What If Corzine Had Just Stayed In The Senate?

AP) WASHINGTON Had Jon Corzine stayed in the U.S. Senate, he'd be on a congressional recess right now, not trying to explain to residents why he's already had to break two campaign promises and wants to raise their taxes.

Life as a low-ranking member of the minority party doesn't usually come with a lot of power to create change or new policy, but it also doesn't carry the stress and headaches of leading a state with the financial problems New Jersey is facing.

Sure, the Democrat would have faced re-election in November, but most likely he'd have won easily, thanks to his high approval ratings as a U.S. Senator and the personal wealth at his disposal to spend on a campaign.

Corzine's situation now is similar to that of Jim Florio, the Democrat who left Congress in 1990 to become governor, also at a time of fiscal problems. Six months later, he said he would have to raise taxes. Four years later, residents voted Florio out of office.

Whether or not the same fate will be handed to Corzine remains to be seen, but Republicans will be busy reminding residents of Corzine's broken promises.

"Governor Corzine promised to reinvent government," said New Jersey Republican State Chairman Tom Wilson. "But all he did was reinvent the Florio plan -- raise taxes and spend more."

If Corzine were politically astute and fair - which he needn't be considering the political composition of the Garden State and the Party to which he belongs - he would solve the state's fiscal problems and be a dangerous contender for the White House.

He would cut needless state programs. He would get a Constitutional Amendment passed to allow the capons in the New Jersey State Legislature to override the renagade New Jersey State Supreme Court's degrees mandating an endless stream of social programs. He would enact an income tax surtax dedicated solely to bridging the budget gap and mandated to expire as soon as that is achieved. And he could do it with Republican support and by bullying the few Democrats in Trenton who have functioning brains and consciences.

But he won't. He's a typical liberal. At the same time he is whining about the need to raise taxes to bridge the budget gap, his party, with the connivance of a few unscrupulous Jersey Republicans, are introducing yet more legislative bills which will require more money to operate more socialist programs. And down the road, they will need MORE tax increases to continually pay them.

And THAT is why New Jersey and Jon Corzine are national jokes - or should be.

But what can you expect from a state which has become an asylum for refugees from the Five Bolshevik Boroughs of the Rotten Apple?

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