Good and Hard

Recollect the scene from Animal House, when the Kevin Bacon character, resplendent in his ROTC uniform, attempts to reassure the panicky parade crowd that "all is well", only to be stampeded into the sidewalk, flattened by the fleeing mob?

Already, New Jersey economic development officials find themselves in the unenviable position of reassuring the populace that "all is well". A few folks walk purposefully past them; the mob of taxpayers grows restless, eyeing avenues of retreat. They suspect, rightly, that all is not well.

One is sorely tempted to speculate that New Jersey Democrats, like the Deltas, WANT the mob to panic and flee. They keep firing fiscal explosives and throwing masses of marbles under the feet of the economy. And, with this budget, they’re aiming their deathmobile battering ram squarely at the foundations of New Jersey business.

Long have I entertained the sneaking suspicion that the Democrats’ policies are so consistently boneheaded and insane that they CAN’T be mistakes. Corzine, Roberts, Codey, and the Dems are many things, but stupid isn’t one of them. Since the consequences of their policy proposals are so obvious and predictable, it compels the conclusion that they must intend these results.

Consider the triple whammy of confiscatory taxes, oppressive regulation, and stifling "environmental" restrictions. The net effect of these rules is to drive people – young, middle class folks with young, growing families, at the start of what promise to be lucrative careers, and older, retired, middle class folks too "rich" to qualify for subsidies but not rich enough to ignore ever increasing costs – out of state.

Some groups in the Democratic coalition openly admit that such is precisely their intent. Consider the Sierra Club. It advocates, essentially, for the complete cessation of growth in the suburbs (except, incongruously, for Mount Laurel developments, the very definition of "sprawl"). At the same time, it supports mandatory insurance coverage for contraceptives, expressly on the grounds that such might tend to keep the population down (an inane assumption, but one they articulate) Couple this expressly anti-people position with proposals such as the anti-people Highlands Law and one detects a pattern: reduce the number of people in NJ.

By whatever means necessary. Prohibit them from building houses. Proscribe any new business construction. Increase their taxes. Tax their employers. Make them walking entitlements so that no business can afford to hire them.

One wonders: what type of society do the Democrats actually want? The exodus to PA – and elsewhere – is already apparent. Private industry, in NJ, actually lost jobs in the past five years, under the encouragement of the McGreevey-Codey administrations. At the same time, government employment mushroomed. Governor McGreevey ... er, Corzine (sorry, Freudian slip) now proposes to continue this legacy, urging an increase in state spending about five times the rate of inflation, and massively increasing taxes.

Perhaps, they envision a society in which the only folks remaining behind are rich liberals, – who can afford massive estates, and don’t much mind taxes – and the little people, primarily immigrants, who wait their tables, pump their gas, cut their lawns, and take care of their 1.3, private school educated kids?

Corzine’s budget program is a disaster. He claims that he was bequeathed a massive deficit. Oh, and who might the authors of that legacy be? McGreevey, Codey, and the Democratic Legislative majority?

And, yet, knowing full well what to expect, the voters elected them anyway.

To repeat Mark Twain’s oft quoted observation about democracy: "Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want and deserve to get it, good and hard."

The people voted for these "representatives". Despite the incontestable evidence of the last four years, and his own hugely expensive political record, the voters believed Corzine when he said he saw no need for higher taxes and would increase rebates. They believed him when, on his campaign website, he promised "immediate steps to rein in government spending". They believed him when, during the campaign, he said, "I promise you one thing, I'll be honest when I sit in that governor's chair." (Perhaps he was being absolutely truthful: now, when he occupies that chair, he’s being honest. That promise didn't apply on the campaign trail.)

The people are about to get it, good and hard.

And anyone standing between the people and the exits had best move out of the way.