DownWithTyranny!: New Jersey May Be Very Democratic, But The Political Machines Make That Pretty Irrelevant

Norcross and Christie, the two grotesque crooks who run New Jersey

Earlier today we mentioned, in passing, an insurance-related dust-up in the South Jersey congressional race for the open NJ-03 swing seat being vacated by Jon Runyan. It pits multimillionaire insurance executive Tom MacArthur against Burlington County Freeholder Aimee Belgard, a Democratic. Belgard, who studied Environmental Science before getting a law degree, has been endorsed by both the progressive, grassroots Sierra Club and the more transactional, less trustworthy and more Beltway-oriented League of Conservation Voters. But this battle isn't over Belgard's desire to deal with Climate Change and MacArthur's desire to bury his head in the sand. It's about insurance-- and the insurance business is especially important in South Jersey, where political boss of bosses George Norcross, ostensibly a kind of "Democrat," makes some of his millions as chairman of Connor, Strong & Buckelew, a huge insurance brokerage which specializes in selling health plans to governmental entities.

Norcross has put talk of single-payer healthcare off the table among South Jersey politicians. Although his power is mostly among state legislators and county and officials, he has complete control of Democratic Party politics in South Jersey and pretty much has veto power of everything and anything. Senator Cory Booker, for example, is his guy. There are 4 districts in which Norcross calls the shots: NJ-01, where corrupt hack Ron Andrews is retiring and Norcross' equally corrupt brother is taking over the congressional seat; NJ-02, where Machine candidate Bill Hughes is making a pitifully weak challenge to GOP incumbent Frank LoBiondo; NJ-03, the site of the MacArthur-Belgard contest; and NJ-04, the most Republican of the 4 districts (R+7) and where the DCCC is, once again, giving Republican anti-Choice sociopath Chris Smith a free ride.

Let's go back to MacArthur for a minute before we deal with Norcross. During the primary, his lunatic fringe opponent, Steve Lonegan, attacked him for cheating hurricane victims unfortunate enough to have been insured by MacArthur's company, York Risk Services, part of AIG.

Tom MacArthur, a multi-millionaire former mayor who is battling a prominent tea party challenger for the Republican congressional nomination in a New Jersey district, ran an insurance company accused of cheating disaster victims, MailOnline can reveal.

From 2002 until late 2010, MacArthur was chairman of the board of York Risk Services Group, a unit of the global insurer American International Group. He was also the company's president and CEO from 1999 to 2009 and a major shareholder until at least 2006.

York boasts on its website that 'We re-price 500,000 medical bills per year and save clients an average of 61% on each bill.' That cost-cutting focus caught up with the company in 2008 after Hurricane Ike devastated the U.S. Gulf coast and a massive wildfire laid waste to hundreds of homes in Sylmar, California.

It ended up settling two Ike-related lawsuits and paying a sizable fine to the state of California in connection with allegations of underpaying claims from the fire's victims… York's apparent hand in determining the size of claim payouts, however, has landed it in the same legal hot water as the companies it serves, facing legal accusations along with them of unfairly slow-walking, low-balling or denying claims.

…York, along with another AIG unit, paid the state of California a $285,000 settlement following charges that they violated the state's Fair Claims Settlement Practice regulations while handling damage claims following a massive November 14, 2008 fire in the town of Sylmar.

That blaze, known in the American West as the Sayre fire, burned more than 11,000 acres of forest and destroyed 600 structures and 480 mobile homes.

It also produced hundreds of 'total loss' homeowners claims, including those covering 370 mobile home policies held by AIG's New Hampshire Insurance Company.

The California Department of Insurance claimed that the two companies had underpaid the devastated homeowners by 10.8 million.

York, led by MacArthur, was responsible for processing and evaluating those claims as part of New Hampshire Insurance's outsourcing strategy. The two companies each paid half the penalty, or $142,500, according to court documents.

Both denied wrongdoing, but agreed to a settlement in August 2012 to end California's years-long investigation into 125 separate alleged violations of the California Insurance Code.

The two suits related to Hurricane Ike, the massive 2008 storm that swept through the Gulf Coast and crippled coastal Texas, were settled with undisclosed terms.

One, filed by Houston Baptist University, alleged that York low-balled its settlement offer after the hurricane laid waste to its main administration building and student center.

…The Republican National Committee has embraced MacArthur as one of its so-called 'young guns,' suggesting a vigor and fearlessness usually associated with strong retail campaigners.

But according to the Newark Star-Ledger, a $2 million cash loan from MacArthur's personal wealth makes up nearly his entire election war chest.

It rarely matters which party wins when it comes to Norcross' business interests, which have become paramount in the state. He is extremely tight with Christie, as big a crook as he is. And beyond making sure insurance companies stay in positions where they can continue cheating the public, Norcross' latest shenanigans involve his role in bringing a new nuclear power manufacturing facility to Camden. Local politicians are not allowed to say anything against it because Norcross is on the board of Holtec International, a local corporation that makes equipment for it and-- lo and behold-- that the firm has just received the third-biggest tax break in New Jersey history in exchange for agreeing to locate its new plant in Camden, NJ instead of in South Carolina.

Since Gov. Chris Christie took office in 2010, New Jersey has distributed more than $4 billion in tax breaks-- far more than under any previous governor-- yet private-sector job growth has been one of the slowest of all 50 states, according to federal data.

New Jersey Policy Perspective, a liberal research organization, said the tax break awarded to Holtec was one of the largest ever bestowed in the United States. The state is paying $658,228 for each job-- "a sky-high number that has never been seen before in New Jersey and is even far higher than the average per-job cost of the largest 'megadeals' across the country," Jon Whiten, Policy Perspective's deputy director, said.

[Republican state Sen. Michael] Doherty said the real cost was even higher, since 160 of the jobs already existed in the state.

"It looks like New Jersey is paying over $1 million for each new job that's being created, and this is a disturbing trend," he said.

Doherty added: "My understanding is that small businesses create 98 percent of the jobs in the state of New Jersey. Let's provide tax relief for small business-- a broad-based program of tax relief-- not a bunch of insiders sitting around a table picking the winners and losers, government picking the winners and losers."

The Democratic-controlled Legislature revamped New Jersey's tax-incentive programs last year, carving out looser provisions solely for Camden and opening the door to larger subsidies in general.

"New Jersey's policymakers need to revisit last year's legislation and rein in this reckless surge in business tax subsidies," said Gordon MacInnes, president of NJPP. "Instituting a cap on the amount of tax breaks the state can approve would be a simple and common-sense place to start."

Daryn Iwicki, state director for the anti-tax group Americans for Prosperity, said subsidies are pointless unless New Jersey first tackles its high income- and property-tax rates.

"The biggest problem we have here is it's another politically connected individual getting a tax break," Iwicki said, referring to Norcross, an influential insurance executive who entered into a partnership with Singh and others to buy the Philadelphia Inquirer in 2012. The Norcross group recently sold its share of the newspaper company.

Iwicki noted there were only two larger subsidies ever awarded in New Jersey-- and that they had not panned out as expected. One of them, a $261 million subsidy spread out over 20 years, went to Revel Casino in Atlantic City, which is facing its second bankruptcy in two years. The other, valued at as much as $350 million, went to the stalled American Dream project in the Meadowlands, formerly known as Xanadu, with its own troubled financial history.