Thursday, October 08, 2009

About Those Corzine Attack Ads

New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine has nothing else to do but attack his Republican opponent Chris Christie. It's not like Corzine can actually run on his record.

State spending is out of control and playing games like trying to omit the federal stimulus from his budget figures to make it appear like he cut spending is just the tip of the iceberg.

Corzine hasn't actually accomplished anything that he wants to bring attention to: we've got higher sales taxes and higher property taxes (when he promised that the sales tax hike would provide property tax relief).

The state workforce is higher than when he originally took office, even if he claims that he's cut it down from inflated numbers of a year or two ago.

The state's economy situation is worse than when he took over.

The pension timebomb is even worse now; particularly when Corzine repeatedly called on municipalities to skip pension payments to avoid hiking taxes to cover their obligations.

Corruption is as rampant now as ever.

If it's about the economy, why is it that Corzine is doing everything but talking about what he's done to improve it? That answer is self-evident. He's raised taxes and made the state's tax burden even higher than when he took office. Businesses are less likely to come to New Jersey because of the tax burden (except when they're relocating from New York City where the burden is higher still). Taxpayers are fleeing the state in droves, increasing the per capita tax burden on those that remain.

And on that note, Christie must do a much better job explaining what he will do to improve the economy - and taking Corzine and Trenton to task for unconscionable state spending at a time when revenues simply can't work.

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