There’s been plenty of conservative angst aimed in Governor Christie’s direction over the past couple weeks.
The Whitney Houston flag controversy. The Norcross-backed Rutgers/Rowan merger. And now a new state budget proposal that doesn’t endeavor to cut more spending like many of us had hoped.
No one is perfect, Save Jerseyans (he is a moonlighting Cowboys fan for God’s sake). God also knows it’s tough negotiating with a far-left, Democrat-controlled legislature, too, particularly heading in to two giant election cycles when politicians are always less willing to give the other side a leg up. I choose to remain optimistic. Attitude is a choice! And maybe State Senator Gerald Cardinale (R-Bergen), a man who has been in the State Senate for thirty years, can offer a little positive perspective? After all, he’s been a consistent conservative voice for longer than most of our contributors here at the blog have been alive.
According to the Senator, we’ve got many miles to go but “we’ve made a great start”:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqPVM4VgXHA
He’s not wrong; after years of ballooning public sector job growth and extreme economic dislocation, New Jersey is finally shedding dead weight (30,000 government jobs) and adding revenue-generating private sector jobs (60,000). We need both numbers to grow much more precipitously. Governor Christie would undoubtedly agree. Something tells me we’d be debating a much different budget proposal today if Tom Kean, Jr. was Senate Majority Leader and Jon Bramnick was Speaker of the Assembly. About $10B different.
But they’re not. We’ll all need to adjust our expectations accordingly and try (again) to cut into liberal Democrat legislative majorities next year at the polls. THAT is the only true path to property tax reform. Never forget it for a moment. We’ve changed directions in the Garden State, albeit incrementally (i.e. the governor’s education strategy). Democrats didn’t bankrupt our state and destroy our economy overnight. No one ever promised we’d “Save Jersey” in a day, either.
Don’t give up the fight, folks! This is a “start.” Nothing more.
Is it realistic to expect gains in the legislature with the map at all during Christie's (hopefully eight year) tenure? I mean with the results last fall I really do wonder. We're basically chipping away at the same seats next cycle, correct? Is there any reason to hope for a Republican majority in Trenton before 2021?
They could make gains in a few places (LD1, LD36, etc) but no, the NJGOP is very unlikely to recapture the state legislature between now and 2021.
Sad, I know! Nothing is more important than the map.