John Byrne, of Hillsborough
I write in response to the letter printed in the Aug. 16 edition from Joseph Tenore, of Hillsborough.
His letter — typically loaded with misstatements of fact, bold exaggerations and outright lies — which starts out as an angry rant about Gov. Christie and then dissembles into a rambling diatribe against everyone who disagrees with him, needs to be set straight.
Let’s take his irrational ramblings on point by point and then simply ask your readers to “do the math.”
Yes, Gov. Christie has been campaigning across the country for Republican presidential candidate, Gov. Mitt Romney.
There are several reasons he has been selected to do this. One is because he has had enormous success thus far in undoing the financial mess made of New Jersey by people who believe — as Mr. Tenore and his Democrat friends do — the taxpayers’ pockets are bottomless.
Gov. Christie’s clear message of fiscal responsibility resonates with folks of common sense across the nation.
Another reason is taxpayers nationwide like him both politically and personally. I have met the governor and found him to be a genuinely nice and sincere person. I’m acquainted with several people who work closely with him, and they all agree.
Is he straightforward and direct in making his case? Yes. This is why the Democrats — who try to silence anyone who disagrees with them as “politically incorrect” — hate him so much. They have a great financial interest in the status quo, and anyone who tries to protect the voters from being abused by them is a threat to their corrupt machine.
He would not have been selected to carry Gov. Romney’s message if anyone believed he would alienate voters in other states.
Do the math.
Mr. Tenore continues, “Under Christie’s lack of leadership, people in New Jersey pay one of the highest property taxes in the country.”
Such nonsense. I have been a New Jerseyan for over 50 years, and we all know New Jersey’s high property taxes have been in the top three highest in the nation for at least the last 40 of those years, thanks to the Democrats who have held office in our towns, counties and the state Legislature.
We must vote them out of office if any kind of fiscal sanity is to prevail here and make our state solvent again. Do the math.
Gov. Christie is the governor of our state. It is the municipalities that control property taxes. They are bloated by wasteful spending by local town councils and school boards.
Mr. Tenore says Gov. Christie “. . . rolled back pensions and health benefits for the public workers, froze cost-of-living adjustments, cut funds for mental health care, tightened Medicaid eligibility requirements and privatized off-track betting.”
Actually, there is no evidence that reflects any cut in mental health care by the governor, but as for the rest, great work, governor!
Police and firefighters are heroes who risk their lives every day for us and must be fairly compensated for the great work they do. Your local teachers, however, have the most overpaid part-time jobs in the world. The pension packages, which they all received in the past, though, are simply not sustainable going forward with costs rising in the other areas of your local budgets.
Buildings, systems and vehicles simply wear out. These retirement packages were easy for local governments to agree to back then because their costs were deferred into the future.
This is the Democrats’ favorite trick. Guess what? The future is here. Now.
What Gov. Christie has done is to set a 2 percent cap on the growth of those municipal taxes so as to stop the madness and get these budgets under control. Do the math.
Mr. Tenore continually rambles on incoherently about “$75 million in job training cuts,” (an outright lie); “3,000 community health center jobs eliminated” (another outright lie ); and some “$12 billion in tax subsidies for corporations.”
The actual number is more like one-tenth of that, and that is how a state executive competes to lure new businesses and jobs to locate in a state that has been wrecked by the Democrat party and its wild spending.
Other states are spending many times more, (and those are states where their employees are not afraid of the high taxes.) Do the math.
Further, Mr. Tenore claims that “If the governor wants to show true leadership, he must raise taxes on the 221,000 millionaires and corporations in New Jersey receiving all the tax benefits.” This is the same class warfare nonsense I’ve been hearing from the Democrats and Obama.
The vast majority of those “221,000 corporations” in New Jersey include all of the Mom and Pop stores and service providers — tiny businesses like your deli or your baker or your mechanic or your painter.
Not many of your millionaires there, Mr. Tenore, “receiving all those tax benefits.” Do the math.
Finally, Mr. Tenore ends with a plea to “Vote for President Obama and keep America moving in the right direction.”
Really? Obama has added $6 trillion to the national debt so far, and he wants to spend more. This nation is borrowing 40 cents of every dollar it spends, and it is spending over $135 million a day! Obama has got to go.
You say Gov. Christie is not a nice guy? This failed “hope and change” president has taken his campaign from the gutter down into the sewer, which is still the moral high ground for a Democrat.
He blames his scurrilous personal attack ads on his super-pacs, and then gets caught lying about having no knowledge of them, saying they make him “uncomfortable.”
My doctor makes me uncomfortable, too, but he doesn’t blame the rubber glove he’s wearing.
Yes, Mr. Tenore, Gov. Christie does represent what kind of leadership we will have under President Romney and Vice President Ryan.
Thank God for all of them and any other elected leader with the courage to tell the truth. Our children and grandchildren are inheriting a mess that will be very difficult to dig out of.
We need to un-elect every Democrat on the ballot.
Thanks largely to people who think like you, Mr. Tenore, this state and this country are perched on the edge of financial collapse. Do the math.