Beck set off GOP primary stirrings for 2017

It started with GOP Senator Jennifer Beck, looking for an issue to run on next year, and soon got crazily out of hand.  Beck, a member of the GOP Senate leadership no less, got NJ 101.5's Bill "pulled-pork" Spadea to start the movement to publicly call for running primary campaigns against Republican legislators in 2017 and it took off from there.

Next it was taken up in the pages of the SaveJersey blog, with a call for open Republican-on-Republican warfare:

And who are these offending Republicans? Here’s the Rogue’s Gallery – read it and make them weep:

Jon Bramnick, LD 21 (Union, Somerset and Morris); Chris Brown, LD 2 (Atlantic):  Rob Clifton, LD 12 (Monmouth, Ocean, Burlington and Middlesex);  BettyLou DeCroce,  LD 26 (Morris, Essex and Passaic); Joe Howarth, LD 8 (Burlington, Atlantic and Camden);  Sean Kean,  LD 30 (Monmouth and Ocean); Nancy Munoz,  LD 21 (Union, Morris and Somerset); David Rible,  LD 30 (Monmouth); Maria Rodriguez-Gregg, LD 8 (Burlington, Atlantic and Camden) and Scott Rumana, LD 40 (Passaic, Bergen, Essex and Morris).

Note that many of this exceedingly motley crew are in the GOP leadership in the Assembly, including Assemblyman Bramnick, the putative leader of the caucus.

...For their support of the gas tax-hike abomination, the Gang of 10 need to be primaried, hounded, called out, denounced, condemned and run to ground as traitors to the state’s already oppressed taxpayers.

The writer also explicitly fingers the new GOP "Solutions NJ" super PAC as being "GOP up-and-comers who loathe the idea of a gas-tax hike." 

Why did the leadership of the Senate Republican Caucus encourage one of their members to negotiate a tax cut/TTF-funding deal, while a member of GOP leadership itself was allowed to publicly make war on that deal?  That miscalculation has opened up the possibility of primaries against legislative Republicans across the state.

The so-called "left" of the conservative movement in New Jersey -- represented by the anti-government, libertarian-leaning Liberty & Prosperity group of Atlantic and Cape May counties -- got into the act, calling for an Argentina-style "repudiation" of the $16 billion debt used to fund the TTF.  Yes, they want to default on the debt, walk away from it, and they have what could be a sound legal argument for doing so.  They also want to "identify, recruit, train, and support qualified candidates to run against (Assemblyman Chris Brown and others) in the Primary Elections next June."

Assemblyman Brown is one of three Republicans in the state who share a legislative district with two Democrats.  He is hyper-vulnerable in 2017.  If he is defeated for re-election, it will be the fault of Senator Jennifer Beck and the GOP Senate leadership for riling up and galvanizing the opposition against him.

Coming from the social-conservative "right" on this issue is the New Jersey Family Policy Council.  In an email blast in which they remind readers that they "don't usually get too involved in fiscal issues," the NJFPC goes after Governor Chris Christie, Assembly Republican Leader Jon Bramnick, and other Republicans for voting for A-12, which increased the gas tax while reducing the sales tax and eliminating the tax on retirement income for most retirees.

Curiously, the NJFPC uses the talking points of far-left former Democrat State Senator Gordon MacInnes' Policy Perspectives group, and lifts its points directly from another publication.  MacInnes is an old-Great Society social warrior and former White House staffer under LBJ (for those of you too young to remember, that stands for President Lyndon Baines Johnson).

This is being follow-up with a political campaign seminar tomorrow at the Church of Grace & Peace in Toms River.  The seminar is run by a campaign professional from out West named George Khalaf, dubbed by NJFPC's Len Deo as "the Lebanese Lion from Arizona."  We don't know a soul who calls him that, by-the-way, apart from maybe his pal Paul Weber. 

George Khalaf is the former political director of the Arizona Republican Party, who started his own polling and general consulting firm two years ago and is now out looking for new clients.  The seminar tomorrow promises to "change the culture by winning campaigns... at all levels of elected offices, from School Board to Town Council, to County Office and all the way up to the State and Federal elections!"

Well the Lion has come to the right place to do some hunting.  New Jersey is one of the last breeding grounds of that nearly extinct creature -- the culturally far-left Republican elected official.  These people can't even tell the difference between boys and girls.  They want adult male sex offenders showering with the high school girls' soccer team.  In Arizona, their heads adorn every political consultant's office in every county. 

But it gets better.  The NJGOP lost legislative seats even with a popular Governor at the helm.  The GOP couldn't pick up a single Senate seat even when the Governor was winning by 20 percentage points.  In contrast, in Pennsylvania the GOP won 12 new legislative seats while their incumbent Governor was LOSING by 10 points!  Going into 2017, the NJGOP isn't going to have enough money to protect its vulnerable incumbents in the GENERAL ELECTION.  Forget about having the spare money for one or two or more or a bunch of primaries.

And as a pollster of some repute, George Khalaf will soon discover that most Republicans in the Garden State are over 60 years old and think culturally more like average Republicans do in Arizona than GOP "leaders" do in New Jersey.  New Jersey Republicans are utterly turned-off by these creatures who claim to represent them, their culture, or their country.  So let the Lion loose and... good hunting!  Or should we say, good dining?

By-the-way, great work Senator Beck... great work!

NJbiz craps itself in TTF editorial

How are average citizens to understand the TTF crisis when professional journalists, writing on behalf of the business community, getting paid to do so, can't tell their arses from their elbows?  In a July 3rd editorial, the "masters of business" who run NJbiz wrote:

But what left us nauseous as we considered the bill, to extend the restaurant metaphor, was the process by which a sales tax cut suddenly took the place of the equally bad, but vetted in daylight, plan to cut taxes on retirement income and eliminate the estate tax.

The new plan, hatched at midnight, was the product of negotiations between Gov. Chris Christie and his new friend, Assembly Speaker Vincent Preto — last seen getting clobbered by Christie and Senate President Steve Sweeney over Atlantic City — and in secret, which is not a hearty endorsement for democracy.

You could make the case that phasing out the estate tax — which is part of both “agreements” — has a business benefit that might encourage the wealthy to stay in New Jersey after retirement.

Maybe they filed that editorial in a hurry?  Maybe they were drunk when they did it?  Maybe they have been drunk all week -- because they certainly haven't been paying attention.  Anyone paying attention would know that the tax cut common to both plans is the tax cut on retirement income, NOT the phase out of the estate tax.

What the heck is going on?  Are you trying to confuse people?  NJbiz started its editorial by writing:

You know what they say about never wanting to see the kitchen of your favorite restaurant? Well, every so often, the public gets a look behind the scenes of how Trenton puts bills together, and it's no surprise few visitors to the State House ever visit the little restaurant within.

Well boys, with the misinformation that you're serving up, you just took a dump in the mixing bowl.

* * *

Another source of misinformation in the discussion over how to pay for the repair and maintenance of our roads and bridges appears in the SaveJersey blog.  Over the weekend, one representative of "GOP youff" presented what he called "15 Reasons to Oppose the Gas Tax."  Of course, the writer is a functionary of the notorious Morris County GOP machine.  You know, the guys who hatched a solar scam that ripped-off taxpayers for $80 million.  Talk about dirtbags!  The whole deal is currently the subject of a federal, state, and county investigations.

The column reveals an appalling lack of knowledge of basic conservative economic theory as well as out-and-out misinformation.  The writer serves up warmed over Marxism with a garnish of populism to make it palatable.  Has he never read the conservative position on progressive taxation?  Does the writer really not know the conservative economic reasoning behind the user tax -- of which the gas tax is a prime example?  Did he forget that President Ronald Reagan employed the gas tax and other user taxes? 

The writer has no understanding of how haulage (trucking) is taxed in the continental United States and the Canadian provinces.  Worst still, when people who do know attempted to correct him by posting the data under the column, this knowledge was repeatedly pulled down.  Better to go with the lie if it fits the bullshit?

Besides, is this flower of "GOP youff" really so weak that he needs his editor to wipe his arse?  Would an open exchange of information harm his self-image to the point of catalepsy?  Is "GOP youff" really not up to it?

Is it a question of "GOP youff" taking an infrastructure, largely built by their grandfathers and great grandfathers, for granted?  Maybe they haven't served in the military -- or haven't been to places in which things like passable roads, electricity, and running water are looked upon as miracles, instead of birthrights.   

These youngsters have had it so good for so long that they have no memory of needing to pay for it.  They think it comes for free.  When it is pointed out to them that New Jersey still charges drivers the 1988 price to upkeep the roads they use, they cry, "So what, we don't want to pay more." 

When it is pointed out that other states charge drivers more than 50 cents a gallon of gasoline for the upkeep of the roads they use, while New Jersey charges just 14 1/2 cents a gallon, they cry, "We have grown up in an era of free music, free videos, free information -- we want more free shit." 

There's also the inner stress of being both young and a member of the GOP.  In contrast to the 1980's -- when to be a young Reaganite was cool, the future -- today's "GOP youff" have to be among the most uncool people on earth.  We're surprised that they can convince anyone to reproduce.  Their come-on is the apology, for which they are justly despised by their peers.  Lacking the ease of their convictions that older party members possess, they don't relate to the adult party either. 

The noise they make fails to account for the smallness of their numbers in any primary setting.  Take Senator Jennifer Beck's District 11 for example.  48 percent of all registered Republicans are aged 60 or over.  Just 20 percent are under age 45.  There are just 469 young (under 25) Republican voters in the district.  That's compared with 11,329 aged 60 or above.

66 percent of Republican super voters (3 of 4 or above) are aged 60 or over.  You could accommodate every young GOP super voters (52 in all) in the back room of some diner. 

While we won the argument within our generation -- Ronald Reagan won the youth vote -- today's "GOP youff" are abysmal.  Among those under 25 year olds to register to vote in District 11 since November 2014, "GOP youff" managed just 261 young Republicans out of 2,228 new registrations under 25.  So what's all this noise about?

In-between apologizing to their peers for their existence, the public voices of "GOP youff" are loudly attempting to tell the rest of us in the party what to think.  Time to go back to school.  Learn Reagan, learn Buckley, read your party's platform for crying-out-loud.  Call Professor Sabrin and ask him if you can take his class.  Don't fall into the trap of being a Marxist just because you never learned what being a Republican is.     

Does the Left really want to negotiate on TTF?

In the run-up to the November election, the Democrat leadership in both chambers remained resolutely silent on raising the gas tax to fund the Transportation Trust Fund.  Good politics on their part -- and it paid off.  Republican leaders, on the other hand, put on their policy caps and openly discussed any and all options for addressing the problem.  They put policy before politics and look what it got them.

Meanwhile, the coalition of Leftists -- underwritten by funding from corporate leaders and working people's union dues -- who it appears are charged with passing the gas tax without compromise, made a lot of noise against any tax cuts to balance a rise in the tax on gasoline.  Saul Alinsky would be proud.  Somebody has read "Rules for Radicals."

So along come two libertarian Republicans -- Senator Mike Doherty and Senator Jennifer Beck -- with an idea about how to address the TTF funding issue without raising the gas tax and they are attacked as if in a political campaign by a "mainstream" TTF group -- again, underwritten by funding from corporate leaders and working people's union dues.  When have Democrat Senators faced such a coarse response?

This should not be tolerated by either Republican caucus.  If these folks (and they are not without sin) want to make this political, then let's make it political.  The Democrats have their nicely expanded majority and they can pass pretty much whatever they want to.  Well then... do it.  You have all the firepower you need.  Throw down boys.  Make it an all-Democrat show and see what happens.

If, on the other hand, the Democrat leadership -- and their house Leftists, front groups, and corporate funders -- want to make this a serious policy discussion, treat your Legislative colleagues in the Republican Caucus with respect and address their ideas from the position of policy... not politics.