My Governor, as usual, Fails Math
You have to love Chris Christie. The man who said NJ couldn’t afford a tunnel whose cost with overruns was expected to be less than $10B is now backing a tunnel whose initial cost estimate is $13B.
That the great state of New Jersey has sent an actual physicist to Congress, let alone supplies and hosts most of the talent in the Pharmaceutical and Financial Services industry,* and is run by a man who says we couldn’t afford $10.5B that PATH would control but should give $13B to something Amtrak will continue to control is rather close to proof that G-d is either non-existent or a thug with a sick sense of humor.
And now, he’s saving money again (h/t Thers):
Bill A3273 would have expanded New Jerseys’ Medicaid program, essentially reversing action Christie took in July 2010 to ensure $7.5 million in taxpayer money would not go to supporting family planning clinics, most of which [29 of 58 is half, not “most,” but apparently conservative reporters can’t do math either] are run by Planned Parenthood.
“In Fiscal year 2012, it is anticipated that the state’s Medicaid program faces a budget shortfall of $1.1 billion,” said Governor Christie in a statement. Expanding Medicaid to more people “does not make sense from an overall fiscal and health care policy perspective,” he said.
Words can confuse numbers, so let me, er, “spell this one out.”
In Christie-world, not spending $7,500,000 upfront is going to solve a deficit of $1,100,000,000. Those three extra zeroes on the deficit number are, after all, an Arabic creation, and can be ignored if you’re a blithering idiot or a Republican governor.**
Ignoring, of course, that an increase in conceptions and undesired births, combined with a decline in available prenatal care will lead to more underweight, premature, under- and malnourished babies that will grow up to require more services than they would have had they been healthy and/or desired.
In Christie-world&mash;that’s where you go, remaining out of touch, knowing that your Lieutenant Governor is visiting her dying father out of the country, so that the Senate president is left to declare a State of Emergency—proper prenatal care doesn’t pay for itself.
In Christie-world, being the state most tasked with subsidizing the Red States enables one to position to quit and run for higher office.*** Or at least that’s the only simple, direct, “rational” explanation for not investing in human capital and spending more on a less-desirable project.
If Chris Christie isn’t planning to be a short-timer, he’s certainly making certain that his legacy will be one of higher debt and lower preparedness. The next generation of New Jerseyites may be as innumerate as he is.
In which case, who do the Blue Staters think will pay for all their wars and welfare?
*Non-hedge fund financial services talent, that is. They generally live and work in Connecticut, from which they pillage with impunity.
**See also Daniels, Mitch, and Schwarzenegger, Arnold.
***I would say this is part-wishful thinking on my part, but the result would be a mix of Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin appearing regularly on CNN or Faux News while—in the grand tradition of previous budget pillager and “centrist” Christine Todd Whitman—the rest of us are left to clean up the mess.
Ken
it’s not just the math. Words are, as you know, thrown around for their sound and feel, not because thy might mean something in the real world.
Sadly, that is true of some people who get the arithmetic right, but don’t know what they are adding and subtracting.
I think that “Blue Staters think will pay for all their wars and welfare” should be “Red Staters think will pay for all their wars and welfare.
Needless to say, I go for “sick and twisted sense of humor” theology
http://bit.ly/frJkX1
As the articles point out, there were a number of shortcomings in the ARC plan. Read the fine article to see what those were. Those problems are addressed by the newer plan. Ken’s being disingenuous about Christie’s reasons for opposing it.
No one hears about the US Navy committing to a cool $300 or $400B over the next 30 years.
Feb 4, the defense acquisition board, the civilian part of the Office of Secretary of Defense in charge of keeping the military industrial complex in the money authorized the “technology development” of the replacement for the Ohio Class of nuclear missile submarines. The DoD plan, reported by Aviation Week, is to build 12 submarines each with 16 ballistic missile tubes, of 87 in diameter. The initial budget for development is $40B for the first ship with the total cost of the 12, not even a bakers dozen at Nearly $100B. If the costs don’t double or triple as is the habit in the military industrial complex. The Admiral in charge of US nuclear warfare, aptly named Roughead wanted the 12 boats to have 20 tubes. But that is impractical since the nuclear arms limitation treaty limits the US to around 1500 deployed submarine based weapons. 240 tubes at 10 warheads per tube is 2400!! The excuse for this boondoggle is “suppose the US needs to break out of START?” As if the Russians who spend less than $40B a year might get an edge on the Subs, or the bombers or the land based nukes………
Why worry about profligate governors?
No one hears about the US Navy committing to a cool $300 or $400B over the next 30 years.
Feb 4, the defense acquisition board, the civilian part of the Office of Secretary of Defense in charge of keeping the military industrial complex in the money authorized the “technology development” of the replacement for the Ohio Class of nuclear missile submarines. The DoD plan, reported by Aviation Week, is to build 12 submarines each with 16 ballistic missile tubes, of 87 in diameter. The initial budget for development is $40B for the first ship with the total cost of the 12, not even a bakers dozen at Nearly $100B. If the costs don’t double or triple as is the habit in the military industrial complex.
The Admiral in charge of US nuclear warfare, aptly named Roughead wanted the 12 boats to have 20 tubes. But that is impractical since the nuclear arms limitation treaty limits the US to around 1500 deployed submarine based weapons. 240 tubes at 10 warheads per tube is 2400!!
The excuse for this boondoggle is “suppose the US needs to break out of START?” As if the Russians who spend less than $40B a year might get an edge on the Subs, or the bombers or the land based nukes………
I live in SoCal, but I feel your pain with this dolt. How many N.J. jobs did this buffoon throw out away when he killed ARC? I’ve actually been trying to get a number on that.
ken, since you don’t appear to be a pc kinda guy it’s ok to spell out GOD.
now, since you live in jersey and pay for him, you can dis on chris all you want, but i have to draw the line when it comes to mashing on my man mitch.
besides, isn’t amtrak one of your guy’s pet projects anyway? anyone who believes the numbers that come out of any politicians mouth needs some serious therapy.
The issue I kept wondering about is why should folks who live in Camden or Trenton pay for Hudson river crossings? Its no benefit to them. Most of the cost should have gone to NYC but they had the bigger stick and pushed it on New Jersey. PATH should have paid for it all thru additional tolls and the like, (which might have the effect of encouraging more back offices to move to Jersey on the side). The Camden folks had no stroke or another Deleware river bridge would have been included.
Good points, Lyle.
Sigmund
your comment would be more cogent if you presented an actual argument. moreover, you would need to show why Ken is being disingenuous and not simply wrong.
Christie was a lying cheating fool for nearly a decade before he was elected Governor. He didn’t prosecute Wall Street. In fact he made phone calls to get his thieving Wall Street brother off the hook ($1.6 million stolen from his clients). He didn’t prosecute the Mafia. His uncle is the # 3 guy in organized crime in NJ. He didn’t go after the biggest political boss in the state, George Norcross. Norcross may be a “Democrat” but he worked deals with Republicans and didn’t contribute much to statewide voting totals despite controlling 2 of the state’s 11 counties. Nope under the orders of Karl Rove he went after other Democrats in counties that did provide nice vote margins. He particularly went after minority politicians.
This is a guy who was handed a calculator in a debate by one of his opponents because he failed to realize that a $10 billion deficit was not a political scam.
New Jersey is the second wealthiest state in the union and Christie can’t maintain the roads and has an ongoing campaign to wreck the state’s schools.
Even the man’s academic record is so-so at best considering his wealth.
Hey, he can’t even take his Christmas tree out the front door to the curb. Instead he goes out the back door and then drags the tree back through the house again.
He’s stupid. He’s greedy. he’s a tool of the super rich. He’s the worst governor in the state’s history. Oh, yeah, he’s running hard for President. Maybe that will get the a**hole out of the state. He couldn’t be elected could he?
MG:
Why are they good points? Maybe I am missing the geographical argument? One salient point, NJ is a bedroom community for New York and NYC.
i have a couple of friends that still live in NJ. i found it interesting that they admitted they grew up learning how to ‘game the system’ and said it’s a way of life there. even though they’re dem’s they have a bit of respect for chris. why? he out gamed them. what a wonderful underlying system we have…
I would point out that that is not true of the entire state, yes for NE New Jersey, but Camden is really Philadelphia’s bedroom community. Trenton is more nearly for Philadelphia than NYC also. Let alone Atlantic City, and the South Part of the state. Look at a map and draw say a 50 mile line from NYC a lot of the state is outside it. Plus a lot of the folks in NE NJ probably are employed in businesses that cater to NYC employees, but don’t work accross the river. Note that recently a lot of back office wall street jobs have moved accross the river, because its cheaper. There is no reason for the back office to be in NYC.
Lyle:
Its been a while since I wandered northern NJ other than passing through it a woop up from Camp Lejeune in the early seventies, stationed at Fort Mommouth while I learned to be a Crypyo Tech, and later Nad Earle waiting to go over seas. As I remember it the highways and buses were pretty crowded coming down from Port Authority. It appears to still be a transportation nightmare and that maybe an easier way of getting out of the state and into NYC might be in order? If not the original one than the latest?
Many people disparage Detroit also. If it didn’t exist, I would venture to say many of havens for the middle and upper incomes would not be in existance today and many of the veggie farms that disappeared would be there today. Detroit is the busiest port of entry with Canada to the US. It generates quite a bit of tax revenue. I suspect the same might be true for NJ with the establishment of some type of transportation (other than car) for NJ. You will pull mor of those wealthy people into northern NJ and especially if they begin to build TODs.
It is really the same arguement that occured in the 1870s in MT. At that point the Utah Northern (Union Pacific) wanted to build to Helena, and Butte, but the folks in Missoula could not see any benefit to them. The UP wanted a subsidy to build but the territory did not at that time give one due to only benefiting a part of the state. Here the solution would be a vote of the people of the state (echoing Hiram Johnson) does the whole state want to subidize one part of the state? And to what degree? You would have to work a deal where the whole state benefits, or alternativly create a taxing district of roughly the first 50 miles from the Hudson, and have that district pay for it.
i, too, was in CLNC. ’74/’75. 2d mardiv, G3 Opns.