Saturday, March 21, 2009

~ The Toxic Mix of Money, Politics & Lies ~

In Gov. Corzine's first, and hopefully last, Inaugural Address, he stated:

"So I call on all my fellow public servants to join in an historic effort to end the toxic mix of politics, money and public business – at every level of New Jersey government. Let’s award public contracts by competition and quality, not contributions."

There can be little doubt that the enormous money Gov. Corzine himself threw around to various Democratic campaign warchests around the State is what helped, if not the sole reason, Corzine get elected, both to the U.S. Senate and now to the Governor's Mansion. The Govenor continues to generously fund those warchests today. A classic case of do as I say and not as I do.

Here in Linden we have not one municipal attorney, but THREE. All three have contributed heavily to the democratic party and are very active in the democratic club. Does our council award these contracts based strictly on competition and quality or on partisan politics? If the awards are based on quality, then why do we need three? Are other candidates even considered? Because of the ever presence of conflicts of interests that clearly exist in the City's law department, we can't even use our own staff to defend the City in recently filed lawsuits. If there was ever a time to unload one of those lawyers, it was now. That savings could have been used to offset the cost of outside counsel the City has retained. Once again, our democrat machine-controlled council has failed the taxpayers.

Corzine also promised ethics reform. He said it was his highest priority. Even his main goal has been a major failure as little was done in that regard since becoming governor. If it weren't for U.S. Attorney Chris Christie, how many corrupt politicians would have continued on with their unethical behaviors while be paid to do so with taxpayer dollars? One of Corzine's own Deputy Chiefs of Staff, Javier Inclan, testified to delivering envelopes stuffed with cash to Guttenberg Mayor David Delle Donna, who now resides in prison. Did Corzine fire or ask this bagman to resign? Nope. Rather, Corzine praised Inclan for testifying. Did Inclan have a choice? Probably not unless he wanted to his buddies in Club Fed. Inclan resigned on his own accord. This is just one of many examples where the Govenor has failed to deliver on his campaign promises.

Corzine also spoke of ending gimmicks and games and getting back on a path to full funding of public employee pensions. Just this week, at Corzine's own behest, we are playing games once again and deferring half of the pension payments this year. Another gimmick to mask the true cost of the State's pension systems.

Corzine repeatedly said in that speech to hold him accountable. Thank goodness, the voters will have that opportunity this November.

Here's the text of Corzine's Inaugural Address. If anyone can find one promise he has actually delivered on, let me know.

http://www.njslom.org/Corzine_1-17_Swearing-in_release.pdf

2 comments:

NFS said...

FROM TODAY'S AUDITOR:

"There's been lots of talk that Gov. Jon Corzine's lukewarm relationship with Democrats in the Legislature could hurt him this election year. So, the governor and his strategy team have decided to take their message to another group in his party: mayors.

Three ranking Democratic sources tell The Auditor that Corzine plans to work Democratic mayors non-stop in the coming months, reminding them how he helped their towns and providing access to the front office and key state officials. The main focus is to have mayors view Corzine as more of a friend than his leading GOP opponents, Chris Christie and former Bogota Mayor Steve Lonegan.

The strategy was on full display in the run-up to Corzine's budget announcement. Twenty-four hours before the governor's March 10 speech, about two dozen mayors -- none Republican -- were summoned to Drumthwacket. Many thought they would be briefed on state aid figures or the budget speech.

Instead, they got a detailed campaign and political analysis from Corzine and his senior strategist, Steve DeMicco. That was followed by a hard-ball political lecture and pep talk from state Democratic Chairman Joe Cryan, who said he was dismayed some mayors were grumbling about Corzine and that they should be publicly singing the governor's praise."

Looks like the Governor and Cyran are campaigning while on the taxpayers' dime. Is this legal? Mayors were summoned? And Cryan is telling Mayors what to say? What's next? Throw those who disagree Corzine's policies in jail? This is incredible.

If Corzine is going to be "visiting" Mayors, will those campaign visits be taking place after business hours?

With all of Cryan's campaigning, his duties as an Assemlyman, his duties as Chair of the State Democratic Committee, does he actually show up for work as a full time Union County Undersheriff?

NFS said...

Here's another snippet from that same piece:

"The Auditor is told mayors who don't get on board will likely be visited by campaign personnel who will remind them in specific detail of how Corzine helped them on everything from providing state aid and donating dollars to their campaigns and local groups to visiting local diners when they asked."

IS THIS NOT EXTORTION???? Are Corzine's campaign workers going to visit these Mayors at their homes? Surely to do so in any Mayor's office would be illegal, wouldn't it?? What happened to the toxic mix of money & politics Corzine promised to reform?? I guess money, extortion and strongarming are his new campaign strategies.