PrintApril 4, 2007
More NYT whitewashing of Democrats (updated)
The New York Times has published an article on the New Jersey pension fund fiasco without ever identifying Democrats as having been in charge. Can anyone doubt that if the parties were reversed, the "Republican" would have appeared throughout, and probably in the headline?
Since 2002, New Jersey has had 4 Democrats as governors, under whose leadership this problem apparently developed or/and worsened, while the Democratic Party of New Jersey has a long history of sordid corruption.
The only time the word Democrat is mentioned is when discussing the current Governor of New Jersey, Jon Corzine, who is depicted as trying to "solve" the crisis. Corzine is currently under criticism for too chummy of a relationship with Carla Katz, president of the Communications Workers of America Local 1034, a union that represents a large percentage of NJ state employees, but of course that scandal connection is of no interest to the Times.
Update:
Update:
Dear Editor -- Your posts and articles on American Thinker are always interesting and informative.
You do have a mis-fire on the NJ pension fiasco. Even the NYT did not give a full picture.
The seeds of a problem were sown in 1994, when Republican Governor Whitman floated a massive state bond issue ($4.5 billion as I recall), without voter approval, to fund NJ pension plans. This allowed the state and other jurisdictions temporarily to cease paying annually into the pension funds, freeing up monies that would ordinarily go into pension funds to go into other state or local spending programs -- plus fund the state income tax cut enacted that year. Since the stock market "boomed," the monies in the pension funds looked good with this $4.5 B infusion -- until the meltdown in 2000 and 2001. Then the fiscal troubles, as predicted, really got worse.
The $4.5 B bond issue was "back loaded" -- like a balloon mortgage. New Jersey had to pay little in debt service (principal and interest) for the first several years. In later years the debt service ballooned to $1 B a year. The overall cost for this bonding scheme is about $9 B (or more) to the taxpayers.
In the 2001 pension deal the NYT cited, you will discover that this was accomplished by an acting Republican Governor DiFrancesco and a Republican legislative majority in both the State Senate and General Assembly. No wonder the voters dumped the GOP in the 2001 election.
I would agree that the Democrats, who took over both houses and the governorship in January 2002, have been big spenders. They have compounded the problem with nepotism and corruption.
Sincerely,
James H. Wallwork, Chevy Chase MD
James H. Wallwork, Chevy Chase MD
