Coming Soon to New Jersey: A State Run Like Verizon. Yikes.
Dennis Bone, President of Verizon New Jersey, is very happy with newly elected New Jersey Governor Chris Christie’s policies. He should be. He wrote them.
“If you talk to business leaders here, we see a breath of fresh air with the governor and his economic policies,” Bone said today.
Bone should know a thing or two about those policies. As the Co-Chair of Christie’s Economic Development and Job Growth Team, Bone got to write those policies.
The result is a draconian 21-page document that seeks to turn the State of New Jersey into a place managed like Verizon, where the efforts of many serve to benefit the pocketbooks of few, and when the people creating the wealth for those on top are deemed no longer necessary, they are kicked to the curb.
Bone’s recommendations are a mixture of tax cuts for the wealthy, the removal of any regulations in the way of his profits, the politization of the rule-making process for employers, and active attempts to suppress the role of the public in the regulatory process. To Verizon workers this is a way of life, but the New Jersey public is in for a surprise.
Take Bone’s tax plans, for example. The report cites the opinions of corporate executives and their cronies as the entirety of evidence that corporate taxes are too high in New Jersey. That’s sort of like asking the New Jersey Vegan League if too many people eat meat in New Jersey–I’m sure they have an interesting point of view, but drawing conclusions and basing policy on that opinion alone is a little south of smart. At a time when the entire country is saying Wall Street needs to be watched and regulated, Bone is giving Wall Street the first, second and final word on taxes in New Jersey.
And it shows. The report calls for a supermajority to enact any tax increase whatsoever. Similar plans have worked so well in Colorado that from 2001-2002 the state dropped requirements that children be immunized for diphtheria, tetanus, and whooping cough because it couldn’t afford to buy the vaccine; and it has led California to the point where it pays its public workers in IOUs and is on the verge of going bankrupts. That’s a track record so good Bone wants to repeat it in New Jersey.
On top of that, the report calls for reductions in taxes on corporate income, personal income for people making more than $400,000 a year, corporate filings, and payroll taxes, as well as a variety of credits designated for large corporations. You know, tax cuts that benefit people like you and me those downtrodden corporate executives not sure if they will be able to buy their fifth vacation home due to the recession. And all of these tax cuts for the wealthy are in New Jersey, which is currently looking at an $8 billion budget deficit, and which has so little extra cash that Chris Christie said the state “simply cannot afford” to stock food pantries and soup kitches during the holiday season.
It’s no wonder Bone is so happy. He’s going to get to do to New Jersey what he’s already done to Verizon: Turn it into his own piggy bank at the expense of the people who work there.
