Where are the revolutionaries?
Christie Todd Christie's leading fundraiser has been receiving a paycheck from New Jersey taxpayers for one of the countless no-show jobs that keep political insiders enrolled in the Public Employees Retirement System (PERS).
Christie's advisor, John P. Inglesino, was given a job state Senator Joe Pennachio who, received $2,300 from Inglesino during his failed run for U.S. Senate in 2008.
During Christie's outrageous interview with the NJ 101.5 'Jersey Guys,' he repeatedly lied about the scandal to protect himself and the hundreds of out-of-touch politicians who commonly add friends, donors, and political cronies to a payroll and pension structure that is crushing taxpayers.
The controversial practice of putting associates on the public payroll was a well-known way to cheat taxpaying constituents by allowing those with political connections to rack up credits in the state's troubled pension fund without working.
Taxpayers provide these political insiders lifetime health benefits as well as the opportunity to really cash in, because payouts are calculated by only the average of the total wages collected earned during three years with the greatest salaries.
If you get in the system holding a $3,000 no-show job for 25 years, then get yourself appointed to a $130,000 post for three years, your retirement pay is the same as if you worked full time for those 28 years.
The pension racket is a brazen abuse of the voters, the taxpayers, the people all elected officials pledged to serve. It is wrong,
According to Christie, Inglesino did nothing wrong because "that's the rules the way they are now;" but we must not confuse 'legal' with 'wrong ' because the time has come to change.
The simple fact is, lawmakers alter the rules to suit themselves. It's not illegal to rob the taxpayers because they who do it wrote the laws to make their practices legitimate.
Wrong is wrong whether protected by statute or not. If the law set the age of consent at nine, then sex with a ten-year-old would be legal although it would still be wrong.
A law can change what's legal, but morality and justice are inflexible about some things.
Instead of expressing outrage at his friends who got caught with their hands in the cookie jar,
Christie's reaction was to explain away the details and minimize the offense.
I doubt Christie would make a serious difference as governor, and lacking the determination to enact real change I view him as 'unelectable.'
New Jersey does not need a governor in despair over the extent of corruption in the state or one who cannot tell the difference between legal and right.
If you are not outraged by the abuses pulled off every day by political insiders, then you have not been paying attention.
Jon Corzine and Christie Todd Christie both represent the status quo in a state that is in desperate need of sweeping reform. New Jersey is known as the ‘Crossroads of the Revolution,” which sort of begs the question: Where are the revolutionaries?
