GOP Assembly Leader Jon Bramnick (R-Union) took up the cause of his ally, Chris Christie, earlier this week, writing to Speaker Vincent Prieto (D-Hudson) after Tuesday’s State Budge Address to implore the majority party to come up with a new school funding formula in the next 100 days.
“The current system is unfair, unsustainable and too costly for families across the state. We did it before when we worked together on pension and health benefits and revitalized the Transportation Trust Fund. We can do it again with education,” wrote Bramnick. “The Republican caucus has ideas ready to discuss with you and want to hear the majority’s ideas.”
We’re going to be waiting a looooong time for that discussion.
Look: making yourself too available is as bad a strategy for the political world as it is the dating world, Save Jerseyans. We all know this.
Some Republicans did lend their votes last year to ‘fix’ the transportation trust fund (until it goes broke again in several years because nothing really got fixed at the structural level – but I digress); they were rewarded with a very temporary, expensive fix and a vulnerable Democrats in competitive districts voting NO to inoculate themselves. And primaries, too, to boot.
“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”
Amen, Ben. The same can be said for the ever-shrinking issue landscape facing New Jersey’s remaining bench of legislative Republicans. It’s largely their own fault.
The N.J. GOP just doesn’t know how to win anymore, folks, and this “let’s convince people we’re not scary by out-reasonabling the Democrats” is a sure path to permanent minority status.
First of all, what about Election 2016 would lead anyone to believe the American people want reasonable? Tax-battered, health care-screwed, perennially abused voters are looking for a revolution, not a “better manager” alternative.
What’s more, can someone please explain to me how well reason works with the unreasonable? Said another way… can you negotiate with a proverbial mugger in an ally who’s coming at you with a knife?
Trenton Democrats have no incentive to be reasonable. That’s not the business model. Their electoral strategy (read: job security) hinges on keeping the New Jersey Mis(education) Association (NJEA) and other powerful special interest groups happy; those groups, led by the NJEA, dumped MILLIONS of dollars on Republicans’ heads in 2015 and claimed four Assembly GOP scalps. When Senate President Steve Sweeney shocked the political world by actually calling these groups out for extorting his Democrat caucus? They promptly dispatched his once-promising campaign for governor.
Can you win a battle against THAT type of opponent by complaining that they won’t be reasonable?
Of course not.
The NJEA doesn’t care about kids; it cares about power.
Remember: It was infamous teacher’s union leader Albert Shanker who declared, years ago, that “[w]hen schoolchildren start paying union dues, that’s when I’ll start representing the interests of school children.”
Nope. Negotiating with terrorists doesn’t work. You’ve gotta do what Chris Christie did in 2009 before he got distracted by shiny national distractions: punch the proverbial bully in his nose, in front of the rest of the school yard, and let all of the other kids see them cry. Christie 1.0 took the fight directly to the NJEA by bypassing it altogether and taking a common sense message directly to the voters including the NJEA membership. And it worked. Twice.
Those tactics are tried and true but require electoral leadership that isn’t overly risk adverse.
The message is simple: Our state distributes $9 billion in aid to schools; the new numbers just came out and they’re as screwy as the old numbers. Big cities with failing schools get tens of thousands of dollars per student while suburban taxpayers (the majority) who foot the bills get a few or several thousand grand, at most, for their own kids. No one is winning. Changing the formula would save most Republican or Republican-receptive voters a ton of cash. Meanwhile, Trenton can’t fund roads without raising taxes but has plenty of cash for sanctuary cities (non-taxpaying citizens) and hundreds of thousands of new “affordable” housing units in our communities even when our foreclosure rate is now the nation’s worst.
If we can’t win with THOSE issues? Going town by town, in each competitive jurisdiction, utilizing targeted mediums to break down for voters how much money they’d save by tossing out status quo crew?
Shame on us.
This is WE, the people who pay the bills, versus the people who RUN UP the bills.
The people who work for a living versus the people who VOTE for a living.
The folks who play by the rules versus the crooks, in both parties, who profit by breaking the rules.
The pathetic, ill-managed past versus a stronger, freer, more prosperous future….
It’s time to stop writing letters and start throwing punches, Save Jerseyans.
Who’s with me?
THIS, friends, is the hill that I intend to die on. We’re going to have a real opposition party in this state again even if it kills me.
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