Today’s Corruption Junction Round-up
Corzine’s comments spur GOP ad, which I haven’t listened to yet.
At the NYPost Fed: Probe McGreevey hire:
A New Jersey federal prosecutor said yesterday the state attorney general should probe possible wrongdoing by Gov. Jim McGreevey in hiring Golan Cipel — who’s at the center of the gay sex scandal — as a $110,000-a-year aide.
U.S. Attorney Christopher Christie confirmed that his office was looking into charges from the McGreevey camp that Cipel tried to extort millions of dollars from the governor by threatening to make public their affair.
Christie refused to say whether he was also investigating whether McGreevey was guilty of official misconduct when he hired Cipel as his homeland security adviser despite his lack of experience in fighting terrorism.
a story also at the Star Ledger: FBI agents talk with governor in probe: Feds investigating blackmail claims. The Express-Times noticed that Governor yet to submit resignation letter . The Daily Journal wants him out.
Paul Mulshine, on the other hand, says McGreevey should stick around because
at the very moment when the media are finally poised to unearth all the secrets of the McGreevey era, the party bosses want him dumped. The theory they offer is that James E. McGreevey is somehow unrepresentative of the Democratic Party.
Nonsense. He is the purest example of the Democratic philosophy this state has ever produced. The Democratic Party in this state is based on a flawed theory — that it is possible to fight for the interests of the taxpayer while also fighting for the interests of those who live off the taxpayer. A Democrat must embrace the public employee unions, the trial lawyers, the urban political machines, the public contractors and all those others who get rich off the taxpayer. Meanwhile, he must pretend to embrace the taxpayer as well.
. . . The thought is that McGreevey’s resignation precluded further probing into his aggressive fund-raising.
But is there another shoe? We may never know if McGreevey slides smoothly into retirement. That’s one reason I want him to stick around. Well, that and his property tax plan. I’ve been waiting to hear that ever since 1997, when he rode it to a near-upset of Christie Whitman. McGreevey promised a wholesale overhaul of New Jersey’s system of collecting property taxes, yet seven years later he has not offered even a hint as to what that reform might entail.
Paul has a point. But, can we afford to? Just read this Trenton Times article: $550M hole in state’s budget.
Lower than expected business and sales tax collections, plus $150 million in unbudgeted aid to poor school districts, will more than wipe out the projected $400 million surplus, according to the nonpartisan Office of Legislative Services.
The deficit was projected in a memo prepared earlier this month by OLS but overlooked because of the scandal gripping the McGreevey administration. The memo also forecasts a $4.4 billion shortfall in the next state budget, which will have to be drawn up before July 1, 2005.
Assembly Budget Committee Chairman Louis Greenwald, D-Cherry Hill, believes it’s too early to tell, because “For example, he said, if John Kerry is elected president, the state might get more money from Washington for homeland security, special education, health care for the indigent and prescriptions for seniors.” Maybe he should read this article that states “the net increase in the deficit associated with Kerry’s proposals is on the order of $2.2 trillion“, which means an additional $15,000 in Federal taxes for the average taxpayer.
From the same article,
Three Wall Street firms downgraded New Jersey’s credit rating this summer, saying that instead of using rebounding revenues to cure the state’s structural fiscal problems the administration was accelerating spending and borrowing
New Jerseyans have 10 days to persuade Gov. James E. McGreevey to leave office and allow a special election to be held to fill the remaining year of his term. Unless that happens by Sept. 3, an unelected politician will serve both as acting governor and Senate president until January 2006
Contact the politicians and insist that we are allowed to vote for a change. Call your State representatives, and also:
New Jersey Democratic Party Contact page
Phone the Democratic Party: (609) 392-DEMS (3367)
Snail mail: McGreevey
The State House
P. O. Box 001
Trenton, NJ 08625
(609) 292-6000
email contact page
