The DynamoBuzz wagon is packed and we’re about to head out to the Parkway. Should be in Wildwood by 3PM. Pray for a few hours of sun a day, that’s all we’re asking for.

See you all Saturday.

Trentonian columnist Charles Webster is predicting that New Jersey will not have a state budget in place by midnight June 30th, resulting in a partial government shutdown and the furlough without pay of thousands of NJ state workers (Source: Feuding Dems prepared to push fight to limit). As a matter of fact, Webster quotes a democrat assembly source as saying the shutdown might last the entire month of July.

Well, cheer up state workers. You’ll have more time to stage protests.

There’s probably lots of posturing and bluffing going on, but it appears that the assembly is prepared to force the issue. Not so in the senate, where democrats only have a 22-18 majority. The most upsetting thing is that there appears to be enough republican votes in the senate to offset the expected no votes from senate democrats. What the hell is the matter with the NJ republican party??

Earlier this week, Ken Adams at Smadanek and Paul at NJ Fiscal Policy both touched on the out of control growth in government employment here in New Jersey. While NJ’s economy is flat and population growth has been stagnant, the ever growing government employment monster continues to add new workers at an unsustainable rate.

Today’s Star-Ledger picks up on the theme with a front page article State, local government jobs jumped since 2000. Since 2000, state and local government employment here in New Jersey has increased by almost 60,000 jobs. In 2005, state and local government at all levels employed 580,000 people. Private employment in New Jersey has been steady at about 3.2 million since 2000. That works out to less than 6 private sector employees to support one government worker. Sounds more like France or Sweden than the United States. And it’s getting worse.

Half the growth has been education related, surprising since school employment has not proportionally increased. Newark has added over 800 jobs, increasing education employment by 12%, even though the district has barely added students and may in fact have lower total enrollment now than before 2000.

The article quotes from a US census bureau report that shows NJ added government jobs faster that any other state in America except for North Dakota. The census report also noted that New York, Massachusetts and Maryland have actually cut headcount during the same time period.

At least three times the article blames the hiring increases on “court-ordered requirements”. What’s wrong with this picture?? We elect a governor and legislature to represent the will of the people, yet these same officials do nothing as the third branch of government, the judiciary, usurps their power and forces upon the taxpayers a system designed to bankrupt the state.

And of course more government employees means more government employee union members, creating a growing monster that will use its power to get even more employees and more budget busting benefits. Using their power to co-opt elected officials who then reward the unions at contract time in sickening “one hand washes the other” deals at the expense of the taxpayers.

New Jersey needs a governor who will be willing to cut state employment and bypass the media to go directly to the people, explaining to them in honest terms what it would mean to them to reduce government employment. I think people would be willing to sacrifice in exchange for lower taxes. Instead, we have a governor who addresses thousands of government workers at a protest by saying he’s on their side. He’s going to help them get a fair contract. As Bob Ingle says in his Sunday column, If Corzine’s taking labor’s side, then who speaks for N.J. taxpayers?

I was watching NJN last Wednesday to see the advanced weather forecast for this upcoming week and said, “I can’t believe it’s going to rain for 10 straight days”. It looked really bad.

The reason I care is because tomorrow we begin our annual summer vacation trek to Wildwood. I just checked the weather over at NJ.com and they’re showing some rain for Monday but otherwise “intermittent clouds” for the rest of the week with high temperatures near 80. We’re keeping our fingers crossed. We’ve been heading down to Wildwood every year for 8 years, and last year was the first that was really rainy.

Yesterday was a miserable rainy day in Central Jersey. Daniel and Allison had their first swim meet, 9AM at Round Top Swim Club in Warren. Our team beat the Round Top Swimmers, but it was hard to pay attention since the spectators spent the whole three hours trying to stay dry.

I haven’t blogged a whole lot about the race for the US Senate seat from New Jersey between democrat Bob Menendez and republican Tom Kean Jr. It’s only June 22nd, the election is over four months away, and my guess is nobody outside of Bluejersey.net and the conservative NJ blogs is paying attention.

The most recent poll from Rutgers Eagleton Institute shows the race is still close, though there is a huge undecided. The latest poll of 700 registered voters surveyed from June 14 to June 19th showed Menendez leading Kean by 4 points, 42% to 38% with most of the remainder undecided. The gap with independent voters is even less, so Kean still has a shot. It’s pretty obvious that many people are not paying attention.

Of course, you have the gender gap. Kean and Menendez are tied with male voters, but Menendez has an 8 point lead with women voters. Corzine had the same type of advantage over Doug Forrester in the 2005 NJ gubernatorial race.

Opinion writer George Will’s latest column focuses on the Kean-Menendez race. New Jersey GOP hopes the son will rise gives 4 reasons why George Will thinks Kean can win. (1) Senators appointed to a vacant seat don’t generally do well when they try to run for a full 6 year term (2) Menendez’s ties to the corrupt NJ political machine. (3) The “Kean” name, or as Will calls it “..the Kean brand”, like you’re selling beer or something and (4) Jon Corzine’s unpopularity with the taxes, taxes and more taxes meme.

Frankly, I think Kean’s best chance is to focus on (4), make the election a referendum on Corzine’s tax and spend budget and focus on the fact taht Menendez has never met a tax hike that he didn’t like. Let surrogates bring up the Menendez dirty laundry. Also, my feeling is the more voters see the two, the more they will dislike Menendez. He is nasty and unlikeable, a younger Cuban version of Frank Lautenberg. Debates will help Kean, but not when they’re in June which is the current plan. Good luck, Tom.

So it\’s after closing time, 2AM, and some Bennie gets busted outside a bar down the shore. It\’s a story as old the Jersey shore. Only this wasn\’t just any bennie, it was Jersey City mayor Jerramiah Healy.

Lot\’s of politicians run for election with the line, \“Vote for XXX XXXXXX, he’s a Fighter\”. Healy has the street credibility to back up his words.

The article, Jersey City mayor arrested has the details. The bar was in Bradley Beach, and it\’s owned by the mayor\’s sister. Healy says it was after closing and there was a disturbance between a couple outside the bar and the mayor went out to investigate. He was met by the local police, who didn\’t appreciate Healy\’s peacemaking efforts and they busted him. Threw him to the ground, cuffed and for good measure shot him in the face with Mace.

I guess the line “Hey, don’t you guys know who I am?? I’m the mayor of Jersey City??” didn’t work. The cops have probably heard that line before. Healy was charged with a few disorderly persons offenses and resisting arrest.

It’s 10:30 at night, really the first opportunity I’ve had to sit down all day. We had a graduation party to go to this afternoon, and it was down the shore. Traffic coming home was the usual stop and go summer Jersey shore traffic, heavy on the “stop” and light on the “go”. I read the temperature hit 93 degrees at Newark this afternoon, it may have been even hotter in Brick.

A belated Happy Father’s Day to all dads out there. I mailed out a card to my father earlier this week along with a collection of family photos. My dad doesn’t have a phone, so mail is the best way to contact him. He will sometimes call me from a friends house, so maybe he’ll try to get in touch later today.

I did something today on Father’s Day 2006 that I’m guessing not too many of you out there have ever done. I delivered the sermon at the Sunday service at our church. Our pastor is out of town, and I’m a church elder. In past years we’ve gotten pastors from other churches to fill in, but this year we’re going to try to use elders when the pastor is unavailable. I volunteered for today.

The sermon this Sunday was based on Mark chapter 4 versus 26 to 34, the Parables of the Growing Seed and the Mustard Seed. Luckily for me these are two of the easier parables to explain. I had to wear a tie, for the first time in I don’t remember how long. I was sweating like a TV evangelist, all I needed to do was pound the pulpit. The feedback I got from the congregation was positive, which was nice considering it was my first time and I had no inkling on how I would be received.

Our church belongs to the Presbyterian Church USA, and this week is the meeting of the general assembly in Birmingham, AL, and our pastor is a delegate. If you follow church goings on, you’ll know that the PCUSA is perhaps one of the most liberal denominations in the country. Rather than addressing their shrinking church membership, the topics this year are divesting from companies that do business with Israel, gay marriage and ordaining gay ministers and officers. Our congregation is conservative, and the politics of PCUSA have hurt our membership. Several families have left our church and have specifically mentioned the politics of PCUSA as a factor.

While I am politically conservative, I am very uneasy about the mixing of politics and religion. Psalm 146: Do not put your trust in princes, in mortal men, who cannot save. When their spirit departs, they return to the ground; on that very day their plans come to nothing. The Christian faith is about Jesus Christ not about who controls the levers of power in Washington.

NJ governor Jon Corzine is having a rotten month, and yesterday it got worse.

Last week, democrats in Trenton, lead by Senator Steven Sweeney, demanded that Corzine ask government workers unions for givebacks in order to save enough money to avoid the massive tax increases in his 2006-2007 budget. Corzine sided with the government workers unions, putting him in the uncomfortable position of siding with the over compensated union workers versus the already overtaxed NJ resident.

Yesterday, Corzine met with the democrat leaders from the NJ Assembly and he got some more bad news, Assembly leaders tell Corzine sales tax hike is dead. Lead by assembly leader Joe Roberts, the democrats told Corzine that there would not be enough votes for any of his tax hikes, and rather than spending the next two weeks trying to get the votes, Corzine would be smarter to come up with some other way to have a balanced budget in place by June 30th.

The article says the meeting was loud, that there were “..voices raised”. It sounds like the meeting was like that big frat house meeting from the movie “Animal House”. “Sales tax hike … Dead!!! Hospital bed tax … Dead!!! Water tax … Dead!!!”

Jonathan Tamari from the Gannett papers notes in Assembly Dems ready to fight Corzine tax hike that “…One source called the defiance overwhelming.”

Democrats in Trenton remember 1991, and apparently the governor doesn’t. Back then, Corzine was sitting in the palatial Wall Street offices of Goldman Sachs, using burning 20 dollar bills to light cigars. In 1991, democrats in Trenton watched in horror as voters tossed them from office in response to then governor Jim “Flim-Flam” Florio’s horribly unpopular tax increases. Friday’s release of a Quinnipiac University Poll showing 60 percent of the public was opposed to a sales tax just reinforced the assembly’s fear.

Many conservatives noted that with Jon Corzine, New Jersey was electing perhaps the most liberal senator in congress to the governorship. He’s apparently so liberal that he’s to left of his own NJ party in terms of taxation and unions. He’d make a great president of France, but he’s the wrong man at the wrong time to run this state. The same Quinnipiac poll showed his approval number at 39%. By comparison, the two latest job approval polls for President Bush placed him at 40%.

Corzine will emerge from this budget battle wounded and scarred, just in time to step into the property tax special session scheduled for later this summer. If that session comes out as expected, with no solution other than agreeing on a property tax convention, look for Jon Corzine’s approval numbers to drop even further, maybe low enough to hurt Bob Menendez in his November 2006 election for US Senate.

Thursday was Daniel and Allison’s last day of school. I think the public school kids get out this week on Tuesday.

They both got perfect attendance awards. For Daniel, this is the fourth one in six years and Allison has gotten two in four years. We are truly blessed to have three healthy children. Between the three of them, they’ve had a grand total of one ear infection. Other than the normal scheduled visits, we’ve never taken Liliana to the doctor for an illness. Partly because she hasn’t really gotten sick, plus she’s the third child. With the first child, every time he has a temperature over 100 degrees you’re running to the doctor. By the third one, you’re like “She’s got a fever, give her some Tylenol, fluid and rest.”

In past summers we didn’t have too many organized events in the summer, but this year will be different. They both signed up for the swim team at the pool, and last night was the first organized event, time trials. I didn’t see the final times, but Allison did very well in the 50 yard freestyle. Daniel was in the 50 yard breast stroke, and he ran out of gas with about 10 yards to go.

You can certainly criticize NJ governor Jon Corzine’s political skills. With his party holding majorities in both houses of the NJ legislature, he should have no problems passing basically whatever he wants. Instead, with 18 days until a balanced budget must be in place he’s got nothing but grief from his fellow democrats.

One thing you can’t knock the governor is his ability to count, and the magic number for him to count to in the NJ senate is “21″. Democrats outnumber republicans 22-18 in the senate, and a handful of democrats have on the record said they do not support the Corzine tax and spend budget, in particular the sales tax hike, the hospital bed tax hike and the water tax hike. Rather than turn using his legendary powers of persuasion to convince wavering democrats, Corzine is reaching out to the New Jersey republican party for help. “Please guys, I need your votes to ram through these tax increases onto the already overtaxed NJ citizenry”. NJ GOP leaders politely turned down the offer, and will most likely spend the next three weeks watching the ex-Goldman Sachs master of the universe try to get himself out of this mess on his own.

According to AP reporter Tom Hester in Corzine asks Republicans for budget help; one offers praise, Corzine met with NJ GOP leaders Senator Leonard Lance and Assemblyman Joseph Malone and asked for their help and votes, particularly for the sales tax hike. Lance said, “Gee, thanks for the offer, but we don’t support the sales tax hike”.

According to Hester, the only GOP senator who might be in a dealing mood is Bill Gormley, the NJ state senator who seems to care mostly about the Atlantic City casinos in his district. Gormley hinted that he might support Corzine in exchange for a pledge to not raise casino taxes. Well, at least Gormley is consistent.

Sad to hear that fellow right wing blogger NJ Conservative is ready to throw in the towel and give up the blog. In his post from last Sunday Death of a blogger NJ Con writes that he doens’t think he is up to snuff, and that he was getting into a rut (”.. whine about taxes and stupid stuff in The Star Ledger).

All bloggers know the feeling. I tend to write about the same stuff as NJ Con, and there are many days that I don’t write anything. I started blogging almost four years ago during the Jim McGreevey administration. Man, those were the days for a NJ blogger. McGreevey was a scandal a week, each one better than the other. Jon Corzine is boring in comparison. I don’t blog as much as I used to about national politics because there are already thousands of political bloggers and I’d just be one more voice out there beating on the same old thing. And if you haven’t noticed most of the political discourse is either “Bush is Hitler” or “Howard Dean strangles baby kittens and sucks their blood”.

Perhaps a short sabatical will recharge NJ Con’s batteries and get him back into the game. The NJ blogosphere needs as many conservatives as possible to counteract the liberal/progressive bloggers and the Star-Ledger and NY Times.

Some recent news about New Jersey property taxes should be a big concern for all homeowners in the state, burdened by the highest property taxes in the nation.

Two democrat leaders in Trenton, Assembly Speaker Joe Roberts and Senate president Richard Codey are subtly trying to change the terms of the upcoming debate about how to solve the property tax crisis. Most voters and property tax payers are expecting their property taxes to go down. Roberts and Codey are trying to define success as “property tax reform”, meaning they will only try to slow down the future growth of property taxes.

In the article Property tax reform won’t aid everyone, Codey promised he would try to “stem the tide” and hold down the “inflation rate” of property taxes. When asked about actually cutting property taxes, Codey said “I think that’s possible, but it’s hard.” No kidding. Roberts placed emphasis on two items, public employee pensions and school funding reform. Unless Roberts has major changes in mind, any reform in those areas will likely just cut the growth rather than provide enough savings that would translate into property tax cuts.

This appears to be an attempt by NJ democrats to lower expectations for the upcoming special session on property taxes. They don’t have the stomach to tangle with the state workers unions or with the special interests benefiting from the warped NJ school funding mechanism. Instead, it looks like they will try to pass some minor reforms like eliminating pension double dipping and calls to consolidate services and declare victory. They won’t make any tough or significant decisions, instead passing the buck by endorsing a constitutional convention. Not exactly a profile in courage.

Trenton republicans are rightly pointing out that if the special session does nothing except make minor reforms and decides to endorse a constitutional convention, voters should perceive it as a failure.

In response to the democrats attempt to define success before the speical session, Repulican assemblyman Steve Corodemus responds “..If this summer exercise concludes with nothing more than a pledge to hold a constitutional convention, it will take another two or three years to provide any meaningful property tax relief or reform. The people will then judge it a failure.” [link].

Democrats can’t keep on blaming Christie Whitman forever. They’ve been in charge for five years now and have done nothing, as in diddly squat, to solve the property tax crisis. It’s time to put up or shut up.

I didn’t see any TV footage, but yesterday’s scene in Trenton must have been a hoot.

Three elected officials, NJ state senator Stephen Sweeney along with assemblymen Gerald Green and Paul Moriarty, all democrats, held a press conference to announce they were starting a new website, Stop Spending My Money.com, to promote their plan to ask over compensated NJ state workers to make some sacrifices in terms of pay and benefits in order to help balance the NJ state budget.

Sweeney and company were shouted down at the press conference by over 100 state workers wearing purple and black t-shirts. “Shame! Shame!” shouted the workers, who I must assume were still on the clock, unless their obscene contract allows for the state to pay them to attend protests. “This is three isolated guys that are making the biggest mistakes of their political careers,” said Carla Katz, president of the largest state workers union and former main squeeze of NJ governor Jon Corzine.

Another news commentator noted earlier this week that this effort by Sweeney may be an interunion squabble with a touch of democrat unhappiness with Jon Corzine. Sweeney is considered on of the most pro-union senators in Trenton, since he is also an Ironworkers union official in private life. Sweeney, however, comes from the trade union part of the union spectrum, laborers, construction workers and stell workers. If you look at Stop Spending My Money.com, there’s even a link to an announcement from the 125,000 member NJ Building Trades Council, a group of trade unions, saying the “…”Vicious Attack” by State AFL-CIO Unwarranted”.

Trade unions don’t have anywhere near the obscene benefits given to government workers unions. Many don’t get paid sick days, and most unions are self insured for health benefits. Their pensions are also largely funded by employee contributions, not taxpayers.

Plus it appears that with less three weeks to go before the June 30th deadline for a budget, democrats are still not in favor of Jon Corzine’s tax and spend budget. Democrats only have a two seat majority in the senate and if only two democrats jump ship, they can kill any bill or budget. If I was Corzine, I would count Sweeney as one of the two democrats who might not go along with the sales tax increase.

Sweeney is also known to be an ally of south Jersey party boss George Norcross. Maybe some payback is going on here by forcing the governor into a delicate political situation??

Fascinating stuff, because it has served as a wedge within the democrat party. Forced to choose between taxpayers and the government workers unions who helped him get elected, Jon Corzine has sided with the over compensated state workers. “We need to keep our pledges” says the governor who has already broken campaign promises to increase property tax rebates and who used a one shot gimmick and borrowing to replenish the transportation trust fund after campaigning against one shot gimmicks and borrowing.

The past eight days have been packed with dance rehearsals and recitals, baseball practices and games, carnivals, church activities, and other end of the school year activities. I’m serious, I may have been on-line for only two or three hours the past eight days.

Plus I’m on a project at work which, due to the time difference between here and Europe, has me working very wierd hours. I am not a morning person. I’d rather have a meeting at midnight rather than 7AM.

The Daily Record headline says Dems: Cut pay, benefits for state workers. Democrat state senator Stephen Sweeney and democrat assemblymen Jerry Green and Paul Moriarty held a Trenton press conference and told the state workers unions that they should reopen their current labor contract and accept cuts in pay and benefits to help the state climb out its financial hole.

The state workers union president told them, in a very rude manner, no way. The contract is up next year, and there will be no renegotiations before then. “We’ve done our share” says the president of the union which hasn’t done a blessed thing to reduce costs.

Sweeney and company want fewer paid for holidays (they currently get 17, which is 5 more than me) and they want state workers to put in a 40 hour work week. They currently work only 35 hours week for full time pay. In addition Sweeney asked for pension give backs, higher employee contributions for benefits and raising the retirement age from the totally obscene 55 year old minimum to a mildly obscene 60 years of age.

This move by Sweeney is either (1) something he knows is going to be rejected but it allows him to say “Hey, I tried” or (2) an attempt to put Corzine and his union allies on the spot to take any voter anger when the 2006-2007 tax and spend budget is passed at the end of this month.

Sweeney is actually a Teamsters union official in addition to being a state senator, so the union bashing is a bit of a surprise. Sweeney is also known to be a crony of South Jersey party boss George Norcross, so maybe this is an attempt to deflect criticism onto the governor.

Business Week has a story The Leadership Factory with details about how so many former Goldman Sachs executives have moved on to bigger and better things.

The magazine labels former employees of the Wall Street financial giant “Goldmanites”. The article has a long list of Goldmanites who have moved on to political life in both democrat and republican administrations.

Of course, New Jersey’s current governor is a Goldman Sachs alum. And in addition to NJ governor Jon Corzine, you’ve got two treasury secretaries, Robert Rubin from the Clinton era and just announced Bush secretary of treasury, Henry M. Paulson Jr. President Bush also named a Goldmanite, Joshua Bolton, as White House chief of staff to replace Andrew Card.

Henry Paulson was Corzine’s boss at Goldman Sachs, and rumor is that Paulson was the key force behind the move to force Corzine out the door back in 1998, just before the firm went public in move that payed off in billions of dollars for many lucky Goldmanites. Legend is Corzine was so devastated he sat in his limo outside the Goldman Sachs offices and worked their rather than go inside. The Star-Ledger reports on the frosty relations between Corzine and Paulson in Between Paulson and Corzine, no love lost. Read more about this in the classic Craig Horowitz New York Metro piece “The Deal He Made: Senator Jon Corzine’s Quest for Redemption.”