted in the entirety of the last session. Nothing especially substantive, mind you, but, in the past, even the fluffy bills were sponsored by Democrats.

Perhaps one might excuse a bit of cynicism, but I’ve heard it all before.

A republican form of government depends upon representatives. And for people to make intelligent electoral choices, they need to know where their candidates stand on issues of importance. In short, for democracy to work, candidates must be asked direct questions and must answer, openly, honestly, and completely.

Constrained by old fashioned concepts, such as honesty and shame, when I campaign, I say precisely what I mean and mean precisely what I say. If the people disagree with my views strongly enough, they possess the power to replace me with someone more attuned to their philosophy.

Silly, gullible me. All too often, I assume that when a candidate – or an officeholder – makes a statement, or a vow, they can be counted upon to (a) mean what they say and (b) keep their promises.

And, so, for instance, I actually believed McGreevey when he promised not to borrow and spend, like Whitman had. And when he promised not to raise taxes. And when he promised to hold the line on spending, and bring ethics back to government, etc., etc., and so forth. When McGreevey and the Democrats imposed the fraudulently named "millionaires’ tax", I believed them when they said that every nickel raised would be devoted to property tax rebates. I really did.

Oh, well, honesty compels me; no, I didn’t. I knew what was coming. I publicly wagered – Fred Snowflack will back me up on this – that McGreevey would propose major tax increases in his first budget. An easier bet would be hard to imagine.

Except, perhaps, this one: when Governor Corzine gives his budget speech, he will report that, having reviewed and exhausted all the other options, unfortunately, in the spirit of sharing the pain, another huge tax increase will be required this year. And he will propose a budget which spends more than did the one last year, to which the Legislature – after much posturing and handwringing – will almost certainly add spending.

I mean, I would LIKE to believe that the Democrats are serious about cutting spending. But their record over the past four years is such an unmitigated disaster, such a blatant and horrible example of fiscal mismanagement and governmental malpractice, that no honest observer dares give them the benefit of the doubt.

Our newly elected Speaker, in his inaugural speech, offered that we must do ANYTHING to cut property taxes. Oh? Just last year, he and his caucus proposed a constitutional convention devoted to property taxes. Specifically excluded from the subjects the convention delegates might consider were ALL spending, Mt. Laurel, and Abbott v. Burke. That is to say, we will consider ANYTHING to cut property taxes, except those factors singularly responsible for creating the problem in the first place.

According to the Quinnipiac poll – which, as we know, is NEVER wrong – almost three out of five NJ residents prefer spending cuts (with cuts in services) to tax increases in order to solve the budget deficit. But the Democrats have just spent the last 4 years bloating the budget by an additional 30% over an already obscene baseline, all while crowing about "balanced budgets" and fiscal responsibility. (NOT ONE of these budgets has been "balanced"; every single one relied upon borrowing and gimmicks, albeit the last not as bad as the first three.) What would make anyone sanguine about this next budget, given the fiscal train wrecks of the previous four?

The point being that the words which issued forth from Democratic mouths these last four years bore absolutely no relationship to reality or the truth. With due respect to the Speaker, if they found $350 million in efficiencies and cuts last year, as he avers, they only missed the relevant target by about $4 billion. Our erstwhile acting Governor – while given media plaudits for identifying problems he himself helped create – did less than nothing to solve them and, in his waning days in office, couldn’t resist the temptation to distribute taxpayer boodle to favored groups. His defense? They were "worthy programs". But there’s no getting around it: if we’re to get our fiscal house in order, a lot of "worthy programs" will need to do without.

Let’s be clear: if one wishes to reform state spending and property taxes, one cannot spend $12000 per year per kid on Abbott pre-school. THAT’S PRE SCHOOL at a tuition 2-3 times higher than most Montessori programs. We can’t be subsidizing health insurance for people making $102,000. We can’t be spending $25K per year on urban public school kids. We can’t be pouring billions more into urban school construction. We can’t expand existing programs, or spend hundreds of millions more on an industrial policy, aka taxpayer funded stem cell centers. We need to reduce the size and scope of government.

We will need fewer workers on all levels of government, who receive 401(k)s, not defined benefit pensions. They must contribute to the costs of their health insurance. We need to repeal numerous health insurance mandates, which drive up costs. We need to recosider municipal/school aid formulae and explore money saving ideas like vouchers.

And if, as the Governor offered in his inaugural address, we want to adopt pro-growth policies which encourage companies with high paying jobs to locate here, that means repealing the tax increases on business and the "millionaires’ tax", the primary result of which has been to increase housing prices and employment opportunities in Bucks County.

So, if what the Democrats want is a bipartisan effort to reduce spending, pare government, and cut taxes, they’ve come to the right place. If, on the other hand, they simply want Republicans to join them in a fiscal suicide pact, we should respectfully – but emphatically – decline.