Christie aggravates state fiscal woes

Image via Wikipedia

Penn Station on Sixth Avenue in Manhattan in 2005.

Image via Wikipedia

Pennsylvania Railroad tunnels under the Hudson River in the 1910s.

All this talk from Governor Christie about saving taxpayers money is costing us a fortune. Now, New Jersey may have to repay $350 million dollars in federal aid that has been spent on the Hudson River rail tunnel project he aborted.

That's on top of the hundreds of millions of dollars that state won't see, because Christie refuses to hit the Borgs and his wealthy friends and supporters with a millionaire's tax. 

And then there are even more millions the state won't get, because he doesn't want to add a few cents to the low gasoline tax -- a hike that would fall disproportionately on the wealthy, who insist on driving their gas-guzzling luxury cars and SUVs. They wouldn't be caught dead on a train into the city.

Did I mention the $400 million in federal education aid Christie blew?


When a Republican fiscal conservative like Christie says "we can't afford" to build the Hudson River tunnels or another project or program, it's code for how he and his wealthy supporters want to keep more money in their own pockets. 

And why is today's story on Page 1 of The Record of Woodland Park the first time we've heard about a possible partnership with Amtrak on a new rail tunnel to Penn Station in Manhattan?


Today's paper has three stories on the tunnel, the governor's political ambitions and the state debt, and another three on the acquittal of Ridgefield Mayor Anthony R. Suarez -- for a hard news front page you don't see that often anymore.

But maybe Editor Francis Scandale can explain why there is nothing here on how the governor's policies seem to be targeting the middle and working classes, while allowing the rich to get richer and the state to get poorer. 

Nor is there any reporting on jury nullification -- where a panel ignores substantial evidence of a defendant's guilt, because the defense attorney put the government's chief witness on trial.

Get a load of the A-21 Op-Ed piece by Rabbi Shmuley Boteach of Englewood -- a publicity monger who claims President Obama has "shamelessly overexposed himself." It's Boteach who should be ashamed of himself and so should the paper, which plays into his hands time and again.

The rabbi knowingly bought an East Hill mansion next door to the one owned by the Libyan Embassy -- then parlayed that into at least five stories in August 2009 when he protested preparations for a visit by the Libyan leader. Those stories ran during a 33-day period when not a single story about Hackensack appeared in the paper.

Later, Staff Writer Jim Beckerman  wrote a long, flattering story for Better Living, publicizing Boteach's new book on visits to his home by Michael Jackson.

When head Assignment Editor Deirdre Sykes has to blow up a photo of a New York Giant getting a flu shot and run it on the front of Local, as she does today, readers are in trouble. 

You won't find any Hackensack or Englewood news inside, or anything from many other major towns, either.