March 2, 2005

The Jersey Money Pit.

Filed under: Uncategorized — Jim @ 9:29 pm

Enlighten New Jersey calls our attention to the financial mismanagement that runs rampant in this state, which, according to our Governor (the gentleman who replaced Jim McGreevey – You remember Jim McGreevey – It was in all the papers), the state is teetering on bankruptcy. Take, for example, the City of Newark’s having spent $1,748,040 for ten garbage trucks. And, where did the City of Newark get the money to pay for the garbage trucks? Why, from Homeland Security Funds, of course. The use of Homeland Security Funds for this purpose occurred at the same time that Newark is considering spending $210 million on a hockey arena. You can’t make this shit up.

Of course, one of the reasons that the state is in such dire financial straits is its massive expenditures on public sector employees. Enlighten New Jersey points to SmadaNek, which analyzed the growth of public sector employment as a function of increases in population.

The figures reveal that, nationally, the country added one public sector employee for every 25 new Americans. The states bordering on New Jersey added only one public sector employee for every 235 of their new residents. Now, hang on to your hat. New Jersey added one new public sector employee for every six new residents. Tell me that doesn’t make you want to barf. At least 1,000 of these positions are patronage jobs handed out by Jim McGreevey and his democrat buddies to the tune of $50 million, and, according to Republican candidate for Governor, John Murphy, none of these positions has been cut in order to meet the state’s financial shortfall.

The state is a national joke. We had a former Senator “decide not to run” because he was clearly up to his ass in corruption. He was replaced on the ballot at the last minute by the cadaverous and thoroughly contemptible, Frank Lautenberg, with the blessing of the New Jersey Supreme Court when it turned a blind eye to a violation of unambiguous election regulations. Our other Senator, the rich but ineffectual Jon Corzine, has decided that what he really wants to do is be the governor, and he has enlisted Cadaverous Frank as the Chairman of his campaign, effectively leaving New Jersey with no representation in the Senate between now and November.

Our former governor resigned in disgrace after numerous scandals, the topper being his appointment of his supremely unqualified boyfriend to be in charge of New Jersey’s Office of Homeland Security. Within the last few weeks, eleven politicians and government officials were arrested by the FBI for extortion and bribery, while the New Jersey Attorney General’s contribution to rectifying the state’s horrible mess was to swoop down on Blockbuster for deceptive advertising.

Despite all this, the majority of the voters continue to vote the same cruds into office, thereby proving beyond peradventure that it is possible to go through life with one’s head up one’s ass without suffocating.

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