Born to cut: The big man's solo in N.J.
Born to cut: The big man's solo in N.J.
Actually Springsteen fanatic Chris Christie's first solo in Trenton is a downbeat number, a little bit like the end of Thunder Road. Of course, it may be the end of the road for some New Jersey residents:
A mother of two who is getting a divorce, Ferlazzo said she received a check last year for about $4,000 through the earned-income tax credit, a program for low-income workers, along with a property-tax rebate check for $1,000.
Christie has proposed cutting the state's earned-income tax credit from 25 percent of the federal benefit to 20 percent and essentially slashing property-tax rebates by 75 percent for the fiscal year that begins July 1. If the budget is adopted, Ferlazzo estimated, she could lose from $1,000 to $2,000 through cuts to both programs.
For Ferlazzo, who has two sons, 9 and 22, that translates into necessities such as paying credit-card bills and repairing cars when they break.
Proposed cuts to child-care and after-school programs also worry Ferlazzo, because her 9-year-old relies on a free program where children can work on homework in a supervised environment until 5 p.m. each weekday.
So when thousands of regular middle-class citizens like Ferlazzo stop all their discretionary spending -- deepening the recession and leading to more private-sector layoffs, which will be on top of the thousands of public-sector employees losing their jobs -- are Republicans doing to be screaming "Where are the jobs?!" at Christie like they do now at Obama? You should note that the steepness of the cuts on the middle-class are partly a factor of Christie's promise to not renewl a tax on above-$400,000 earners -- who probably don't need an afternoon day-care program to get to work every day. To me, what the new governor is doing here is the most repugnant kind of class warfare: Crushing the have-littles to benefit the have-a-lots.
As a fellow citizen, it pains me to read stories like Ferlazzo's. Analyzing the situation politically, you have to wonder if the GOP backlash against Obama, the Democrats and "big government" peaked too soon, because now folks like Scott Brown and Chris Christie have to govern and make the kind of difficult decisions that others -- trying to clean up the mess that was left by the lack of leadership in places like Trenton and Washington from the 2000s -- have been dealing with. Now, some Republicans actually have to offer a product along with their brand -- and I don't think November 2010 voters will be racing out to buy it.
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"So if I don't have any money, I should just borrow stuff to keep spending, instead of cutting back? Brilliant." I guess for liberals it beats having to actually address the core problems. Wishful thinking is always so much more fun than hard choices.— db_cooper- "Wishful thinking is always so much more fun than hard choices." But they are the ones who are serious about governing. Hey, they can always unleash the inflation monster. That'll clean up that pesky insolvency issue.— RG
You basically all have a choice , you can choose the US way where your expected to stand on your own two feet with some support in troubled times . This way you have an ecconomy that generates jobs and everybody gets a chance . Or you choose the liberal way , like europe the model they are all so fond of , normal unemployement is around 10% , unless theres a reccesion then it gets high . If you work your taxed until the pips squeak to pay for the profesional unemployed , people who leave school go straight to welfare and stay their untilthey qualify for a state pension , you decide what you think is best .— PAEnglish- Comment removed.
- " Hey, they can always unleash the inflation monster. That'll clean up that pesky insolvency issue." We can put Jimmah Carter's mug on the ten million dollar bill come 2012, good for one cup of coffee at Wawa.— db_cooper
- "like europe the model they are all so fond of , " Yeah, the libs want us to follow the Spanish green jobs model with government subsidies for such. Never mind the studies that every such green job costs two private sector jobs - we can have wind energy that requires expensive gas turbine backup power on days when the wind doesn't blow! Makes boatloads of sense...— db_cooper
- "Who is John Galt?" A goaltender in the Flyers' farm system? /Philly Democrat mode— db_cooper
- "We can put Jimmah Carter's mug on the ten million dollar bill come 2012, good for one cup of coffee at Wawa." Of course, the government will have to subsidize wheelbarrels to carry all the cash around.— RG
- "Of course, the government will have to subsidize wheelbarrels to carry all the cash around." C'mon, you can think bigger than that! We can have people paid to push wheelbarrows full of cash around for those who can't. A real green job.— db_cooper
- "We can have people paid to push wheelbarrows full of cash around for those who can't." Now we're stimulating! (Meanwhile, Les is writing his Congresscritter with this recommendation)— RG
- Comment removed.
"Simple economics though, you can't cut spending during a recession." So if I don't have any money, I should just borrow stuff to keep spending, instead of cutting back? Brilliant." Thankfully your FoxNews talking points fail even the most basic tenents of modern economics. Moron.— Les Ismore- "Thankfully your FoxNews talking points fail even the most basic tenents of modern economics." Care to explain how, or would you just prefer to huff and puff? If spending is necessary in a recession, explain Japan's lost two decades? Explain how over a decade of spending did not lift the coutnry out of the Great Depression. Explain how Greece, in the midst of a recession, must cut spending in order to have access to the global credit market. Or you coudl simply look at the 1920-21 downturn, in which the governemnt essentially did ntohing and the economy rebounded promptly.— RG
- http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2010/03/obama-foia-bush.html http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/washington/2010/03/obama-foia-bush.html Hope. Change.— db_cooper
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