Monday, November 22, 2010

An Exercise In Dependent Thought

Yesterday, Owen Robinson had posted a video of conservative idol du jour NJ Gov. Chris Christie talking about something or other, and I left a comment simply asking if Christie had apologized for sticking NJ tax payers with a big bill and nothing to show for it.

Fred Dooley, thinking he's got something on me with that comment, put up a rather disjointed post trying to say how silly I was (all grammar and other errata strictly his):
Capper is whining at a post at Boots and Sabers that Christie is costing NJ taxpayers $271 million. Only in the unhinged world of a lunatic like Capper could saving the taxpayers all that money be a bad thing.
Dooley uses the presumption that Christie is accurate in his claim that the overrun costs will be $5 billion.

The number is actually closer to one billion dollars, which is still considerable, admittedly.

So now, Christie's "savings" is down to two thirds of a billion dollars. But that is only for the directly related project costs. It does not include the tangential costs:
Ultimately, the harshest criticism of the decision came from U.S. Senator Frank Lautenberg, who said in a release: "This is a tragic day in New Jersey's history. Two weeks ago, Governor Christie made the biggest public policy blunder in New Jersey's history. Today he repeated it. Today he killed the prospect for improving New Jersey's economy and creating thousands of new jobs. He increased the amount of toxic fumes that will be discharged from idling cars stuck in traffic, and he took away an opportunity for New Jersey housing values to go up. . . New Jersey Transit is coming off one of the worst summers for delays in recent memory. Fourteen hundred delays were recorded this summer, and just this week a minor derailment caused hour-long delays for thousands of commuters. Delays and derailments are only going to get worse on our aging infrastructure and thanks to the Governor, New Jersey commuters shouldn't count on new rail service options for decades to come."
Lost jobs equals lost revenue for the state. Not only that, but it actually adds to the outflow of cash as people go back on unemployment, food stamps, energy assistance, etc. not to mention continuation of things like the housing crisis. And those rails will have to be replaced sooner or later, and it's not going to get any cheaper.

So now, in one act of bravado, Christie has cost his state billions of dollars, put people out of work, and slowed down his state's economy, just to save some rich people a buck two eighty on their tax bill.

Whether it be Christie or Scott Walker and his lame-brained insistence of killing the high speed rail project, the result is the same:
Tax payers will be kicking in for the original project; then get fined for the costs already invested because of their myopic leaders; they lose jobs, their homes, and their savings; the rail systems continue to deteriorate and will be even more expensive when eventually replaced; and the entire state's economy shuts down as the rest of the country continues to recover.
In other words, the tax payers will be paying through the nose to end up worse off than before. It does take an amazing feat of dependent thought to think that this is a good thing.

But don't think for a minute that Christie or Walker is out to really protect the tax payers. They're just doing this crap for their ulterior political purposes.

Is it any surprise that the economy suffers when the Republicans are in charge?

2 comments:

  1. Like the economy was any better under the Ds. Oh wait, that's why you all lost big time.

    I wonder how much the county would save if it had you put down?

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  2. Aw, sounds like someone got told they couldn't come over for Thanksgiving.

    Maybe if you weren't so antisocial...

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