Missed during the 100-year flood was this Star Ledger article that discussed the recent numbers out of NJ some of which are actually great for Gov. Christie, but terrible for whiny liberals like the reporters at the Star Ledger. For example:
New Jersey shed about 29,100 state and local government jobs during Gov. Chris Christie’s first 19 months in office, trailing only New York and California in the total number of public sector jobs lost, according to federal labor statistics.
New Jersey’s sizable decline accounts for more than 8 percent of the 357,100 public sector jobs lost in states across the country since January 2010, the month Christie took office.
“The fact is we added nearly 50,000 new private sector jobs and at the same time doing exactly what I promised to do which was to lower the number of public sector jobs,” Christie said in interview earlier this month. “That’s the way you get the economy back. It’s not through government spending, it’s through the private sector.”
The state’s chief economist, Charles Steindel, said New Jersey has seen six straight months of private sector job growth, significantly outpacing the declines in the public sector for the first time since 2008.
It also featured idiotic quotes about things that aren’t pertinent to the subject matter at hand, namely public sector job losses, from progressive groups like Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. This is one of my favorite quotes from Jon Shure who whines about a clerk who is laid off at the grocery store while ignoring the onerous Obamacare and EPA regulations that will cause small grocery stores and businesses to close or stop hiring.
“These are people who no longer have a pay check, who are not buying things, it creates a ripple effect,” said Jon Shure, director of state fiscal strategies at Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal think tank in Washington. “You’re not just laying off a worker, you’re laying off the clerk at the grocery store where they shop.”
Also, this one where Shure uses the analogy of a noose. Which is not very new tone.
Shure said Christie, like other governors, misdiagnosed the state’s financial problems as exclusively spending-related when the real culprit is the historic economic downturn and increased demand for government services. He said too many states, including New Jersey, have refused to consider revenue increases to help stabilize the economy. “At some point belt tightening becomes a noose,” said Shure.
