Tax Cuts Create Jobs in New Jersey

July: 21,000 jobs lost:

http://www.northjersey.com/news/NJ_unemployment_rate_rises_slightly_21K_jobs_lost.html

Driven by government cuts, N.J.’s job loss worst in nation

http://blogs.app.com/capitolquickies/2010/11/11/driven-by-government-cuts-n-j-s-job-loss-worst-in-nation/

September: 20,200 jobs lost

http://www.northjersey.com/news/105414023_20_200_New_Jersey_jobs_lost_last_month_.html

August: 1,100 jobs lost:

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-10-20/new-jersey-lost-20-200-jobs-last-month-as-municipal-governments-cut-back.html

Despite tax cuts and other promises, job losses continue to accelerate in NJ under Christie despite the fact that, nationwide, jobs continue to be created.

We are happy to know that you are from New Jersey. You continue to spread your B.S without answering specific questions about your own personal choices and how much are you willing to increase your own taxes. Here in NY one out of every eighth dollar is going for city union employees. It is a crazy example of government going wild by politicians and socialists. Can you start your own Street Easy for New Jersey and leave us alone?????

"Here in NY one out of every eighth dollar is going for city union employees."

One out of every eight of what dollars? The city budget?

Socialist would fit in Russia during WWI. Too bad time has proven socialism to be a failed system.

Jordyn- per NYT, 1 out of 8 city dollars

Since when did any amount of government spending or intervention equal socialism? That's a ridiculous perversion of the word and you need to come up with some other description. Socialism is defined as "any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods." No single city or state in the US (or the federal government, for that matter) owns the production and distribution of goods on a systemwide basis (like Marx and other socialists advocated). It is just wrong to describe government action in the US as "socialism"; it is as wrong as liberals who call every right-wing action "fascist." Such name calling and misuse of labels is a lazy person's way of debating.

"Too bad time has proven socialism to be a failed system."

Hasn't time proven that every form of government eventually fails?

He's not a socialist. He serves his own agenda. Everybody remember him under his Alpine moniker when he was shilling Housing and in complete denial of the bubble bust only because he had bought a run down house in Jersey and couldn't bear seeing the value of his bad investment go down by the hour.

007 - Can you maybe link to whatever article you're talking about? I still have no idea what you mean about "city dollars". I presume you mean the City of New York's budget, in which case I have no idea what you're complaining about. A lot of companies spend way more on payroll than that.

alpie/socialist--keep up the good work--nice to have your posts to balance the fascistic tripe that plagues this site

wtf is a "city dollar"?--you tool

Jordyn- companies can spend as much as they want on employees' benefits as long as it is approved by the stock holders. In many companies the 401K allows for flexibility in case of a downturn in the economy. In a city or government, services are cut, education is cut,medicaid is cut but there is no adjustment in benefits to employees. the only solution for a government, due to union "contracts", is to reduce workforce. GM, Ford were able to negotiate or declared bankrupcy. The City in reality, can not take this route. Please see WSJ today and NYT today under Bloomberg articles. And yes- "city dollars" are a referrence to New York City.
Socialist/Alpie I guess changing names is a self stimulating activity...

007 - Nothing about what you wrote about the employee/employer relationship is in any way different for cities than it is for any other employer with unionized employees. In fact, both public and private employers have been playing the same game with their unionized employees for years--promising future pension benefits in exchange for lower raises today. Politicians like this because it helps keep this year's budget balanced and punts the problem down the road; CEOs like it because it makes this quarter's earnings look good and punts the problem down the road. In both cases, voters and shareholders reward the behavior, so of course they continue.

If you want it to stop, hold your politicians accountable when they engage in this sort of gimmickry.

"Nothing about what you wrote about the employee/employer relationship is in any way different for cities than it is for any other employer with unionized employees. "

Uh, how about the fact that the private employer can just go bust.... the state can't.

Private unionized amployees are partially checked because they know they can't kill the golden goose. Public employees literally can't kill the golden goose - US - so they don't worry about it.

"Uh, how about the fact that the private employer can just go bust.... the state can't."

Cities can, and do, go bankrupt.

Orange County went bankrupt in 1994. Vallejo, California went bakrupt in 07. Public employers can go under.

somewhereelse is correct that states can't go bankrupt, but it's irrelevant as to New York City's employee relations.

The state actually writes the laws governing NYC pensions... so, you can't pretend it is irrelevant

You give everyone a headache.

With private industry, management has an incentive to negotiate for the best interests of the company. Politicians do not have the same incentive to negotiate for the best interest of taxpayers.

"The state actually writes the laws governing NYC pensions... so, you can't pretend it is irrelevant"

Well, not "pretend", but I can "determine" that the fact that the state writes NYC pension laws has nothing to do with the fact that NYC can go bankrupt.

"With private industry, management has an incentive to negotiate for the best interests of the company. Politicians do not have the same incentive to negotiate for the best interest of taxpayers."

Sure they do. If they don't do a good job, in theory they get voted out of office. Like I said above, your complaint is with the taxpayers who keep reelecting people who vote for short term fixes over long term sanity.

"With private industry, management has an incentive to negotiate for the best interests of the company."

in the midst of an era where we've seen the folly of (incented) management with companies like AIG, Goldman Sachs, Enron, Wachovia, Countrywide,(the list goes on and on) only LICDope would launch a comment such as this.

and yes, last i checked, we vote our politicians in and out--and the last time we had a good run of fiscal responsibility was after 5 or 6 years of clinton & co--not really an option now given the steaming pile of shlt bush left for obama to wallow in

LICC -- "Politicians do not have the same incentive to negotiate for the best interest of taxpayers." Um, they do. It is what I like to refer to as an "election." If taxpayers don't like something, they often exercise the right of suffrage.

Liberal politicians get their campaign money and support from unions. Their incentive is to benefit unions, not the taxpayers.

If private companies suffer from mismanagement, they have losses and go bankrupt if they can't handle it (unless of course they work the system for a bailout). Politicians think they can just keep sucking taxpayers dry, until of course all the irresponsible taxing and spending forces a breaking point.

Clinton was forced to the center and fiscal responsibility by a Republican Congress. He also gutted the military too much and rode the internet wave, until that bubble burst and a recession started while he was still in office.

Liberals don't like facts, it ruins their fantasy tales.

then there's the fabulous fiscal approach where politicians cut taxes and ramp up spending...as in bush/(it's our turn to ramp the deficits")cheney--worked like a charm

"Liberal politicians get their campaign money and support from unions. Their incentive is to benefit unions, not the taxpayers."

That's just dumb. Do you think there are more union voters than non-union voters in the state? (In particular, do you think there are more state government union voters than non-state government employee voters?)

"If private companies suffer from mismanagement, they have losses and go bankrupt if they can't handle it (unless of course they work the system for a bailout)."

As pointed out several times now, this applies to cities as well. It's not a meaningful distinction, no matter how many times you repeat it.

And the reason why a lot of companies have gone bankrupt is because they engaged in the exact same sort of silly short term vs. long term tradeoff that state governments have been in their negotiations with unions. I don't know why you see the fact that a bunch of companies went bankrupt after miscalculating in the same way you're accusing governments of as being a shining example of free market success.

LICC -- Anyone who writes that Clinton "gutted the military too much" has absolutely no credibility. We have been on a military spending binge since WWII, with a brief hiatus in the 70s when we got out of Vietnam. Since then, no president has been able to rein in military spending, which remains the biggest waste of taxpayer dollars out there.

Yeah, what every happened to the spoils of winning the cold war?

Under Clinton, the Army was cut from 18 divisions to 12. The Navy was reduced from 546 ships to 380. Air Force flight squadrons were cut from 76 to 50.

If you want to argue that Bush was also irresponsible when it came to government spending, like Obama, I agree.

jordyn- how many cities have ever gone bankrupt and restructured union benefits? Your constantly pointing to that is inane. If you want to have a real discussion about this, you need to get serious and stop talking in fantasies.

And unions provide huge financial support and message propaganda. It isn't just about counting their votes. Again, please get serious if you want to continue this discussion.

> Clinton was forced to the center and fiscal responsibility by a Republican Congress.

This part is true. I specifically remember a Clinton speech where he said the Republican plan to cut the deficit was moving too fast, and his would take a few more years to end the deficit but was more prudent.

"how many cities have ever gone bankrupt and restructured union benefits? Your constantly pointing to that is inane. If you want to have a real discussion about this, you need to get serious and stop talking in fantasies."

Examples of municipalities going bankrupt have already been cited upthread. I don't understand your point, in any case. Are you suggesting that since cities don't go bankrupt despite having the capability of doing so, that they are better managed than companies? I'm not sure what other inference to draw.

A municipal bankruptcy doesn't end the existence of that municipality. It still has to operate and borrow money in the future.

I guess you're not familiar with Chapter 11 for corporations? (Or is this another attempt to create some non-existent distinction?)

I guess you are not familiar with how that affects future borrowing costs?

"Liberal politicians get their campaign money and support from unions."

And Conservative politicians get their money from Big Oil, Big Insurance, and Big Tobacco. And they get money from FOREIGN companies via the US Chamber of Commerce that we don't know about thanks to Citizens United.

"I guess you are not familiar with how that affects future borrowing costs?"

Now are you suggesting that going bankrupt will affect a corporation's future borrowing costs, but not a municipality's?

"Under Clinton, the Army was cut from 18 divisions to 12. The Navy was reduced from 546 ships to 380. Air Force flight squadrons were cut from 76 to 50."

So what? What's wrong with a smaller air force and navy? Are American pilots getting into dog fights with the Taliban?

And udner Obama, predator drone attackas in Pakistan have soared, so you can't accuse Dems of being weak on defense.

There is nothing wrong with drastically cutting military spending. The only thing that would suffer are the stock prices of Northrop Gruman and Lockheed Martin, NOT our national security.

How many terrorist attacks hae the 60,000 + troops in GERMANY prevented?

Those Clinton cuts are nothing and occasioned more by prevalence of technology than anything else. But none of that made the military cheaper and, of course, any reductions were wiped by massive Bush overspending on military. Obama has continued that military spending to a shameful degree. Think of what we could do with all the money we throw down the toilet in Afghanistan and Iraq. The dirty secret that no one talks about is that Obama Administration doesn't want to bring troops home because it would add to the rolls of unemployed and would it lessen the profits of the corporations getting rich on war. However, that doesn't excuse taking tough measures on defense so we can work on creating real, lasting jobs.

socialist makes many ridiculous, fantasy-land arguments, and this latest is another. You are clueless if you think our having a troop presence in Germany does not make a huge difference in keeping peace in that part of the world.

"You are clueless if you think our having a troop presence in Germany does not make a huge difference in keeping peace in that part of the world."

Huh? How are we keeping peace in Europe? Is there still a war there? I thought it ended in 1945.

"That's just dumb. Do you think there are more union voters than non-union voters in the state? (In particular, do you think there are more state government union voters than non-state government employee voters?)"

No, it is not dumb, your statement is simply ignorant. This is like saying the gun lobby has no effect because NRA membership isn't half the country.

We'll leave out for a second that the unions control massive phone banks, and become essentially unpaid political spending. See what happened when Spitzer tried to cut spending... they put out anti-spitzer commercials, and they worked.

The Working Family Party *is* the unions. They have their own line on the ballot. Our comptroller and public advocate were elected on their shoulders.

And you think the other folks, ala Sheldon Silver, aren't working on their behalf as well.

> Huh? How are we keeping peace in Europe? Is there still a war there? I thought it ended in 1945.

Wow, more ignorance from alpo.

ooooh, phone banks. Beware of the phone banks, like they are going to decide an election.

And unions don't always vote Democrat. In Massachusetts, Scott Brown won the union vote depsite the fact that all of the uniosn endorsed the Democrat.

please explain how we are keeping pece in Europe in 2011. Keeping peace from who?

somewhereelse: So what are you saying, we should ban the gun lobby?

You seem to be missing the forest for the trees in this discussion. Sure, Unions have effective lobbying organizations. So do a lot of companies. Is your argument that union employees shouldn't be able to have pensions because unions have good phone banks? Seriously?

At the end of the day, though, politicians have to get more people to vote from them than anyone else. If the public wanted them to behave sensibly by not trading giant future pensions for modest raises today, they could indicate so by throwing them out. But the population at large seems perfectly happy to kick the can down the road--they consistently favor politicians who are willing to trade short benefits for (much more) long term pain. This isn't a liberal vs. conservative thing; both parties do it all the time, they just choose different scapegoats when things don't work out.

Companies also play large roles in elections. Here is a video of a govt. contractor telling their workers to vote for Lisa Murkowski, the Republican Seantor in Alaska. The tape got vrtually no press. BUT if the video was of a union boss telling workers to vote for a Democrat, it would have been played on tv in a continuious loop alll day.

http://community.adn.com/node/154214

Both parties are definitely to blame for the fiscal problems. For many years Republicans have cut taxes without offsetting them with spending cuts (see: Nassau County). And Democrats have provided too many services without offsetting them with increases in revenue (see: 2 year extension of Bush tax cuts).

"Is your argument that union employees shouldn't be able to have pensions because unions have good phone banks? Seriously?"

No, you moron, its that unions should not be negotiating with the people they got elected.

There are bans on lobbyist influence (and its still too much). Obama even added some more. How about applying the same rules to unions?

> please explain how we are keeping pece in Europe in 2011. Keeping peace from who?

Alpo, there are textbooks if you'd like to stop being ignorant about world history. Or, hell, wikipedia it. You seem good at that.

"If the public wanted them to behave sensibly by not trading giant future pensions for modest raises today, they could indicate so by throwing them out."

Not when the politicians have lied about what we're on the hook for. The democrats in NYC used a consultant that claimed many of the contract terms wouldn't cost anything... turns out the guy was a union patsy.

"No, you moron, its that unions should not be negotiating with the people they got elected.

There are bans on lobbyist influence (and its still too much). Obama even added some more. How about applying the same rules to unions?"

So, under this wonderful theory, how would the terms of the union contract be determined?

"Not when the politicians have lied about what we're on the hook for. The democrats in NYC used a consultant that claimed many of the contract terms wouldn't cost anything... turns out the guy was a union patsy."

So now that we know the politicians tricked us, we're definitely voting them out, right?

Government workers should not be unionized.

well, I am ingnorant I guess, so please explain to me how we are keeping the peace in Europe by having 60,000 troops in Germany.

"its that unions should not be negotiating with the people they got elected."

They don't. politicans do not ndirectly egotiate contracts. They are ultimately decided by independent arbitrators. Before you bash unions, get your facts straight.

Don't bsh unions too much. TSA screeners just got the right to unionize. Anti union Republicans may soon find themselves getting groped by union bosses if they are not careful... HA HA HA HA!!!

Is Ted Kennedy still on the "No Fly" list?