We have all seen how the upcoming gubernatorial election’s back-andforth has spilled over into negative TV advertisements. As voters however, we cannot allow the candidates to cloud our statewide conversation on the issues with nonsense and personal attacks. While Chris Christie may not be able to instantly alleviate the nastiness that characterizes New Jersey politics, his landmark ethics reform plan will eliminate the distasteful corruption, which enables such a tone of debate.
As governor, Corzine has been blind to our state’s systemic political corruption and fiscal woes. For example, only the “Wizard of Wall Street” would increase state spending in 2008 by 7.2 percent while at the same time acknowledging that 2009 would be a year of soaring deficits. Now in 2010, he is forcing an array of long overdue “emergency” spending cuts to shore up our state’s pitiful fiscal shape right before the election. Even worse, he tries to spin this idiocy as mature governance, suggesting online that “Jon Corzine has proven that government can do more with less.” The voting public of New Jersey knows better than to believe such lies.
But it is Corzine’s attitude towards ethics reform that New Jerseyans should find most disturbing. In his “Plan for New Jersey’s Future,” reforming our government is mentioned exactly zero times. Corzine’s unwillingness to admit that corruption is out of control makes him a major part of the problem. Corzine, though, has found a way to make the situation more disturbing—he has declared the problem fixed, with measures to “toughen financial disclosure … reform contracting … and close loopholes in state pay-to-play laws.” Any intelligent voter knows this is complete baloney. A Corzine appointee and the man overseeing New Jersey’s stimulus money, Joseph Doria had his house raided by federal agents in the same scandal that just put 44 in jail. If Jon Corzine had attacked this venal political climate like he apparently thinks he has, someone responsible for over $10 billion would not be caught up in an FBI sting.
Chris Christie will change Trenton, but to do that, we need to first change governors. Most importantly, Christie has a history of prosecuting corruption in our state. With bold movements to take down 130 criminal politicians on both sides of the aisle, he made a name for himself as a U.S. attorney. And he will take this hard-charging attitude to Trenton, where New Jerseyans will finally get the honesty and transparency in government for which they have been clamoring.
Evan Soltas
Rumson
Volunteer for Chris Christie for New
Jersey Governor