So here we are less than one week from Election Day, Nov. 3, and the time is growing near for people to make their decision about who they want to lead New Jersey for the next three years.
The three main candidates for governor are incumbent Democrat Jon Corzine, Republican Chris Christie and independent Chris Daggett.
Several weeks ago I wrote a column in which I described the uncertainty I was feeling about how to cast my vote for governor. I think I know now what I have to do on Election Day.
It is interesting to note that there is no clear-cut choice among newspaper editorial boards.
The Star-Ledger has endorsed Daggett, the Home News Tribune and Asbury Park Press have endorsed Christie, and The Record, The New York Times, the Trenton Times and the Philadelphia Inquirer have endorsed Corzine.
In these difficult economic times we find ourselves in, politicians on the local and state levels have spent a lot of time this election season talking about cutting spending and the alleged impact that action will have on your property taxes.
I am not breaking any ground here, but this is the bottom line: Unless the state changes the way it doles out school aid to suburban school districts and stops forcing suburban residents to fund their own schools and a substantial part of the school districts in some of New Jersey’s cities, property taxes in our suburban towns are not going to drop.
Our voices on this issue are not being heard by the candidates. Your property taxes will not stay stable, they will not drop, they will continue to rise until the Garden State’s suburban towns get more school aid back from Trenton. That is a fact.S
o, who will I vote for?
Well, clearly not Corzine. He could care less about the property tax problems we face in suburban New Jersey.
It is impossible for Corzine not to have realized by now that low-balling school aid to suburban school districts is what is driving up property taxes. For ignoring that reality, he cannot earn my vote.
That leaves the two men named Chris.
Chris Christie, a crime-busting U.S. attorney who will be remembered in New Jersey for putting a bunch of corrupt politicians and other public servants behind bars, has shown me nothing in this campaign that makes me want to vote for him.
Christie should have been on the campaign trail from Day 1 with this message for New Jersey’s suburban residents: “I know your property taxes are too high because we are not distributing school aid in an equitable manner. When I am elected governor I will make it a priority to change that unacceptable situation.”
Heck, even if Christie was lying, I would have believed that he had a grasp of the situation and probably would have voted for him. I am not convinced that Christie understands the property tax problem.
Chris Daggett, who is said to be drawing between 14 and 20 percent of the vote, came up with a plan to tax services that are not taxed at the current time. That is, of course, a tax increase.
If Daggett were to be elected governor, I would rely on the Democrats and Republicans in the Assembly and Senate to shoot down that plan.
We do not need any new, or expanded, taxes. We need better use of the money we are already sending to Trenton. We need structural changes in the way our schools are paid for, and a revamping of the state’s pension system for public employees. These are the issues a governor and the Legislature must address over the next four years.
However, my vote for Daggett on Nov. 3 will be a positive vote for him — for “hope” and “change” — and not just an anti-Corzine or anti-Christie vote. I am registering my displeasure with New Jersey’s Democratic Party and Republican Party for the suburbs candidates who do not have our best interests at heart.
It has been said that all politics is local. Corzine and Christie have shown me in this campaign that they do not care about our towns — the municipalities that Greater Media Newspapers serve.
The puppet masters who pull the strings of Corzine and Christie need to know that their candidates’ uncaring attitude about our towns is unacceptable and that the way for me, and tens of thousands of other people, to make that point on Nov. 3 is to vote for Chris Daggett.
Will they get that message? Maybe. Maybe not.
This is my opinion as an individual and not the editorial stand of Greater Media Newspapers. Our newspapers do not endorse political candidates on the editorial page.
Mark Rosman is the managing editor of the News Transcript. He may be reached at [email protected].