Thanks very much to all of the Contributors who gave us their insights and proposals. Hopefully the Christie Administration will take heed, and that NJ will benefit from this vigorous source of constructive policies!

I'll put these down:

1. Transparency measures to open up state government to public scrutiny (see here)
2. End the ability of public-sector unions to influence state elections (see here)
3. Reform of the civil-service laws, especially with regard to pensions (see here)

As George, Allan and others have brought up, there are quite a few parallels between the situation Christie finds himself in with the situation Obama found himself in a year ago. Christie would do well to pay close attention to the pitfalls which have led to Obama's current situation.

While the economic tailwinds are admittedly more favorable for Christie than they were for Obama, I would say the two key lessons for Christie would be: (1) limit your priorities to meat-and-potato issues (perhaps just the budget and school vouchers) and invest your time and efforts largely into ensuring you have meaningful accomplishments in those issues; and, (2) stay true your principles and personality. The electorate is likely to be more satisfied with a leader whose priorities they clearly understand and who has delivered on those priorities, even if they don't always agree with his methods.

“During the next four years, two New Jersey Supreme Court justices will reach the mandatory retirement age, and two others will be up for reappointment.”

In addition to the lamentable NJ Supreme Court decisions highlighted in Steinberg’s article (Abbott, Mount Laurel, Lautenberg-Torricelli), let’s remember that in 2000, the Court struck down a law requiring parental notification for minors undergoing abortions. Hence, a 13 year-old can now have an abortion in NJ without her parents’ consent or knowledge, but it is against NJ law for anyone under 18 years of age to get a tattoo or body piercing without written consent from their parent or legal guardian.

Pete, I second your desire to see if a Reagan- / Thatcher- like showdown with the state employees' unions over the civil service reform. I think it would be a defining symbolic moment for Christie and send notice to both entrenched interests as well as the electorate that he is indeed serious about fighting for the ordinary taxpayer in NJ.

Without such a stark message to confirm that we are indeed in uncharted territory, union bosses no matter how nervous at the moment will revert to their tried-and-tested playbook for prior difficult periods: lay low, stall and hope that they can hold out until the electorate loses focus (as it inevitably will).

http://www.politickernj.com/alan-steinberg/36165/christie-can-succeed-where-obama-failing

Key quotes from article:

"In short, the result of the first Christie budget will be a test of wills between the new Governor and municipal and school district officials throughout the state. These local officials will hope that threat of property tax hikes and major reductions in education and municipal services will cause Christie to raise state taxes in order to close the $9 billion deficit and maintain state aid to municipalities and school districts at existing levels."

"Will Chris Christie succeed in making the focus on the property tax issue the reduction of local costs, rather than the amount of state aid? His success in this regard will determine how his administration will be judged, not just by the voters in 2013 but by historians in general. The ability of the Christie administration to communicate this message will depend on the political skills of his top officials."

"Christie can win the test of wills with local officials and the various public employee and teachers’ union, most notably the New Jersey Education Association (NJEA) if he holds firm and now conveys a real message of Hope: that after a painful period, the state’s budget expenditure can be reduced, that further reductions in taxes can be implemented, and that a more business friendly climate in the state will be the result."

How about a super-FOIA for NJ? Allow any member of the public to review any NJ government file and e-mail unless an official accountable to the courts declares an item off-limits on the basis of a tightly worded regulation? Moreover, if an official uses a private e-mail account or file system to conduct state work, then that account or system must be opened to public scrutiny so that public items may be disclosed. In essence, it would mean giving the public read-only access to all NJ government network drives and e-mail accounts.

The implementing regulation could allow that items concerning identifiable private individuals must be kept in a shielded folder and redacted when disclosed upon order by a FOIA official or the courts. Moreover, any inter-office item intended to be confidential would have to be publicly listed as existing, but could be shielded from review for a set period unless a state FOIA official found no good cause existed to keep it hidden.

I'll admit that this is a radical proposal, and perhaps not even completely feasible, but it does provide a good starting-point for thinking about how to make NJ government more transparent.

Dear James

I like the tone of your advice. I think this is very important.

Our model should be how Reagan acted and spoke. Christie must not repeat Obamas mistake of being aloof. He has to be the forceful voice of each proposal. I know this is easy to say for a professor who spends most of his time seated in comfortable room, but I agree with everyone who thinks our time is limited. You used a word "mananimously". This is key. We can't come across as the root canal folks.

I think we should be clear about what we think about the teachers. We need to forget the talk radio hatred of teachers. I know that we often separate the unions and the teachers but the tone is still quite hateful. This is a shame . According to an article in thei union magazine they think that about 40 percent of their membership is conservative. We can win some these folks over if we would just stop yelling at them. We can score points by taking on a common sort of corruption in New Jersey: Teachers are rarely addressed as professionals by the administration. For example: Are you aware of the practice of having principals and higher administratiors changing grades/changing who doesn't get into the honor society? It won't cost a dime to have the Governor champion treating teachers as professionals.

The point is that if we cant to stay on top we need to be about something more than taxes.

George

It strikes me, however, that declaring an emergency would be a good risk nevertheless. It would be an exact foil to the recent crisis and the federal takeovers – a Reaganite reply, if you will. It would be a great reflection of the present Zeitgeist, as the federal expansion was in its (very recent) day. At the same time, a Reaganite revolution in NJ would lay the foundation for NJ's lasting economic health, and would thus very likely gain a lastingly good reputation where the feds' TARP and such have become increasingly covered in ignominy.

Gregg - I agree that civil service reform is fundamental to getting NJ back on track. I earlier wrote on this as a way to combat official corruption in NJ. Taking the Reaganite conceit a bit further, could we perhaps envision a Christie-public union showdown like that between Reagan and the air-traffic controllers back in the day? At a minimum, it would be a joy to behold triple-pension holders publicly demanding that their privileges continue, and the public reaction thereto.

Interestingly, I think education reform broadly should be a priority for the Christie administration and Bret because it is the one area where there is a pretty solid nexus of bipartisan consensus, and because it further outs the NJEA for playing its obstructionist role. For instance, the recent flap over the state's Race to the Top application, and its requirement that a "proposal" for linking student assessment data to teacher review be submitted, is something that seems wholly reasonable to the man on the street. It's, in fact, one of the signature issues of a democratic president...and there are many democratic and republic legislators who see the value in this, but the NJEA, in its practiced chorus of "no, no no" ain't having none of it. That sort of resistance just doesn't pass the smell test.

As for priorities...I'd say the Lesniak/Kean tax credit scholarship bill should be a front runner, because it's the kind of thing that needs to be done quickly, and because there's a great deal of support for it. In parallel...any charter school reforms the department can enact on its own. Then, revisiting the charter school law and possibly the "dollars follow the child" concept in the school funding formula. These, followed by a series of steps around transparency and teacher quality that pair with the state's second bite at the Race to the Top apple, are all good stuff.

Dear Harpriye and others,

I agree that something should be done quickly. The publics mood is not good and we can't be sure the public won't turn on us as quickly as they have turned on the liberal establishment.

I don't want to see a repitition of what Whitman did where she cut some of the lowest paid people working for the state. This left a bad taste in many people's mouth. This school year the professors had to take a seven day furlough-but the staff ( who earn a good deal less) had to take an eleven day furlough. This was done by Corzine but the poit is that New Jersey has a bad habit of doing this over and over. If we do something else it will be a great opporutnity to a be the heros.

The gourp we should be aiming to please is the middle class. I think there are great opportunities to do this in high education. The middle calss is not interested in ideological battles but they sure are interested in getting a good education for their children. They are especially interested in being sure that their children who are in the liberal arts are going to be ok. Of course the liberal arts are where most of the political correctness occurs. Perhpas we should urge that no university's budget be approved until there is transparency and an audit. During the audit it should be possible to eliminate some ideological programs and courses.

For example:

A. The core curriculums are poorly designed if you want your liberal arts student to learn the fundamental skills they will need for the rest of their lives.

B. We can have them look at the basic composition courses and see that are taught by adjuncts. Why? So that the professors can go off and teach/preach their ideology?

C. We now have so many majors/minors etc.that are ideologically based. We might be able to say that at this time we can't afford such majors are Women's studies etc. that we need the money to teach the skills that THEIR children will need. Also we need the money to help the minority children who haven't had the proper opportunities.

D. We can urge that we should have some kind of a cap or ratio between the salaries of the staff and the professors and the administration. This will make it hard to say the we are against the little guy.

Couldn't we save the taxpayers some money and provide a better and more objective education for our children.

Is there someone who knows more about political realities who can answer if an audit before budget approval would be possible?

George

Two more important reforms: NJ needs a constitutional spending cap. Second, labor costs will never be controlled without reforming NJ's civil service law.

Today's severe fiscal problems should be used to highlight the need for significant structural reforms.

The mantra should be: Local institutions, local resources. Meaning: phasing out the state income tax so funding of public schools takes place with local resources. The Abbott districts would have to rely the state income tax, local property taxes, grants, tuition, etc.

Ending state tax dollar support for nonprofits. If they are performing well, they should get voluntary contributions for their operating revenue.

State colleges and universities should be financially independent within 7-10 years by increasing their endowments to make up for the phasing out of taxpayer support.

A major effort should be made to attract as many new businesses to NJ as possible. Phasing out the CBT would be the great incentive for business expansion in NJ and attract overseas businesses and companies from around America.

In short, the liberty agenda is easy to figure out, and "selling" it should be relatively easy. Morality and good economics are on our side.

Declaring a financial emergency is certainly an interesting gambit as it would at the very least sustain popular and media interest in NJ's structural issues. However, I wonder about the risk of potentially appearing overly alarmist down the line as the economy rebounds.

I suppose if Christie feels he needs the additional leverage that such as announcement might be worth looking into. But it would have to be sooner rather later, as he will want to be in position to wind it up with some tangible progress before such strong terminology loses its credibility or relevance towards the back end of 2010.

As I have written before, the NJEA is arguably the biggest obstacle to state reform today.

I would be curious to get your views, Derrell, as to what Schundler's priorities should be.

The timing of tomorrow's inauguration in New Jersey could overlap with a stunning GOP Senate victory in Massachusetts, providing some ammunition to those whose might want to start tracing a national GOP revival to the northeast.

There is little doubt that this administration has strong conservative philosophical underpinnings on key issues such as fiscal management and education reform. A lot of how much actually gets implemented is now a matter of both execution as well as how the political landscape shifts over the coming months.

However, the prospects for redefining a nationally viable GOP on the back of unambiguously conservative beliefs (i.e. school vouchers) makes being a "Jersey Conservative" suddenly a very fashionable item after a long period of political exile.

Plus, could Christie feasibly risk at his inauguration proposing a wholesale restructuring of the state? I wonder, actually. I think that if Christie promised a wholesale review of NJ government, and a major reform bill for 2011 which contained the fruits of the study, that could prepare the electorate and get a lot of people looking at the structural flaws of NJ government.

First: open contract negotiations. Shadow is catalytic in how NJEA leadership gets over on taxpayers and, more importantly, works to keep bad teachers in the profession. After all, a bad teacher pays the same amount of dues as a good one, so the more teachers, the better, regardless of ability or outcomes. Additionally, it's a lot easier to ask for things most taxpayers would find borderline absurd when no one can watch the dog and pony show around teacher contract negotiations. The process should be made visible for everyone to see.

Second: stop making school districts the fiduciary entity for dues collection. This has less to do with leveling the playing field, and more to do with the free speech of NJEA members. There are many teachers, liberal and conservative, who do not agree with NJEA agenda items, but they must contribute to the overall agenda nonetheless. How about NJEA "asking" members for their money for political donations instead of getting a huge pot of cash delivered straight to them via taxpayer financed school districts? Makes too much sense to do it, right?

Part of getting folks to do the right thing is giving them a chance to. I don't write this to let everyone in Trenton off the hook...but to say there's a way we can enable them to at least be excellent, or terrible, on their own terms.

Lately conservatives have done well just yelling at the flaws of the liberal proposals.

I wonder thought is we don't need to address various problems with conservative solutions-but still solutions. that is what I remember Reagan doing. He didn't just denounce . He always had a story to tell.

An example of that being done is our support for the voucher program.

George Zilbergeld

Beyond this, I agree with Harp's view that the possible amelioration of NJ's tax revenues over the coming year may decrease interest in reform, and that Christie has to move quickly. I think one of the best things he could do is open NJ government offices to the media (including bloggers) for scrutiny. No doubt security would be an issue, but this is a matter of implementation. As I have said before, transparency, transparency, transparency!

We look forward to a great discussion, and welcome to our readers!

Harpriye is a financial-services expert who served on the Christie transition team.

Derrell is head of E3, which pushes for education reform in New Jersey.

We look forward to reading their views and comments online!

New Jersey, with its historically reckless fiscal management and high dependence on Wall Street tax revenue, has proven more vulnerable to the global financial turmoil than most peers around the country. The crisis therefore not only played a decisive role in Governor-Elect Chris Christie's November victory, its deeply felt pain has also been correctly identified as providing favorable tailwinds for a pro-growth, pro-reform economic agenda. However, these favorable tailwinds may not carry as far into Christie's gubernatorial tenure as some around Trenton may believe. As 2009’s bumper Wall Street results have signaled, the financial hurricane is over – even though it has clearly left significant wreckage in its wake.

Lost amid the political furor over record bonus payouts has been the remarkable reality that capital markets, which had been badly strained for approximately two long years, have to large extent recovered. This semblance of normalcy in capital markets will in due course mean at least some recovery in access to finance for businesses seeking to expand their workforces, families seeking to buy homes and even consumers seeking to splurge. Consequently, most forecasters expect the U.S. economy to expand at a healthy 3% clip in 2010.These factors raise the possibility that as tax revenue again starts flowing into Trenton’s coffers, the state’s actual FY2011 deficit may not be as dire as currently projected.

It took time for the pain on Wall Street, where the crisis originated in summer 2007, to reflect itself on Main Street and public finances; recall the widespread public sentiment that the crisis was confined to being "a Wall Street problem" which persisted deep into 2008. Similarly, the sense of recovery on Main Street and in Trenton will lag the recovery in capital markets, which began in March 2009. However, as the sense of pain inevitably dissipates during the course of 2010, Christie’s leverage over entrenched interests – as well as the keen attention his pro-taxpayer agenda currently enjoys from an unusually watchful electorate – has the potential to revert to apathy and even hostility.

The bottom line is that while the incoming administration may have a historic opportunity to push through needed reforms, the political window for pushing through those changes could rapidly narrow. As the economy recovers and the electorate’s anger wanes, entrenched interests will feel less pressure to make long overdue concessions. This reality should dictate a sense urgency from the outset for Christie’s agenda as well as impose the political discipline to prioritize the most impactful and achievable reforms. This is undoubtedly a challenging task; however, the opportunity to push through dramatic changes through 2010 and yet still be in position to benefit from a fortuitously timed economic recovery should provide more than enough motivation for Christie to get it right.

Excellent points and statistics, Jim! The NJ public salaries and budget statistics you cite are stunning and depressing. (For those into such downers, I recommend some further stats here.) The threat which an out-of-control NJ civil service poses is immense because there is no commercial market force dictating or regulating its growth. It is like an invasive species running wild and threatening the NJ economic ecosystem.

To be fair, there may be some instances where large increases in government spending could be justified in a free market:

1. To repair gaps in market-facilitating services, such as a temporary effort to repair neglected infrastructure
2. The new officials are able to clear the market's path, so that their pay is a fraction of the growth they induce
3. To meet unforeseen challenges that threaten the market, such as a massive outbreak of crime
4. To socialize market-facilitating processes done less efficiently by private sector, so costs go down for same service

If on January 1, 2010, we could look out over a gleaming network of new infrastructure and a liberated, dynamic NJ marketplace, we might think that the decade's explosion in government growth was well-directed, and ready now to subside to a maintenance level. Instead, we observe an ever-heavier dead hand of government lying on the NJ marketplace, reducing profit outlooks and commercial predictability. This is government-as-parasite, not government-as-helper. This sort of government chases business and investors out of NJ. It chokes the life out of its economic host.

Let us assume that if the government diminishes the market's productivity, as in NJ, it does so for some economically unproductive form of social equity or justice. This is not necessarily a bad thing, since we are not mere widgets. Such a course would mean, however, that the public views the market not as the exclusive metric of social value, but merely as a tool for realizing some other social value. The questions would then be simple ones: (1) what is the social metric of value; and (2) is the state efficiently providing this value?

Whatever the social metric of value might be, it has to measure value to society as a whole, not just to the state apparatus. The NJ civil service and public unions are wrong to equate themselves with society as a whole. (See Carla Katz's recent, lengthy article advising Christie in this vein.) The civil service and public unions are not society, but instead live off of NJ society. If they provide a net economic or social benefit to their host (as they should), then they are doing their job. Otherwise, they are simply parasitical and should be removed to this extent.

The question then turns to whether the state is efficiently providing social value. The applicable test is simple: can any other means or institution more efficiently provide value than the one currently offered by the state? Let us take as an example one identified social benefit, a "thorough and efficient system of free public schools." (NJ Const., Sect. IV.1.) What social-value metrics does this provision introduce? The school system must be open to all students, at no cost to them or their parents. These are no doubt worthy social conditions, whatever their link to improving the marketplace.

So what is the best way to create such a "thorough and efficient" school system? Either debate abstract system models in a vaccuum, or let a competitive market of schools lead to winning models and an evolution to quality. Of the two courses, having competing schools is doubtlessly more efficient because it allows a comparison of real-world implementations. Even if an abstract model's implementation is not catastrophically flawed, its merits cannot be compared to competing real-world alternatives. Consequently, it can never be shown to be the maximally efficient model.

If the NJ civil service actually cared about maximizing value, it would facilitate and manage a real-world competition between schools, using vouchers to facilitate public choice between alternatives. The NJ civil service does not want such a competition, however, because it is already heavily invested in one product, namely traditional "public school" institutions. The NJ civil service and public unions have thus sought to shut down any competition and maintain their comfortable monopoly over NJ schools. (The Washington, DC example is a shameful prospect for NJ to consider.)

Until such conflicts of interest are removed, the state can never efficiently provide value, whatever the social metric.

So what is to be done? Here are a few ideas:

1. End the ability of NJ public-sector unions to take part in state or local political activity and thereby negatively affect efficiency-maximizing competition
2. Establish a high-level government service directed to conduct a permanent competition among independent service-providers to maximize efficiency in providing identified social goods
3. Implement a metric for all government processes which (above a certain minimal dollar level) attempts to: (a) quantify the process's net economic impact on the private sector (starting with civil-service salaries); and (b) identify and measure other quantifiable social goods which are affected by the process

If these reforms could be instituted in New Jersey, the impact would be enormous. In all events, it has to be hoped that the Christie Administration has a principled approach to reform rather than a piecemeal one. For New Jersey to be allowed to heal, it has to have some guiding ideas which the public can rally around and hold to over the long haul.

From 2000 to 2009 – even after adjusting for inflation and population growth – Jersey state government spending rose by 29%. Let me put this another way: If spending grew in accord with population and inflation over the past ten years, New Jersey would have enjoyed a $5.7 billion surplus in fiscal year 2009 instead of suffering under a $4.3 billion deficit.

Similarly, according the latest Census Bureau data (2007), local governments in Jersey have increased spending at well above the rates of inflation and population growth – though not as rapidly as the state government. Yet, the executive director of the New Jersey League of Municipalities recently stated that the state’s “cuts” in aid to municipalities will “absolutely, positively have an adverse impact on quality-of-life services.” Hence, I did some research and found that this public servant’s compensation is $191,580/year. Does this give anyone ideas as to how we could handle these budget cuts without adversely impacting our quality of life?

This reminds me of a classic incident involving my plain-spoken Italian grandmother who became outraged when she noticed a certain brand of crackers had gone up in price, down in quantity, and was now costing more than $9.00/pound. This prompted her to send a letter to the manufacturer scolding them for selling crackers at a higher price per pound than filet mignon. A senior manager wrote back, attempting to placate her with an explanation about the high costs of production, marketing, and distribution. Unimpressed with this response and now in possession of the name of a corporate executive, my grandmother penned this simple reply:

“Dear Mr. [corporate executive],

You’re the first SOB your company should fire so they can stick two more crackers in the box.”

It is time public servants stick two more crackers in the box instead of continually raising the price. I’m not talking about all public servants. Many render excellent service to our communities, but the acceptance of insider politics (“you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours”), bloated salaries, absurd pensions/benefits, and substandard results has got to stop.

This applies even more so at the federal level where spending has grown 36% above the rate of inflation and population growth during the past decade; federal employees are now averaging $30,000 more in salary than private sector workers, and Obama is greasing the palms of his core constituents with “stimulus” money borrowed from our children.

Even before Obama began his massive spending spree, the federal government was 59 trillion dollars in the hole. On a personal level, this is more than half a million dollars for every household in the U.S., which is more than the combined net worth of all U.S. households including assets in real estate, corporate stocks, and private businesses. Simply put, this is unsustainable, and if something is not done very soon, the people of this country will suffer gravely from the politically motivated, short-sighted, and irresponsible actions of our government.

Alan's article today on PolitickerNJ, "Christie Versus the NJEA," is spot-on, as usual. It is arguable that the NJEA's role in the state goes to the very core of the state's dysfunction, at least insofar as most suburbanites are concerned. Nothing drives NJ property taxes like education spending, and the NJEA acts as a massive impediment to healthy change by working tirelessly to keep public education a cossetted, untouchable and growing guild.

As I wrote earlier, public-sector-focused unions such as the NJEA should be barred from political activity to prevent the state and its workers from setting up political machines that impose high barriers to entry for opponents of the bureaucracy's agenda, and consequently squelch democracy in NJ.

Alan very correctly points out that Christie is impeded by the lack of a major statewide media outlet. At the same time, however, there are very attractive alternatives: nationalization and opening up to reporters. Christie went on Hannity before the election, and he could show up on talk show after talk show to say he is spearheading a reform movement, and that he needs help. This would shine the spotlight on the Legislature and reactionary groups like the NJEA.

Next, as I have said before, "transparency, transparency, transparency"! What if Christie simply ordered all state government officials to assist and provide free access to credentialed reporters seeking information in state files? Can you imagine the NY Times and Philly Inquirer articles that would result? Or the TV specials? Frontline? Breitbart videos online? Etc., etc. It would cast a brilliant and disinfecting sunshine on the state's danker corners. It might also help to shed some light on where all those Abbott funds have actually gone ...

Finally, I would like to take issue with one of Alan's statements. I am not sure that Christie has an inherent problem with "movement conservatives." He may not be in the Libertarian vein, and he is quite obviously not a Lonegan guy. He seems, however, to like restraining and cleaning up government, and he is certainly sympatico with social conservatives. Which "movement" of conservatives are you speaking about then, Alan? In the end, of course, this is a minor point. The proof will be in the pudding for Christie, as is always the case with politics.

What if doctors leave the profession in droves and work on the black market? What if private citizens buy their health care under the table for cash, as is done in all socialist countries? What if Catholic hospitals, opposed to mandated abortion services, acting alone or as a group, refused to comply with the Pelosi / Reid take over of the US Health Care System? How would the Federal Government respond to this defiance?

I am not talking about civil disobedience. When groups of people get together and break small laws in order to have a bigger law repealed.

I am not talking about jury nullification. When a jury sitting at trial refuses to convict a person who has broken a specific law.

I am asking the question of what would happen if citizens themselves decide that this particular legislation is so onerous and inimical to liberty that they just cannot obey. Would an otherwise law abiding population, coming face to face with a law they believe will strip them of their historical rights, traditional privileges, and constitutional liberties, exercise their God given prerogatives and defy it?

This would be so serious a defiance of law that it has happened only one time in American history.

In 1775, British General Thomas Gage, Royal Governor of Massachusetts, wrote a letter to King George III. A year before, by legal act of Parliament the Port of Boston had been closed. This law is known in history as the Coercive Acts. No ships were allowed to enter or leave the Port of Boston. Thousands of people became unemployed, sickness and death became commonplace. Four British regiments and the power of the British navy enforced the law.

But in his letter to the King, Gage noted that the population seemed less agitated than after the passage of the Stamp Act. There were no mass marches, no bloody riots, and no tea party. To Gage, the Americans were acquiescing, albeit reluctantly, to the power and majesty of British Law.

It was a monumental misreading of the mood of the American people.

What really was happening was that the American people, one person at a time, one family at a time, one town at time, had concluded that the British Government no longer had a legitimate right to govern. It may have had the power to enforce its laws of taxation and confiscation by armed force, but not by moral right. What Gage had seen as acquiescence was really a quiet, resolute defiance. The time for talking, for petitioning, for compromising was over. What Parliament decreed no longer mattered.

The American people would feed Boston by smuggling. They would deny the government funds by tax evasion. They would refuse to build barracks for their oppressors, or allow merchants to sell them food.

They would engage in Citizen Nullification of the Coercive Acts.

Nancy Pelosi would do well to learn a lesson from Thomas Gage’s miscalculation.

Our hour is up, and I would like to thank everyone for taking such an active part. It was an amazing discussion – perhaps the only one of its kind in NJ these days – and it should help to inform the new Christie administration about what conservatives are thinking about in NJ, and hopefully the transition team will pick up some policy ideas to recommend.

We have to do this again sometime soon. In the meantime, keep the ideas coming, and let the conversation continue, if at a slower pace. Thanks again everyone, and all the best!

I also agree on pressing for vouchers, especially in the Abbott districts, as an alternative to top-down, corruption-prone state spending.

Murray and Dominick,

With respect to repeal of the "thorough and efficient" clause: what would it be replaced with? Would we work off of the assumption that voters and parents expect that sort of education without billions of dollars attached to the mandate? Don't misunderstand, I like the idea, but I'm just curious about your thoughts on what would be next.

I agree, Peter, that pushing that effort would be an extremely tough sell, but maybe we nibble around the edges first to see where we could take it.

The public should get a bill every month for state, county, local government spending as well as a bill for the cost of running the public schools. When the public find out how much government really costs, they will have second thougths about government "services. Thus, abolish the income tax and sales tax.

I must admit, I was conflicted about whether to vote for or against the ballot question. I'm studying to be an historian and portion of the question on historic preservation made me pause. I ultimately voted against it due to the price tag. I have to agree with Dominick on this one. How many insignificant 1/4 acre lots do we need to "preserve" around the state? There are more abandoned buildings, old factories, etc. that could be refurbished to be turned into commercial use (I'm sure the attorneys and regulatory experts on this blog who know more about brownfields could speak to this) than there is a need for more parks!

Jobs and a sustainable tax base is what we need now. This open space movement is just about making voters feel good, while spending millions we don't have, when they're driving through traffic jams and seeing a Starbucks on every corner, but when those debt chickens come home to roost, we're going to be in a real jam!...

Murray

You wrote. "Repeal of the "thorough and efficient" education clause would go a long way to a creating a conservative New Jersey".

That is an excellent idea.

And after that we need to phase out government schools by allowing vouchers to be used for religous and private schools.

Unless we break the NEA in this state we can never recover economic freedom and growth.

1. Christie orders (good idea, Chris) that any Abbott funding (requested or disbursed) must be accounted for in detail online
2. Christie orders that any Abbott funding shall be disbursed by the state only once requested by a local school board, with signed certifications by the Board and relevant school and municipality officials that all assessments and bids have been properly conducted per regulations
3. Christie orders that any Abbott funding requested will make the funds subject to state audit
4. Christie sets aside, or demands from the Legislature, a large sum for anti-fraud auditing and investigation
5. Christie pushes for a sweeping set of anti-corruption laws with severe penalties
6. Christie pushes the Legislature to make any public official privately liable for all costs incurred by the public in rooting out corruption in which the official took any part (a form of joint and several liability)

Having said that, there is a limit as to how much debt New Jersey can reasonably incur. California is talking about bankruptcy with $25 billion of debt. We in New Jersey have over $40 billion in debt with a much smaller state. What does that tell us about our electorate ?

Peter

I don't know how much time you have spent in the Pine Barrons , but I have spent many years hunting, hiking and camping with my kids , friends and alone. It is a great resource. But it is all the open space a practical people concerned with producing wealth should really want. Plus we have the miles and miles of shore line. Enough already.

It is a luxury we cannot afford. Buying into the liberal premise that open space is good and developemnet is bad is destructive of wealth creation...and need I say it here...property rights and free enterprise!

Borrowing money to put out of productive use land in this small State is like eating our seed corn passed down to us by our ancestors. I know it is not PC to say but I believe growth is good. Free use of a person's own property is good. Building houses, sewer plants, nuclear plants , roads,etc is a good thing. Hell, more people the better, if they are productive!

My father is a retired state employee (Democrat) and he doesn't trust any politician. They are all "crooks" as far as he is concerned. He spent the last 30 years working for the State as a member of the CWA. From talking to him, I firmly believe that the most important thing for him to do is to stay grounded. Corzine and most of the other statewide elected officials we've had (suffered through), were seen as elitist, limousine liberals. Yeah, Christie walked in the halls of power for many years, but he's not insanely wealthy like Corzine and comes off as a "regular guy".

Conservatism is simply common sense. Christie needs to look people in the eye and tell the truth, just like Reagan did, and he'll begin to win over those Blue Dog/Reagan/Independent/Moderate Democrats. If he can manage to stay out of prolonged fights with the Legislature (which they will be giddy to get him into) and be seen as above all that while working to get our fiscal house in order, he should have success.

I'm not saying he should set up canned beer drinking sessions with those voters (then again, why not?), but be and stay NORMAL. That goes a long way to winning over people like my father...

My answer: Legislative leaders will determine what will result in greater public outcry: the elimination of the "goody" or the increase in tax necessary to fund it. Based on this determination, they will either raise a tax or eliminate the expenditure item.

Mount Laurel is another fantasy – that classes can be forced to mix happily and harmoniously. This concept exists to be dodged as much as possible by rich towns. (How many "senior citizens' apartments" can one town have?) I personally would like to see a class mix in all communities, but this isn't the way to do it. In Montgomery, a lot of working-class people have had to leave, not because of a lack of "low-income" housing, but because their property taxes went through the roof and they couldn't keep their homes and a living at the same time.

Having more jurisprudentially conservative judges (I'll settle for simply sensible) would help a lot in getting back to a proper tripartite government in NJ. I hope Christie has the guts and acumen to get us the state equivalent of a Roberts, and that he will avoid the Harriet Myers route.

Peter,

I'm sure I'm not alone when I say that I don't trust politicians when they talk about transparency. They all do it and they all violate the spirit and letter of whatever promise, regulation or law they espouse. That being said, it would be great if that were part of Christie's effort to open government and make it (and him) more accountable to the citizens.

Transparency initiatives are but a small part of the overall mission to "change Trenton as we know it", but it would be, if given the necessary "teeth", a great way to start and, as a former prosecutor, Christie is in a good position to be taken seriously if he were to propose such measures...

What steps do you think Christie could take that would attract average folks like the Reagan Democrats in Middlesex County (my childhood county) that Alan wrote about today?

In other words, how does Christie get average union-member Joe to say to his friends at the bar after work, "I don't give a (insert appropriate Jerseyism) about 'Republican this or that,' this guy's getting it done. What did Corzine and those jokers ever do for us"?

In 1990, however, the New Jersey Supreme Court, in the Abbott v. Burke decision, held that the "urban 30" school districts must be funded with state aid so that their finances would be equivalent to those of the "lighthouse districts", the wealthiest districts in the state. This resulted ultimately in suburban school districts throughout the state getting a much smaller share of state school aid than the "urban 30 Abbott" districts. Accordingly, suburban districts have been compelled to excessively rely on property taxes in order to fund education.

The Abbott v. Burke decision, like the early 1980s Mount Laurel decisions, was a quintessential example of the New Jersey Supreme Court legislating from the bench. As conservatives, we believe that the authority of courts must be limited to interpreting the statutes and constitutional provisions rather than legislating from the bench.

Governor-elect Christie has pledged to appoint justices who will not legislate from the bench. He will have the opportunity to appoint four new members of the seven member Supreme Cout. If he fulfills his pledge, this will be a significant triumph for conservatism in New Jersey.

If voters approve a referendum, then the funding should be allocated on a per capita basis. So instead of borrowing the funds, which the public sees as "costless' because they do not get a bill for the project(s), the public should have to pay immediately. The public would think twice before they vote for more debt.

Alan

You make an interesting point about the ambiguous nature of the electorate. But what happens when the music stops and the State can no longer afford the goodies. What happens when Christie faces a real money crunch with State services and pensions?

And how will it all play out with the dems controlling the legislature?

Christie will have to make good (and frequent) use of executive orders and other regulatory mechanisms in order to put into effect many of his goals. If he is willing to stand up to the unions (I hope) and the entrenched bureaucracy (I pray), he may be able to shame them into changes. His lack of a strong mandate will make this difficult, but he'll have to fight or go around them. The Legislature isn't going to want to give him any victories, and if they do, they will be early while everyone is settling in (see Obama's first three months). Once the Democrats get their legs under them, watch out.

Now is the time for creative governing with conservative principles. Sun Tzu-like tactics are the only way to advance an agenda in this blue state...

People in NJ are desperate to maintain what open space remains in the Garden State. A very beautiful state has been turning pretty quickly into one gigantic complex of subdivisions. Montgomery, I'm afraid, took that route in the 1980s and has only recently started to push back against overdevelopment. Then there's the Halpern Farm in Piscataway, three blocks from where I grew up. That scandal is a Target waiting to happen.

I think people also want to spend money on open space because it represents a pleasant public good, like parks, as opposed to murkier issues like complex infrastructure projects. Plus, it seems cleaner than most other projects, although I would be interested to see if there is in fact a lot of corruption here as well.

1. Require (and subsidize) any regulatory or spending decision in the state to be put online
2. Require all entities receiving state funds to be subject to state audit, and really fund the auditors (this could really help with Abbott fund corruption)

3. Allow a private claim for treble bidding costs against any public or private person found guilty of corruption with respect to the bid
4. Publish online all salaries, benefits and pension rights of all state and local government workers

Hello All,

Whew! What a night! With respect to a mandate for Christie, I would say has a very limited one. Voters in NJ and VA are simply saying: Slow down! to Obama and the Democrat's agenda. He would be well-advised to keep in mind that he shouldn't lag behind the voters, nor should he try to outpace them. Jersey voters are a fickle bunch and if he tries to be all things to all people, he'll fail.

By electing Chris Christie, the electorate was sending a message that there is widespread discontent with high state income taxes and local property taxes. Yet simultaneously, the electorate was approving an open space bond act which will add expenditure to future budgets, potentially resulting in the same higher taxes the citizenry wish to avoid.

Chris Christie won the election. He does not need a "mandate" to do what is necessary to restructure state government in order to provide tax relief and eliminate onerous business regulations. He also has to revisit the Abbott Supreme Court decision that put the Court in the driver's seat regarding the use of the income tax to fund education in the state.

My hope is that Christie takes his case to the public with the message that the income tax was a Trojan Horse and that it should be repealed. The benefits of an income tax free New Jersey would be enormous. He should take this opportunity to restore local control over education and argue that local funding of education is the right thing to do, thereby saving suburban taxpayers' billions of dollars per year.

I think Christie will have to build his mandate, and that his re-election campaign will be the real mandate - a building wave of reform, one hopes.

Welcome to Jersey Conservative's analysis of yesterday's Christie victory! We will be discussing its implications as a group from 7 to 8 p.m. this evening.

Although Christie's win was decisive by NJ standards for Republicans, the policy implications of his victory are not clear. For example, Christie did not set out a specific plan for reducing property taxes, and it is anyone's guess whether he has the political acuity to beat the political machines that keep these and other state taxes high. It is also uncertain whether New Jerseyans really want to cure the state's disease, or merely treat its worst symptoms.

Our panel tonight will discuss whether Christie's victory was just a protest vote, and whether he actually has a mandate for serious change. We will also propose and discuss our different ideas as to what Christie's priorities should be, and how he can best effect change from Trenton. We hope you will enjoy the discussion!

On Tuesday, a week ago, I predicted a Chris Daggett victory based on polls that had him at 20% two weeks before Election Day. I expected the "anti-Corzine and anti-Christie" vote to break for Daggett, and a surge of support by Independents who may have been willing to go for Daggett because of their frustration with the Democrats and the GOP running the state into the fiscal mess we are facing today. (For the record, my analysis of Daggett's chances to be the next governor of New Jersey was not an endorsement of his candidacy. I have criticized his tax plan in one of my recent www.politickernj.com columns. My optimistic assessment of Daggett's candidacy was based on my belief that this could be the year that blue state New Jersey surprised all the political experts.)

Apparently, the anti-establishment voters are going to hold their collective noses and vote for either Corzine or Christie, cutting into Daggett's support. For Daggett to have made a better case for his candidacy, a "home run" mailer to several hundred thousand independent voters would have been necessary in order to make a direct appeal: "Had enough of the irresponsible Democrats and Republicans?" Without a few more hundred thousand dollars, the Daggett campaign was always dogged by the 'wasted vote" syndrome.

Would an injection of cash have made the difference in the last two weeks of the campaign? I think so. If Daggett could have appealed directly to New Jerseyans who wanted to shake up the political establishment, he could have made the case that their votes would not be "wasted." Instead, it looks like the electorate will be content to reelect Jon Corzine and his big government agenda, or give Chris Chrisite a chance to "change" Trenton.

With the race a virutal dead heat 48 hours before all the polls close on Tuesday, Corzine's street money could make the difference in getting the vote out in all the state's urban areas, the key core Democratic strongholds. In addition, given the history of voter fraud in New Jersey, we cannot discount the possibility that voter fraud may play a role in the election's outcome. Chris Christie has to bank on suburban voters – both Republicans and Independents as well as disaffected Democrats – to come out for him and end Jon Corzine's political career. If Christie is victorious on Tuesday, he will have to roll up his sleeves and restructure state government by beginning to downsize the state budget by billions.

Holy cow. 46th in economic freedom! Everyone hould take the time to read this study.

We conservatives must understand that the Obama Presidency is not our Winter of Discontent but a magnificent historical opportunity to roll back the forces of Progressive Liberalism that have for over a century watered down and diminished the liberty of the individual American citizen. We must understand clearly what the election of Barack Obama really means for our nation in this time of crisis so that we can seize the opportunity and make it serve our cause of restoring liberty to this great nation. It might seem odd for me to say that Obama's election should be a cause for optimism given the potential for damage to our nation from this man of the Left. But consider this.

We are facing unprecedented, even catastrophic, economic and social disruption due to the fiscal and monetary policies instituted by the United States Government under both political parties since the creation of the Federal Reserve System and the ratification of the 16th Amendment (Income Tax) in 1913. And that is not just my opinion. From the great economist Ludwig von Mises, who warned in his seminal work, Human Action, that "there is no means of avoiding the final collapse of a boom brought about by credit expansion," to many contemporary observers like Professor Nouriel Roubini, Robert Prechter, Gereld Celente and Peter Schiff the message is the same. Massive government debt and fiat money creation cannot be sustained. The financial center of our modern economy that was created in 1913, the core of which is fiat money created by the Federal Reserve Board, cannot hold.

We must heed these warnings and prepare for the worst economic and social crises of our lives. It is just around the corner. And let me be blunt. It is our job as free market conservatives to see that Barack Obama and Progressive Liberalism get the blame for what is coming.

And they should. The Progressive Liberal ideology that has metastasized in other countries into Fascism and Communism has been here in the US a somewhat slow growing cancer that has finally reached critical mass. From Teddy Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson through FDR's New Deal, LBJ's Great Society, and the RINO Hall of Famers; Nixon, Ford, Bush I and Bush II, the Federal Reserve monopoly to create fiat money has fueled the massive growth of the national government. And as government power has grown the rights and liberties of individuals, private companies, and all the other institutions of a free and productive country, have been squeezed out.

But our good fortune today is that Obama has made it crystal clear that he is hell bent on bringing to fruition a form of American fascism grounded in the principles of Progressive Liberalism at the precise time the whole edifice is starting to implode. Talk about good timing!

The first consequence of Obama's stern, uncompromising, and rather humorless advance towards his goal is the awakening of the American people to the threat. Does anyone really believe that if John McCain had been elected instead of Obama and pursued similar policies, albeit with a sweet chaser of GOP platitudes about freedom, ala George Bush II, that the Tea Parties, the rising dominance of FOX news, Glenn Beck and those kids destroying ACORN, would have occurred? To even ask the question is to answer it. The great tectonic plates of American history are starting to move once more.

"THE REVENUE OF THE STATE IS THE STATE." Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France.

So how do conservatives go about getting back control of our government during and after the coming collapse? First we need to understand, as Burke pointed out over two hundred years ago, that the power of the government rests on its revenue. When the government has unlimited power to create it's own revenue it will become a consuming beast devouring every independent power base in the nation. What Burke called the little platoons of freedom and independence IE: the States; the Schools and Universities; the Churches; the Shops and Factories; the Clubs; the Arts; and that last great bulwark against tyranny; the Family itself, have all, in one way or another, fallen under the smothering dead hand of the national government.

I am not an intellectual or an economist. I am a production man rooted in reality. I deal in hard, cold cause and effect. I live in a world of concrete things. To cut steel and produce a good machined part you need sharp tools, proper lubricant, the right machine, and a skilled operator. There is no wishful thinking or ideology in manufacturing. It is not a virtual world. Real results flow directly from what the real components bring to the task. Flawed components mean flawed results. It is an unforgiving world where A is A. All the time, whether one likes it or not. So I look at things from a perspective of how they actually are produced. What is the real cause for any given effect? How are things actually done? Not theoretically done. Not hopefully done. Actually done. And when I observe the growth of the power of this government I ask the question: How did this happen? What are the hard, cold means by which this entity known as "government" has amassed such staggering power in this society? What is the concrete source of its power? What real components went into the formation of this power? And I conclude it is the authority and ability to CREATE MONEY. Not 'make' money by creating value as in productive enterprises. Not 'getting' money from the earned wealth of the people through taxation. Not even 'borrowing' it from others who have produced something of value. No. Pure and simple the hard cold fact is this. It is the revenue gained from the creation of Federal Reserve Notes that gives the government its immense power over our lives. A power so all encompassing, so all enveloping, that it is as ambient as the air we breath. But unlike life sustaining air this power is as toxic as poison gas. It is precisely what our Founding Fathers warned against: The concentration of power in the hands of a few.

Ask yourself these questions:

Is not this power to create and spend any monies they think necessary what lies at the root of Obama's power to control banks and take over car companies? Is not this power to create and spend any monies they think necessary behind the corruption we see in Washington? The very buying and selling of influence is made manifest by all the fiat money at the disposal of the politicians. And is it not this power to create and spend any monies they think necessary the real reason the American people have lost control of their government. Taxes do not support this beast. Fiat money created by the Fed does.

I maintain that the system which gives some men a monopoly to create money out of thin air, at their will, unbounded by any link with a physical, concrete entity, has given the national government such immense power over this society that nothing; not our Constitution, not new laws, not even new leaders, can give us back our independence as a free people as long as this system of Federal Reserve created money exists. That this system is evil is self-evident. But like all parasitical systems it eventually dies after devouring the host. The bad news is we are the host! And the American people are still not aware of the danger they face. And its cause. That is where we conservatives come in.

For as this evil system dies it is incumbent upon us to give a good explanation of the cause of this catastrophe and an honest and workable plan to repair the damage brought about by the Federal Reserve System and fiat money creation. To make sure that safeguards are put in place that will prevent this curse from ever again harming our people. And to punish the guilty.

Our enemies will blame the free market. They already do. They will blame private property. They already do. And they will blame not having enough power in the very institution that is the cause of all our woes. Even as I write these words they are already saying that we need to give the Federal Reserve Board more power to control our economy! Are they mad to ask? Or are we mad to even consider it?

But politically speaking we have an advantage precisely because Obama and the Democrats won the last election. Because the Democrats control both Houses of Congress and the White House they will not escape blame. For even though Republicans are just as guilty over the last 100 yrs in putting in place this vile system that now is dying, when the music finally stops on this musical chairs dance of death it will be the Democrats and Obama himself who will be in want of a chair. It couldn't happen to a nicer bunch.

On July 10, 1832 President Andrew Jackson issued his veto of the Federal Reserve Bank of his day with the following words that even today cut to the heart of the matter. Monopoly, special privilege, and unjust advantage to a few, are anti-American, unconstitutional and ultimately doomed to failure.

"It is to be regretted that the rich and powerful too often bend the acts of government to their selfish purposes. Distinctions in society will always exist under every just government. Equality of talents, of education, or of wealth can not be produced by human institutions. In the full enjoyment of the gifts of Heaven and the fruits of superior industry, economy, and virtue, every man is equally entitled to protection by law; but when the laws undertake to add to these natural and just advantages artificial distinctions, to grant titles, gratuities, and exclusive privileges, to make the rich richer and the potent more powerful, the humble members of society-the farmers, mechanics, and laborers-who have neither the time nor the means of securing like favors to themselves, have a right to complain of the injustice of their Government. There are no necessary evils in government. Its evils exist only in its abuses. If it would confine itself to equal protection, and, as Heaven does its rains, shower its favors alike on the high and the low, the rich and the poor, it would be an unqualified blessing. In the act before me there seems to be a wide and unnecessary departure from these just principles."

It appears old Andy Jackson will have the last laugh!

Kennedy's opponents in 1980 were not seeking actively or even passively to crush hopes and dreams. The question in 1980 (like now) was not whether people should have their hopes and dreams realized, but how best to realize them. (In Reagan's case, it was through the market's dynamism.) Kennedy and his quoters might have thought he was proclaiming eternal war on reactionaries, but in reality he was just arguing over method. Everyone was already on board for mass prosperity.

The real dispute has always centered on a simple question: who has to do the work? If someone is trying to do the work himself or herself, no problem. People just have to get out of the way. (See: ending discrimination in employment.) If someone can't do the work, but needs basic support, no problem. People are social animals, and they help those in real need. (See: helping destitute kids and old folks get medical help.) If, however, someone doesn't want to work but still gets the reward, we've got problems. Someone else had to do the work. The recipient is a mooch. No one likes a mooch. Why? Because they aren't really charity cases. They are just trying to get something for nothing. Something you worked for.

The difference between charity and the mooch is what most separates economic conservatives from "progressives" today. Apart from extremely committed libertarians, I don't think most conservatives (at least in NJ) would condemn a government that stepped in to help the absolutely crushed. I'm thinking here of when the Joads in the Grapes of Wrath come upon a government camp where there are no beatings, where it's clean and the toilets work. The camp appears in the movie version like divine grace itself, an unexpected mercy in the wilderness that salves people as they struggle forward. The camp head is like a secular angel, instilling rational and benevolent order into the chaos. It's not unwarranted. Indeed, in today's world the government would be cheered on by most conservatives if it stepped in to protect seniors from abuse, save children from degradation (read: by allowing school choice through vouchers), and rescue animals from neglect. This is charity and grace. This is establishing basic order. It protects the defenseless where private charity has failed, or where general rules need to be set to prevent harm and to protect really basic dignity and opportunity.

What distinguishes modern liberalism from this New Deal and TR-style liberalism is modern liberalism's thoroughly bourgeois character. It is no longer a matter of keeping some hope alive in the struggling masses. It is not an effort to right blindingly obvious, simple and egregious legal or social wrongs. It is instead now mostly just an effort to manage transfers between constituencies, and to construct a voting majority of recipients. The old crusading impetus has been diverted by its own success to much harder objects. Where real poverty now exists, the easy cases like the Joads have largely been solved. Instead of hard workers thrown into a world of unemployment that defies the imagination, we now have "multiple dysfunction" cases, often-questionable "disability" grants, and lots of lazy, corpulent numbskulls who just can't seem to get their act together. Moral questions readily arise in such cases, most loudly, "why don't you get off your behind and do something useful?" (The Joads, to their credit, moved to California in a jalopy to pick peaches.)

Modern liberalism has not been able to adapt to its success. It publicly refuses to see that cases are harder now, and that questions of need and responsibility are usually much narrower. It consequently asks people to see Ma Joad in the 300-pound occasional toker playing an X-Box. It demands charity for mooches. That won't fly, particularly in NJ households where you have two parents commuting every day between jobs, day care and a house where the lawn is neatly mowed every Saturday. Similarly, average NJ folks balk when liberals tell them to pay for welfare for illegal aliens, but that the inflow of aliens must never be stopped. They balk because they aren't being asked for charity to solve a discrete problem (which they would be willing to do). They see what any experienced NJ cubicle-dweller has seen – someone making themselves permanently necessary by gaming the system. They see office-seeking, not a crusade.

New Jerseyans are more often than not Democrats, but not very often liberals. Why can't liberalism go hand-in-hand with Democratic affiliation in the Garden State? Indeed, modern liberalism needs to make inroads into the stable middle class to create a permanent voting majority of recipients. It cannot do this because of a simple contradiction: middle-class voters are most often asset-holders and taxpayers. They are the ones paying the bill. You can't mooch off yourself. Consequently, except when using benefits to woo certain easily defined demographics like the over-65 crowd (who may or not even be middle-class in the first place), modern liberalism has extreme difficulty making headway toward a majority in New Jersey (or most anywhere else in the U.S. for that matter). In a contest between a now-bourgeois movement and actual bourgeois values, the result is, unsurprisingly, a quietly conservative resolution: don't waste the money.

So why does Kennedy matter to NJ conservatism? It is because, in the Garden State as nationwide, he represents a throwback to a time of easier questions and simpler cases. In his oratory you can hear the 1960s, and think back to the push then to destroy Jim Crow and to right some really compelling, really basic wrongs. You can think of Bobby and his smile as he demanded social justice on the campaign trail. You can hear the echoes of a much poorer America, and the struggle against a much more prejudiced populace. You can sense in that old Kennedy accent a bit of the glory of liberalism's finest hours, stretching all the way back to Jacob Riis, the suffragettes, Frederick Douglass and Wendell Phillips. For a fleeting moment, you can almost see Ma Joad in the coach potato.

Now, however, Kennedy has been silenced, and the coach potato is still there, playing on the X-Box. With Kennedy gone, there is no one left who can personify the myths of liberalism's past. Obama might be a symbol and prophet of the future, but he begins where Ted Kennedy ended. Obama has no roots in the past. He is the successor to its struggles. Kennedy's passing means that the many illusions (and destructive delusions) of twentieth-century liberalism can now fade to reveal the harder cases we actually face today. (Witness in this respect Obama's health-care woes.) Kennedy matters to NJ conservatism mostly by his passing. With the departure of national liberalism's great facade-weaver, NJ conservatives have a golden opportunity to seize on the national debate, to help set its terms, and to propose philosophically coherent, concrete, realistic and humane measures for protecting and helping truly needy people as they work to achieve their hopes and dreams, while showing mooches the door. Here's to hoping that NJ conservatives (especially those in government) are up to the challenge.

• Have you accepted anything of value from a party who has business before the elected body of which you seek to become a member?
• Are you aware of any member(s) of your family who have received anything of value?
• Will you refrain from accepting anything of value as a member of the elected body?

1. Eliminate dual-office holding
2. Eliminate dual public employment
3. Require forfeiture of public pensions for corruption convictions
4. Require strict disclosure of conflicts of interest in the Legislature
5. Establish an elected state auditor to be an independent watchdog
6. End pay-to-play for everyone
7. Strictly prohibit the use of campaign funds from criminal defense costs
8. Suspend all public officeholders charged with a crime
9. Require a new, detailed annual disclosure form of all public officials
10. Require mandatory forfeiture of convicted officeholders' campaign accounts

This is not a bad start, but there are some flaws here, and some additional ways to really give this plan teeth.

Dual-office holding and pension forfeiture

Dual-office holding and dual public employment (Christie Points 1 and 2) are not inherently related to bribes. They instead mostly concern the accumulation of overblown pension rights, especially when little work is actually required or done. In small communities, part-time work may well be the most practical arrangement, but such occasional work hardly justifies pension rights unless it fills in for a regular (8-hour-day) job. The rule fix here is quite simple, and not actually "conservative" so much as just practical:

1. No person's total state pensions can amount to more than the pension for one full-time public position at the grade which is the average of all positions in which the pensioner earned state pension rights;
   
2. The pensioner's state pension will be reduced in proportion to any private pension earned over the same period, with such reduction being the proportion of an eight-hour day (five days per week) occupied in private labor during the state-pension earning period (so no pension-worthy "overtime"); and
   
3. Knowing misrepresentation of a position's hourly requirements or a pensioner's work (as shown by time sheets or affidavits) shall be deemed criminal fraud, although violators may withdraw the representations and renounce pension claims within a "safe harbor" prior to making a pension claim.

As to forfeiture of a corrupt official's pension (Christie Point 3), this is certainly a good way to tilt the cost-benefit scales against corrupt activity when an official weighs his or her options. There is one possible flaw, however, and that is with respect to an innocent spouse. We can't assume that a dishonest official has weighed his or her family's interests, or that a spouse knows what is going on. It would in such case be fairest to allow the innocent spouse to apply to a NJ court for a reduced pension equivalent to the pension's death-benefit upon the innocent spouse's attainment of retirement age. If the innocent spouse can reasonably show that he or she was unaware of the corrupt activity, then the reduced pension could be ordered paid to the spouse. The application should, however, be publicly posted and open to challenge by public officials or private citizens on the basis that the spouse can be shown not to be innocent of such knowledge. A bit more complicated than a straight pension forfeiture, admittedly, but not unreasonable and certainly a bit fairer to innocent spouse-bystanders. It's a "hang the right people high" alternative.

Pay-to-Play and Disclosure

Ending pay-to-play for everyone (Christie Point 6) is not only a good idea, it's necessary. Allowing some to avoid the rules is to privilege one group over another in the political process. That's just plain wrong, and it doesn't take a conservative to realize this.

Requiring disclosure of all conflicts of interest by Legislature members (Christie Point 4) and disclosure of financial interests by all public officials (Christie Point 9) are good steps to take, but why not require all public officials to complete both forms? One of the most notorious types of corruption in NJ has been the "eminent domain" gambit where land is taken at a low forced price and given to a developer who strangely has connections to the official's cousin, if not the official himself or herself. Requiring all public officials, from the governor on down to a local zoning board official, to disclose the following would go a long way to establishing a basis for a corruption charge if the official fools around:

"Please list all of your relatives, friends or professional associates who have or are objectively likely in the future to have a financial interest in any of the matters with which you will be concerned. ___________________________"

"If any person is listed in the question above, please explain what matters or types of matters you must recuse yourself from, or what measures might be needed to ensure that no conflict of interest will arise in respect of such persons. _______________"

Suspension, Defense and Campaign Funds

Suspending a public official charged with a crime (Christie Point 8) is a no-brainer. It happens everywhere else, and it doesn't take a conservative to say that an alleged criminal should not be handling public affairs, especially when those affairs are the basis of the criminal charge. Reinstatement would equal exoneration if the official is found innocent or the charges are dropped.

Things become more difficult when forfeiture of campaign funds is at issue (Christie Point 10). If the fund is the personal property of the official, who is also liable for campaign debts, then the open-ended quality of such a fine poses a problem. If the fund is not the official's personal property, then it becomes even more problematical. A less legally questionable alternative may be to permanently disbar the official from state public office, and then liquidate the official's now-unneeded campaign funds through a quasi-bankruptcy proceeding. The campaign's valid debts will be paid out, and the remainder would be refunded to donors pro rata, with expenses paid by the fund. This makes the donors more or less whole, and removes the official from a public perch. If a fine is to be levied, do it against the official personally, not against his or her donors.

Preventing the use of campaign funds to defend against criminal charges (Christie Point 7) has the downside of depriving candidates or officials lacking personal means to fight spurious or unwarranted charges. Not every official sees campaign funds as a way to fight off justice. If the goal is to prevent corrupt officials from using political funds to defend illicit private gain, simply require the official to file a personal security with the state to cover any campaign funds used for criminal defense, before the official is allowed to use such funds. If found guilty, the state may collect on the security and disburse the proceeds to donors. It's not as sexy as just forbidding use of the funds, but it should help to protect innocent officials.

Auditors and Private Action

The Christie Plan calls for a new state auditor to be elected as an "independent watchdog" (Point 5). This is fine, but without guaranteed and significant funding for the auditor's office, the auditor would be completely hobbled.

What would be preferable would be a private incentive to root out corruption, Sherman Act-style: lawsuits allowing for treble damages. Give any person a private cause of action for corruption when the plaintiff has been harmed personally or as a member of the community by a corrupt public act (such as by having a local wildlife reserve turned into a connected guy's estate). If the person wins, he or she gets treble damages on the value of the transaction in question (i.e. three times the estate's market value).

The standard for winning would have to be high given such stakes. Perhaps there would have to be clear and convincing evidence of a quid pro quo, or that unauthorized acts took place, or that usual procedures were circumvented. After a criminal conviction, however, it would be fairly easy for private persons to exact vengeance on all of the corrupt parties, private and public. Such an arrangement would get the trial lawyers interested in corruption, and pressing for criminal investigations. This would raise the perceived costs of corrupt behavior, and discourage corruption. It might prove to be a jackpot for the intrepid few, but cutting down on dishonest government would be great for everyone.

When I read about the money that New Jersey and other states receive from the federal government, it reminds me why government spending at local, state and federal levels has spiraled upwards so rapidly.

Even though many voters consider themselves to be fiscally conservative, few are willing to forgo the taxpayer-funded largesse that benefits them. The justification is usually something like this: “I paid into the system and have a right to get some back.” By this logic, anyone who has ever paid taxes can justify riding the government gravy train.

The blind spot of those who rationalize in this manner is the failure to realize that the money we paid into “the system” is long gone. Government is not returning our money to us, but reaching into someone else’s wallet to fill ours.

I say it is time for principled individuals to lead by example. The left advances their political fortunes by appealing to greed and offering us the fruits of our neighbors’ work. By refusing to accept it, we do what is morally right and stiffen the spines of others who are with us in principle and will follow if we lead.