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Gov. Christie takes aim at NJ's "Shadow Government"

I meant to write about this yesterday but got bogged down in other stuff. This morning, Doug Ross reminded me what a big deal Governor Christie's latest action really is.

Christie is targeting the "shadow government", the myriad of unelected and usually unaccountable boards and commissions which poke their noses into virtually every aspect of our lives and regulate everything from bikini waxing to the size and shape of kosher pickles.

The most egregious examples of "shadow government" abuses sometimes make the news. Remember the Schools Construction Corporation? They blew through $8.6 billion dollars before anybody even thought to ask why almost none of the schools they were supposed to build were ever finished. Jon Corzine rebranded them as the Schools Development Authority, slapped a few band-aids on the red ink, and they're still shoveling taxpayer dollars out the door by the truckload.

Then there is the Passaic Valley Sewerage Commission. It's "independent", in that neither the governor nor the state legislature has a say in its budget or policies. And what a budget it has! $164 million dollars is raised via user fees levied on the towns it serves, and then paid out in the highest public employee salary structure in the state. Executive Director Bryan Christiansen, a former four-term Democratic mayor of Edgewater, earns almost twice the $175,000 annual salary paid to Governor Christie. Another 82 commission employees earn more than $100,000 per year.

But because the PVSC has served as a lucrative landing spot for displaced political hacks from both parties it has resisted previous efforts to reform its structure. The governor is now shining a light on this cesspool of patronage and changes are finally coming.

There are a lot of rocks to look under in New Jersey government. Places where tax money, bureaucrats, and politicians go in but little or nothing of value comes out. What, if anything, does the state "Noise Council" do? Is a Commission on Global Warming useful to us? (Well, they could help out with shoveling snow!) No really, how is it different from the more than 27 other "environmental" agencies and commissions that we have?

Waste and duplication of effort must run rampant. Not to mention that it is essentially impossible to do anything in this state without running afoul of some obscure regulations promulgated by this "shadow government". It's time to bring them out of the shadows and send them off into the sunset. Governor Christie is on the right track. The clowns in Washington, D.C. would do well to follow his example.

Posted at 09:57 by Chris Wysocki   [/nj_politics]   | Trackback | Perm Link |
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