Dear Editor:
Regarding John Bredin’s free ferry idea, to quote the Gipper, “There you go again.” I can’t understand his fascination with pretty little “green, free, or low cost ferries.” Oh well, it was Fleet Week last week wasn’t it? Instead of wasting millions to develop, build, and subsidize ferries so people can go to their jobs in New York why not help New Jersey’s tens of thousands of unemployed who don’t take the ferry because they no longer have jobs? New Jersey’s unemployment rate is just under 10 %, up from 7.5% last year. That federal stimulus package really worked didn’t it? In a recent poll 6% did think that it actually worked – but then again, these may be the same people who are awaiting the arrival of Emperor Penguins in Key West.
I am not anti-government. I am ant-inept, bloated, and overreaching government. I am also an independent, not a Republican or a Democrat. If the “strong” federal government gets any stronger it will strangle us instead of merely choking us. As for “slurs” against our representatives, those beanies with propellers on them serve as an environmentally friendly, low carbon way to ventilate the head, although in the case of Trenton, not necessarily the brain. All it takes is a strong index finger. Maybe I will gain a modicum of respect for them when they do what they were elected to do – represent us. Not like the men and women of steel in Congress with spines of jello who caved in to the coercion, bribery, and cajolery on the part of the president and passed all 2,700 pages (that nobody read) of health care in its present form when the majority of the electorate was against it. About the only thing our president didn’t do to get health care passed was hock the White House silverware and sing “Pants on the ground” on American Idol.
As for Reagan crippling the union movement, one thing does come to mind. When the air traffic controllers took their jobs they know that strikes were specifically proscribed by law. Yet they chose to go on strike anyway, throw our air transportation system into chaos and put people at risk. They were given an option of returning to work or losing their jobs. They chose the wrong option. Imagine, a politician enforcing the law. As for governor Christie’s slashing teachers and school projects. He put out a proposal that if the teacher’s union agreed to a pay freeze and a contribution of 1.5% for health costs there would be no layoffs or project cuts. They turned him down. Ah yes, union solidarity. He also succinctly pointed out that New Jersey can’t print money to close the budget shortfall, unlike the Gutenberg wannabes in Washington fiendishly manning the federal printing presses and spitting out ever more Monopoly money. What is the deficit of the “strong” federal government now? 13 trillion? The interest on that debt comes out to hundreds of billions that will be paid for by our grandchildren who will certainly agree with Yogi Berra when they realize that the future ain’t what it used to be.
So Mr. Bredin wants to get Jon Corzine involved? Here is a man of such colossal political ineptitude that as an incumbent Democratic governor in a state as blue as New Jersey he managed to get himself unelected. No mean feat. Why not bring back Jim Florio as well, whose reelection slogan was “Florio free in ‘93.” Or Jim McGreevey? Er, never mind. As for reinvigorating the “local, progressive Democrats,” I’m afraid that will have to wait for some of them to get paroled.
Jim Murphy