Tuesday, July 17, 2012

Jerseygeddon

Is it me or does he keep getting bigger? photo by Luigi Novi
The other night at work I was listening to NPR, and heard about this curious scandal of these halfway houses in Jersey. The first thing that comes into my head? Who heads the company that runs these halfway houses and are they friends with Christie?
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/17/nyregion/nj-halfway-house-operator-plagued-by-financial-woes.html?_r=1&hp
Community Education Center, runs the halfway houses. The Vice President is a guy named Bill Patalucci. One of Christie's best friends. Oh and that's not all. There has not been much of a reaction from either Democratic or Republican legislators.  And why is that? Could it be that they receive campaign donations from Community Education Centers? Christie says that these halfway houses should be "celebrated as representing the very best of the human spirit" Amazing, considering  they are run by the very worst. According to what I have read these "education centers" are understaffed, there have been numerous escapes, gang violence, drugs, you know, the usual. Now the company is essentially broke. Really?
This whole project came about because Christie wanted to privatize this "industry". You know Republicans and  how they dislike those pesky regulations. Christie is "W" all over again. He uses the same recipe as Bush with his tax cuts and no way to pay for them. We all know how great that worked. But I digress, now this epic fail with the halfway houses. This is just one example of how things are in this state. People get these jobs because they're friends with some one with influence, not because they have any idea of what their doing and proceed to screw things up royally. I read that one inmate escaped and found his ex-girlfriend and killed her. I wonder exactly what his syllabus looked like at his "education center"?
 It used to be that people were hired to do a job they were educated for and had a desire to be a public servant or somehow improve things. Those days are over and everyone is on the take. I have seen cronyism and nepotism at all levels of government and private industry. Everything from hiring teachers who are related to school board members, to people who work in the tax assessment office because daddy is a Freeholder. These people have no idea how to do their job and as a result the system breaks down and nothing gets done. There are constant mistakes and screw ups. While Jersey burns, Christie just keeps playing the same tired tax cut song on his fiddle. Great! cut my taxes 10%. What's 10% of nothing?

2 comments:

  1. But wait, isn't Mr. Christie a reformer? Even the sign behind him (I know, it's largely concealed behind his girth) says so. Every one knows the private sector knows how to get things done, and done more efficiently. Isn't that the GOP party line? ...I wonder where it went wrong...

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  2. I know, it's really frustrating. The deregulated free market is damn near perfect! This outcome must be some sort of anomaly. Too bad there seems to be way too many of them.

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