I ventured over the Delaware River today into my home state of New Jersey. That’s where I heard about this. I guess it’s appropriate that Governor Chris Christie is running the Garden State like a mob boss, but he’s got a war on now. When the Senate Majority leader calls the governor “a rotten prick,” “a bully, a punk,” and says he “wanted to punch him in the head,” then you know something unusual has gone down.
“You know who [Christie] reminds me of?” Sweeney says. “Mr. Potter from ‘It’s a Wonderful Life,’ the mean old bastard who screws everybody.”
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“Last night I couldn’t calm down,” Sweeney said. “To prove a point to me — a guy who has stood side by side with him, and made tough decisions — for him to punish people to prove his political point? He’s just a rotten bastard to do what he did.”
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“I’m just so angry that he hurt people like this to prove a point. He is a cruel man.”
Listen, you don’t give a shit about New Jersey state politics, so I won’t bore you with too many details. The basic story is that Sweeney is a Democrat. He has ambitions for higher office. He put all that at risk by striking a deal with the governor that pissed off labor. Then the governor turned around and used his line-item veto powers to screw over every Democrat who crossed him in the budget negotiations. He went even further than that.
As for the vindictive cuts, Sweeney’s list of suspects is a long one.
The governor cut the Senate and Assembly budgets, but not his own, a move that is unprecedented. He cut money from the nonpartisan Office of Legislative Services, the outfit that sided with Democrats on this year’s revenue estimates.
He cut a fellowship program run by Alan Rosenthal, the Rutgers University professor who served as referee in this year’s legislative redistricting fight, and sided with Democrats.
When Democrats tried to restore money to a few favorite programs — including college scholarships for poor students, and legal aid for the needy — the governor not only rejected the additions, he added new cuts on top of that.
He mowed down a series of Democratic add-ons, including $45 million in tax credits for the working poor, $9 million in health care for the working poor, $8 million for women’s health care, another $8 million in AIDS funding and $9 million in mental-health services.
But the governor added $150 million in school aid for the suburbs, including the wealthiest towns in the state. That is enough to restore all the cuts just listed.
Of course, Sweeney winds up looking naive and Christie gives Ann Coulter another orgasm. So it goes.
But, notice who really got screwed.
