Corzine stole the money. Sorry. I voted for him, I shook his hand in person at my college graduation. I hate him with a passion for his theft, and voted against him when he ran again. He's a thief. Our last decent governor was a moderate republican (Kean). Florio was an unmitigated disaster that started this whole mess, and Christie is now fumbling around with the pieces trying to put them back together. I don't approve of everything Christie does, he started strong but has had trouble keeping pace. But compared to our previous governors, he's sadly pretty good. And that said something pretty depressing about our governors.
Corzine didn't steal. Oh wait, that's right, conservatives like to redefine "steal" to fit their stories. Such as when they define taxation as "stealing" done by the government. But it's never "stealing" when businesses take advantage of people. It's never "stealing" when a company pays someone minimum wage or when they go against minimum wage increase. No, in those cases it's just "business". But, since Corzine is one Wall Street banker who became a Democratic Governor, then they will label his business dealings as "stealing". Please, spare me the melodrama and morality high horse. Conservatives have cried "wolf" on morality way too many times for me to take that seriously from any of them.
Florio, who gave us the largest tax increase of any state in history, banned semi-automatic weapons, created the Abbott program, and destroyed the trucking industry in NJ?
Largest tax increase = fiscal responsibility. Unlike Kean (who I agree was a good governor), Florio believed in paying immediately to get NJ out of the budget deficit. Also, Florio provided better property tax relief to the MIDDLE class. Whitman screwed the middle class over that when she got her filthy paws on things.
Banning semi-automatic weapons = social responsibiity. I don't know why anyone would consider this a bad thing unless he or she is a murderer.
Abbott program = NJ has had the best schools in the nation ever since.
Trucking industry - ruined? Please. He levied a tax on the industry and later went back on it. My dad worked in the trucking industry at that time, as an accountant, and he got a laugh out of people blaming Florio for problems in the trucking industry, because he knew where all the money in the industry went - to the owners. They didn't want to give any more than they wanted to; they'd rather lay people off than pay higher for them - it wasn't that they COULDN'T pay, but that they WOULDN'T. Greed, that's what hurt the trucking industry in NJ.
As for Christie starting strong - what planet did he do that on? Certainly not earth, and certainly not in NJ. Unless by "strong" you mean being a big, fat bully. In that case, he's still going "strong". What a complete and utter jerk he is. He's the kind of guy who could use a good strong punch or two to his face. But he's the typical bully - he picks on ordinary people from behind a wall of State Troopers. And for this, he is a hit with conservatives - kind of says a lot for what conservatives value...
Yeah no. He was beyond awful. He almost destroyed the state. Whitman certainly wasn't good (raided the pension fund, and if you lived during her time, the condition of our streets and highways were horrific), but Florio made her look good.
And after everything, when it is clear that NJ's main problems stem from WHITMAN'S raiding of the pension fund, you do mental gymnastics to avoid blaming her while trying to shift blame to all the Democrats.
The facts are the facts: WHITMAN put our state into the hole it's in; McGreevey did nothing to get us out or deeper in; Corzine actually got us to move in the right direction out, but far too little; and now Christie has blatantly broken his promises to every fireman, police, and teacher in the state by refusing to pay into the pension fund which he is supposed to do, by law. Fiscal irresponsibility beyond every democratic governor COMBINED, and instead of accepting the truth, conservatives just try more of their shift-the-blame game. It's the same thing they do with Obama - they try to shift the blame for all of Bush's failures onto Obama.
Anyway, good try, but I'm a born-and-bred New Jerseyan who's been around longer and knows better than to believe the misinformation you are putting out there... Where do they teach you that junk, 105.5? I wouldn't listen to anything they say on that radio station, because 105.5 is a bunch of morons in the tradition of Hannity and Rush.
