Who would know better than NJ's Boss of Bosses that the 2011 pension law is unconstitutional? It's his own damn law!

Hokey smoke, Bullwinkle, is that New York Yankees announcer Michael Kay with Parsippany (NJ) Mayor James Barberio? Oh wait, according to the Star-Ledger caption, "Governor Chris Christie appears with Parsippany Mayor James Barberio in front of Parsippany Town Hall where Christie announced he was introducing a commission to repairs his botched pension reform."


"Gov. Chris Christie signed the pension reform law in 2011, calling it a landmark achievement that showed what his brand of bold leadership could accomplish. But now that the bill has come due, he is in court calling that same reform unconstitutional.

"What is striking . . . is the governor’s hypocrisy. . . . Public workers had to rejigger retirement plans. Retirees lost their cost-of-living adjustments, and so on. But public workers kept their promise. Christie punted on his side of the deal, leaving the pension hole deeper than ever. . . . 

"He brags when he shouldn’t. He breaks promises. He leaves a mess for his successors. It’s no way to run a state. And if primary voters were watching, they just might conclude it’s no way to run a country, either."

-- from the Star-Ledger editorial
"Christie's legal back flip on pensions"

by Ken

When last we visited with New Jersey's Boss of All Bosses, Gov. Kris ("NJ Fats") Krispy ("Welcome to PANYNJ Imperial Wizard Kris Krispy's rampaging young Port Authority Krispy Kop Korps"), I whimsically hypothesized a link to the state's now only-second-most-famous crime boss, Tony Soprano. Admiring the way the Krispyman has installed his Krispy Kronies at the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, both to serve as his enforcers and to funnel cash into the coffers of other Krispy Kronies, I ventured that Tony S would have loved a piece of that action.

Now I see that I'm not the first to have made the connection. Back in February a whole flap erupted when The New Republic published a photo tricked up by Jacqueline Mellow, in conjunction with a Krispy profile, representing NJ Fats as Tony S doing his ritual morning newspaper pickup, and was duly accused of stereotyping Italians. I'm not going to reproduce the tricked-up photo here, because frankly I think it's pretty lame, but let me just warn one and all that we'll have none of this nonsense here.

I say in advance to anyone who might wish to flap his/her gums about stereotyping of Italians: You're a goddamn effing moron, and I urgently wish you to shut the eff up, or better still to drop the eff dead. As Daily Kos's HoundDog pointed out in February, "If any stereotyping is going on it is about Republicans, and as Glenn Beck and Eddie Scary very well know, this is considered perfectly O.K. in modern media."

First off, as HoundDog also pointed out, any connection to the Mafia would have depended on the connector knowing that NJ Fats is half Sicilian, and even that's problematic since Tony Soprano's people are strictly Neapolitan. But the real point is that the only connection I have in mind is the spiritual kinship between Krispy and Tony in their leadership skills and technique as big-time NJ crime bosses.

Krispy's latest stunt is a doozie. In his time as governor he has devoted a remarkable amount of time to screwing state workers. Now you might think this makes him most un-Tony Soprano-like, since Tony would never treat his boys that way, understanding that they are, after all, his earners -- if they're not earning, neither is he -- not to mention that being the boss involves a certain amount of human decency, something a sociopath like Krispy could never understand.

It occurred to me belatedly, though, that NJ's state workers aren't his boys (or girls). His boys are the official Krispy Kronies, the gubernatorial appointees from the most patrician bureaucratic finaglers to the lowliest knuckle-crushers, who make his crime family hum. Those state workers grubbing for the pensions they worked for and are legally and morally owed? Them he treats the way Tony S would treat, say, government workers.

Which brings us to Krispy' latest pension-fund ripoff. He's already siphoned off so much of teh state's contractually owed pension contributions that somebody ought to look at embezzling charges. Now he's claiming that his very own 2011 pension "reform" law, which he hailed as the greatest achievement in state government since, well, his reinvigoration of the Atlantic City casino industry, is unconstitutional. Nobody, he say, can tell Kris Krispy how to spend the state's money; only the governor can do that. Why, even Tony Soprano didn't claim that kind of unitary power. When it came to money disagreements, he had to work them out not just with with the bosses of the New York families but with his own captains.

THIS ISN'T SITTING WELL WITH THE
NEWARK STAR-LEDGER EDITORIAL BOARD

The Star-Ledger editorial board, to its credit, isn't amused by the latest Krispy Kraziness. The other day this editorial appeared (links onsite):

Christie's legal back flip on pensions

Gov. Chris Christie signed the pension reform law in 2011, calling it a landmark achievement that showed what his brand of bold leadership could accomplish.

But now that the bill has come due, he is in court calling that same reform unconstitutional.

The core legal claim is that one Legislature cannot oblige the next Legislature to spend money. So while the 2011 legislation spelled out the state’s obligation to make payments over several years, the 2014 Legislature has no legal obligation to make good on those promises.

The idea is to guard against overreach. If one Legislature believes it’s important to build railroads, for example, it can’t compel a future Legislature to go along with that policy.

But there is some wiggle room. The state signs leases for buildings that require payments in the future. It signs contracts on construction projects that provide for payments over several years. This one is almost certain to wind up before the Supreme Court, given the stakes.

What is striking, however, is the governor’s hypocrisy. The pension deal was a two-sided bargain. Public workers were required to pay more into the funds, and receive smaller benefits. Christie agreed to phase in full pension payments over seven years.

That was a heavy lift on both sides. Public workers had to rejigger retirement plans. Retirees lost their cost-of-living adjustments, and so on. But public workers kept their promise.

Christie punted on his side of the deal, leaving the pension hole deeper than ever. And now he’s laying the legal groundwork to punt again next year with an argument suggesting his signature is not worth the paper this bill was written on.

It’s a pity Republican primary voters aren’t watching this spectacle. Christie is getting style points everywhere during his undeclared campaign. He’s bold. He’s strong. He tells the truth.

Closer to home, we see the underbelly. He brags when he shouldn’t. He breaks promises. He leaves a mess for his successors.

It’s no way to run a state. And if primary voters were watching, they just might conclude it’s no way to run a country, either.

As HoundDog concluded his February piece, "I'd like to apologize to any members of the real mafia that may have been offended by comparisons of Governor Christie's thug-like behavior, abuse-of-power, and bullying."

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