Is the Penalty the Same?

As a proud, long-time resident of the Garden State (notwithstanding its politicians), I find it laughable that Corzine and Obama even have the gall to blame ‘old ways’. No state (except perhaps California, New York and a handful of others) has marched more in lockstep with Democrat policies and has, in the process, brought herself to her fiscal knees. As taxes soar ever higher, working people are literally fleeing the state. Meanwhile, New Jersey serves as a magnet for the financially indigent who are lured here by generous welfare programs. It is clearly a recipe for economic disaster.

Corzine used to live right here - on the good side of the tracks - in my own hometown. I used to see him quite often along Springfield Avenue before he decided to divorce his wife of 33 years and move to Hoboken. Somehow, these things are never publicly mentioned much. The previous governor one day suddenly announced that he was resigning because he is gay (come again?) and had cheated on his wife. It made headlines (in NJ) for about a week. Meanwhile, the saga of Mark Sanford, Republican, continues. None of this sex stuff should matter a hill of beans. What matters is that the State is going broke. I suppose, like everything else, it’s Bush/Cheney’s fault that people and businesses are leaving our State in droves. Maybe we could spend some of Obama's stimulus money to build a wall along the Pennsy border to stem the hemorrhaging. Meanwhile, my mother, at the other end of town, is struggling to pay her annual $10,000+ property tax bill just for the privilege of being able to live and die in her modest home.

Elections come and go in NJ. Even the Republicans we elect are Democrats in essence. Unlike on the Federal level, the problem here is not so much ideological as it is just bad management. In other words, no governor in NJ has deliberately and knowingly pursued a policy that would bankrupt the state. It comes to the same thing - whether by incompetence or design - doesn’t it? How do we judge which is which? Is one worse than the other? Is the penalty for failure and treason the same?