Dear Christie

Dear Christie:

Thank you very much for offering me the opportunity to join "It’s My Party, Too". I think this letter is the first time you’ve ever made the slightest attempt to communicate with me, so I am truly honored. Of course, we served together for, what, six years? And, in that time, I never once heard the dulcet tones of your melodious voice on the other end of the receiver. Nor did I ever receive anything even approaching a personal letter. In fact, during our service together, I don’t remember you ever making even the slightest attempt to reach out to the conservatives in the GOP, so this letter represents something of a milestone, and I thank you for it.

I must, however, respectfully decline you offer to join your PAC. First, I don’t have a lot of money. This results, in no small measure, from the crushing tax burden imposed upon New Jersey residents by a massive governmental edifice, about which the last two (elected) Republicans to serve as Governor did less than nothing. In fact, they made it immeasurably worse. I note that both of these two former Governors are on the advisory board for IMP.

Now, IMP asserts a belief in fiscal responsibility. Oh? Tom Kean – advisory board member – ran for office in 1981 pledging to do for New Jersey what Ronald Reagan was then doing for the Country. Instead, the first thing he did upon assuming the office was to impose a massive tax increase. Later, when the Reagan tax cuts produced a huge economic boom, instead of cutting taxes back to their previous level – or eliminating the income tax entirely – Kean went on a spending spree, more than doubling the size of state government in eight short years.

At the same time, he (re)appointed such legal luminaries as Robert Wilentz to the Supreme Court. He did precisely nothing to combat ever rising property taxes or to make tax increases more difficult. He did nothing to evict the courts from making expensive policy decisions. His absurd spending left the state with a massive deficit that the Democrats used as an excuse to raise taxes even further.

The next Republican to sit in Drumthwacket, during her campaign, called tax cuts "election year gimmicks" before an election eve conversion. Giving credit where it’s due, her first term's budgets – while not sufficiently austere for me – were veritable exemplars of restraint, compated to what came before and after. Unfortunately, having been reelected, she abandoned whatever spending restraint she might once have favored. She, and her IMP-like successor, embarked on a spending spree only a Democrat could love.

At the same time, she set horrible precedents, by borrowing for operating expenses, raiding the pension fund (and other dedicated funds) for spending, borrowing without the people’s consent, the use of gimmicks and one times, etc. Essentially nothing about this Administration could be properly defined as "conservative", and "responsible" would not be the word any rational observer would employ to describe her outrageous fiscal policies.

Indeed, this "fiscally responsible" Governor – at a time of record surpluses and revenues – actually proposed to increase the gas tax – so that we could borrow more. Fortunately for the people, a whole cadre of Neanderthal Republicans – Guy Gregg, Scott Garrett, Rick Merkt, Marion Crecco, Guy Talarico, and yours truly, to name a few – loudly and publicly objected, scuttling the foolish idea.

Let’s see, massive tax increase despite record surplus; is that "fiscally conservative"?

Too, this Republican Governor – instead of adopting real property tax reform – chose the idiotic rebate scheme, easily susceptible to perversion or elimination. (Both happened) She held one press conference on tax limitation measures, and, then, the proposal evaporated into the ether. She appointed perhaps the only candidate worse than Chief Justice Wilentz to replace him. She did essentially nothing to combat judicial policy ukases and showered money on corrupt cities, run by Democrats.

And, on social issues, she allied herself with the 2% of the population which believes that partial birth abortion constitutes good policy. She made NO efforts to deal with the Legislative sponsors of the proposed ban, or even discuss her thoughts. Indeed, her veto message for that bill offered some very positive ideas and, had it been so much as discussed a few weeks earlier, might have formed the basis for a mutually acceptable proposal. But, typically abjuring dialog with the Legislature, she cast a veto which almost cost her an unloseable election against a complete nonentity, turning a Democratic nobody into an inevitability.

In her own home state, the GOP – dominated by precisely the sort of Republicans IMP supports – has lost seats in 8 consecutive Legislative elections. Once a dominant force, with overwhelming control of the State House, the GOP in New Jersey is, today, little more than a minor annoyance to the Democrats, one they can essentially ignore. (Part of this, of course, arises from blatantly unconstitutional Legislative districts, imposed by the Supreme Court, much of the membership of which this Republican Governor appointed.) Many of the IMP-ish "Republicans" in the Legislature joined with the McGreevey-Dems to support the fraudulently named "Millionaires’ Tax". Not my definition of "fiscally responsible"; do you differ?

The record made by the last two Republican Governors of New Jersey stands as a mute example for the rest of the Country: elect people who endorse IMP, and end up like New Jersey, mired in deficits, drowning in debt, taxed into oblivion. In the years since the second Republican took office, more than 300,000 American citizens fled New Jersey for less expensive pastures elsewhere. That is NOT a record of which to be proud. Nothing less than an abject apology and plea for forgiveness suffices.

We know that IMP members have essentially no patience for those benighted souls who don’t think abortion should be a sacrament. But, on their own terms, IMP folks, here in New Jersey, failed miserably. Their economic policies produced unparalleled fiscal catastrophe -- and Democratic Governors and legislative majorities. If they possessed anything in the way of a vision for New Jersey at all, it cannot be distinguished from that of the Democrats. It’s difficult to imagine how a McGreevey Administration, had it taken office in 1997, could have done any worse than the allegedly Republican Administration it would have replaced. Indeed, a Democratic Administration might have encouraged the Republican legislative majorities to actually act like Republicans, if only out of crass partisanship.

New Jersey is a fiscal and economic basket case, in no small measure because IMP-type "Republicans" proved themselves to be anything but fiscal conservatives. Leaving aside social issues – strange as it may seem, some folks (like three-fourths of the country) consider endorsement of partial birth abortion extreme – the IMP folks simply cannot be taken at their word on fiscal issues. When they wielded power, they spent like drunken sailors, (unconstitutionally) borrowed like maniacs, and massively increased taxes (or tried to, only to be stifled by the conservatives they excoriate).

We have a word to describe such folks: LIBERALS.

Our Party – and our State – have witnessed the baleful results of liberal Republican governments. Our state is an economic disaster, our local Party an irrelevance. Indeed, about the only areas of the state in which the GOP is NOT a joke are those represented by precisely the sort of conservatives your letter attacks: folks who really DO believe in low taxes, less spending, home rule, and have cast the votes to prove it.

So, no, I will not be sending in any money. Such political contributions as I can afford will be made to folks like Scott Garrett, a man of whom every Republican should be proud. THERE’S a fiscal conservative. (As you may recall, he voted against the lunatic pension bond scheme the last Republican Administration proposed, and was accordingly punished for acting like the fiscal conservative you purport to endorse.)

Nonetheless, I DO appreciate the letter. It’s nice, after all these years, to finally hear from you.