Washington DC , House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jeb Hensarling (R-TX) issued the following statement about today’s Senate committee hearing on the nomination of Scott Garrett to be President of the Export-Import Bank:
“The Export-Import Bank is a deeply troubled government agency connected to cases of fraud, bribery and abuse. Scott Garrett is a true reformer who will steer the Bank in a much-needed new direction. Instead of bowing down to pressure from inside-the-Beltway special interest groups, senators should be looking out for the interests of hardworking taxpayers. President Trump was right to nominate Scott Garrett, a principled leader who will put an end to the Bank’s well-documented management failures.”
Ridgewood NJ, With the primary this week and all the articles about the massive amounts of money being spent on New Jersey Political races the one thing we have noticed is no one seems to really be paying any attention. Perhaps it graduation month or the reality of New Jersey coming demise , the constant calls for cutting taxes and fixing school funding all of which ring hollow or just the fact that no matter who you vote for ;criminality is rampant, corruption is king ,the state is run by Unions and special interests ,taxes will go up and all the problems will get much worse .
The well funded state Democrats have all tried to out bid each other for who can get the biggest and best tax increase, protect illegals with free stuff, harbor and promote terrorism , chase out the last bit of “free enterprise” ,further deplete the tax base and pay off all their special interest supporters
While the Ridgewood blog is still unsure if the New Jersey GOP is actually trying win or not a couple of upstarts have caught our eye.
First a 31-year-old Indian-American entrepreneur Harsh Vardhan Singh entered the governor’s race with little political background and a promise to cut property taxes and make New Jersey a national technology leader. Singh seems to be getting his feet wet for further political ambition ,but he comes off a bit naive to New Jersey’s down and dirty political landscape . He is some to keep an eye on for the future.
So that leaves us Joseph Rudy Rullo. If you say who ,you obviously don’t use social media much. Rullo an actor and small business owner who has run an off beat campaign patterned after the Trump campaign.
He has waged a one man crusade against the New Jersey establishment . Even going as far as to channel Trump’s drain the swamp line and apply it to Trenton . Rullo has managed to get into screaming matches with political opponents, tap into New Jersey Trump voters anger, use social media very effectively and offer some common sense ideas to fix some on New Jersey’s most pressing issues.
In his own words ,”As Governor I will reduce property taxes, repeal the $.23 gas tax, dissolve the transportation SLUSH fund, Veto all tax increases, cut billions in political earmarked jobs and contracts, eliminate state income taxes on pensions for retirees and add 1 billion in new revenue sources to further lower taxes. I Will dissolve the Transportation Trust Fund and consolidate all highway authorities eliminating redundant high level management positions, eliminate high cost earmark & specialty contracts tied to contributors.. It will produce millions in savings with shared services and purchases.
I will eliminate tolls and repeal the gas tax with the savings from the new efficient transparent highway entity. I will also eliminate 1.3 billion in pension fees to NYC politically connected brokerage houses and replace with licensed brokers in the state investors division to pay towards pension payment.
Superintendents and business administrators need to be reduced drastically. Instead of having one superintendent and business administrator per school district, we need to cut the number to one per county. By consolidating superintendents & business administrators, we can save $50 million per year by eliminating superintendents alone. And will work to also eliminate municipal tax assessors to one per county. I will fire hundreds of high-salary patronage jobs like indicted Port Authority’s David Wildstein, as an example, saving hundreds of millions of dollars to cut taxes. ”
Rullo is : Pro life , Pro Second Amendment and supports marijuana legalization. He wants to make NJ Veterans a priority . On school funding and education he has a lot to say ,”The Abott school districts need to be held accountable for wasteful spending and all districts need to work together to reduce cost. This will reduce the impact of inevitable changes in funding formulas with state aid. After all school districts cut wasteful spending, we need to implement fair funding formulas for property tax relief. One example is all school districts can drastically reduce costs by combined purchasing power. Another example is drastically reducing the number of Superintendents and redundant assistant Superintendents. High cost business administrators should also be reduced.
Since the start of No Child Left Behind and continued under Race to the Top, NJ parents and students have been saddled with the Common Core Standards. Parents feel like they can’t help their children with their homework because it is something they have never learned before and the children are left floundering in schools with too many children and not enough teachers to explain things to them. The State then decided to force the PARCC (Partnership for Readiness for College and Careers) test on our children. This has resulted in schools and teachers focusing their teaching efforts, not on learning, but on test results. This is wrong and only hurts our children who deserve a comprehensive learning program not a regimen of tests.
As Governor I will end PARCC testing completely and direct the Department of Education to draw up new, independent education standards that will return NJ to the top of the best educated Students in the Country.
I support school choice and home schooling.
Students come out of High School and don’t know how to balance a checkbook, write a resume or know anything about personal credit. Common Core needs to become Common Sense. Teachers need to be allowed to teach and not recite facts mandated from Washington, or some Corporation making money from our tax dollars. We need to provide better opportunities for students who decide to enter the workforce directly from high school with expanded vocational schools. The future of New Jersey depends on it! ”
On illegal immigration Rullo says the “police are overburdened with hands virtually tied because NJ is a sanctuary state. Out of state license plates and DMV fraud are the law of the land. As Governor I will implement E- Verify for all employees working in New Jersey and work with President Donald Trump to eliminate sanctuary cities across NJ. Everyone must follow the same rules in business and follow the law. Our veterans will of NJ will be first priority in NJ hospitals not illegal immigrants.”
On the Heroin epidemic Rullo wants stricter sentencing for drug dealers , “to make it a living hell for heroin dealers in NJ. With that being said they should be charged for attempt of murder for distribution and automatic manslaughter if someone dies from their distribution. ”
Rullo suports Assemblywoman Holly Schepisi efforts on Forced Overdevelopment in Bergen County, and is the one candidate for that has promised to dissolve COAH altogether while other candidates have only spoken in vague generalities or ignored the subject all together.
And finally the pervasive pension mess, Rullo says Eliminate 700 million in pension fees to NYC politically connected brokerage houses and replace with licensed brokers in the state investors division to pay savings towards pension payment. The pension fees went from 125M to 700M per year in the last 7 years.
*Open up state employee health insurance bids across America to create competition to lower premiums and get better coverage for employees.
* Dedicate a portion of recreational marijuana revenues to pay towards pension payment.
* Open up a formal investigation and audit the pension fund for the last several decades to hold politicians in both parties accountable for their actions.
Allendale NJ, The White House announced Tuesday afternoon that FBI Director James Comey was fired. Comey the seventh Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) , and served from 2013 until his dismissal by President Donald Trump on May 9, 2017.
Comey tenure had come under pressure by both Clinton supporters ,claiming his actions cost her the election and Trump supporters finding the continued “Russian Collusion” investigation given the confirmation that “there was no evidence of Russian Collusion with the Trump Administration” was purely politically motivated . In recent testimony Comey seemed a bit out of his depth and over his head .
“Today, President Donald J. Trump informed FBI Director James Comey that he has been terminated and removed from office,” White House press secretary Sean Spicer said in a statement. “President Trump acted based on the clear recommendations of both Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and Attorney General Jeff Sessions.”
According to Wikipedia James Comey was Born in Yonkers, New York, but Comey grew up in Allendale, New Jersey, the son of Joan and J. Brien Comey. His father worked in corporate real estate and his mother was a computer consultant and homemaker. Comey is of Irish heritage. He attended Northern Highlands Regional High School in Allendale. Comey graduated from the College of William and Mary in 1982, majoring in chemistry and religion. His senior thesis analyzed the liberal theologian Reinhold Niebuhr and the conservative televangelist Jerry Falwell, emphasizing their common belief in public action. He received his Juris Doctor (J.D.) from the University of Chicago Law School in 1985.
the Left’s perspective seems warped by cognitive dissonance. Trump’s task is herculean. The world’s biggest stable is filled to the rim with horse dung and someone, presumably not you, needs to do something about it. Emotions are important but at some point they need to be put to the side in favor of effective action. Your mileage may vary, but you might want to cut Trump a little slack and not try to drag him down to your level. Detraction is a sin we should all work to avoid, particularly when it is directed toward political leaders like Trump who are so clearly working in good faith toward the improvement and betterment of our nation.
Just look what Trump accomplished, against all odds? Why? Because people are desperate for some common sense which we can’t get from the today”s politicians. Securing our borders; better vetting for refugees and people from terror grown countries; a focus of jobs; deregulating finance/EPA and repairing our infrastructure are all good, common sense things our country is in desperate need of. Where was the outrage when Obama made policy changes that affect Cubans? Is the left anti-Cuban? The left look like idiots fighting and protesting to make it easier for terrorists and illegals to come to our country. So stupid. Why aren’t the majority Muslim countries taken in all these refugees but only majority Christian countries are, tell me why?
HOUSE GOP’S CORPORATE TAX SCHEME HAS ITS REPUBLICAN SKEPTICS
BY STEPHEN OHLEMACHER
ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans face opposition to their plan to overhaul the way corporations pay federal taxes from a powerful group of lawmakers – other Republicans.
“I’m not very enthused about it,” said Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch of Utah, the chairman of the Finance Committee and the Senate’s top tax writer.
Another skeptic is John Cornyn of Texas, the No. 2 Republican in the Senate.
“The question is, who is going to pay the tax?” Cornyn asked. “Is it going to be our citizens?”
Seeking to overhaul the tax code for the first time in 30 years, the House GOP plan would scrap the 35 percent tax on corporate profits, which is riddled with exemptions, deductions and credits. It would be replaced with something called a “border adjustment tax.”
Ridgewood Nj, Joseph Rullo, a longshot GOP candidate who entered the race more than a year ago in 2015 has been in nonstop campaign mode.
Rullo is patterning his campaign on the Trump campaign with a heavy use of social media, and drain the swamp mantra pointed at Trenton.
Rullo promises as Governor I will reduce property taxes, repeal the .23 gas tax, dissolve the transportation SLUSH fund, Veto all tax increases, cut billions in political earmarked jobs and contracts, eliminate state income taxes on pensions for retirees and add 1 billion in new revenue sources to further lower taxes. I Will dissolve the Transportation Trust Fund and consolidate all highway authorities eliminating redundant high-level management positions, eliminate high-cost earmark & specialty contracts tied to contributors. It will produce millions in savings with shared services and purchases. I will eliminate tolls and repeal the gas tax with the savings from the new efficient transparent highway entity. I will also eliminate 1.3 billion in pension fees to NYC politically connected brokerage houses and replace with licensed brokers in the state investors division to pay towards pension payment. Superintendents and business administrators need to be reduced drastically. Instead of having one superintendent and business administrator per school district, we need to cut the number to one per county. By consolidating superintendents & business administrators, we can save $50 million per year by eliminating superintendents alone. And will work to also eliminate municipal tax assessors to one per county. I will fire hundreds of high-salary patronage jobs like indicted Port Authority’s David Wildstein, as an example, saving hundreds of millions of dollars to cut taxes.
After winning 7 polls Rullo tells the Ridgewood blog If the election were held today without the rigging, we would win huge.
When asked yesterday if he feared backing Trump in very blue New Jersey, Rullo called Hillary a gun grabber.
Rullo told NJ.com “People are understanding that in Trenton, it’s all about helping friends and family and contributors,” he added. “I am prepping a massive overhaul of Trenton. I’m not in the establishment.”
By James Oliphant and Emily Stephenson | WASHINGTON
With more than 20 nominees now selected, Donald Trump’s cabinet appears much like the president-elect himself: mostly older, white males, many of them wealthy, who see themselves as risk-takers and deal-makers and prize action over deliberation.
Trump, who says Washington is “broken” and controlled by special interests, has largely eschewed technocrats with long government experience. Instead, he has built a team of bosses.
Trump’s roster of agency heads and advisers conspicuously lacks intellectuals, lawyers, and academics of the sort sought by some past presidents. In their place are titans of business and finance from the likes of Exxon Mobil and Goldman Sachs and no fewer than three retired generals in key positions.
One of the rallying cries of Donald Trump throughout the campaign was “Drain the Swamp!” Trump vowed that, if elected, he would rid Washington, D.C., of lobbyists and special interests. On Tuesday, Vice President-elect Mike Pence took the first step.
As reported by NBC News, Pence, who replaced New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie as head of the Trump transition team, has ordered the removal of all lobbyists from the team—to bring the transition more in line with the “drain the swamp” pledge.
The Hill reports that Trump had been under fire for having “roughly a dozen registered lobbyists working in and around the transition team.”
Those lobbyists included Rob Collins of S-3 Group, Mike Catanzaro at CGCN Group, Martin Whitmer of Whitmer & Worrall, J. Steven Hart at Williams & Jensen and tobacco company Altria’s Cindy Hayden, among others.
In addition to the removal of lobbyists, former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI), once seen as a candidate to lead the CIA, had also left the Trump transition team. Rogers had been told that those brought on by Christie were being let go, the Journal reported.
Apparently , Pence’s move was ‘in the nick of time.’
Ridgewood NJ, U.S. Term Limits (USTL), the leader in the movement to limit terms for politicians, releases the following statement on Donald Trump’s “Drain the Swamp” plan for congressional term limits:
“Yesterday, GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump endorsed a constitutional amendment for term limits on Congress. His specific plan calls for three House terms (six years), two Senate terms (12 years) and no longer limit.
These specifics are consistent with the amendment advocated by U.S. Term Limits.
First, it’s important to correct a misconception about the president’s role in enacting term limits. While term limits on Congress do require a constitutional amendment and the president does not have an official role in that process, the presidential pulpit can add critical momentum to this effort.
That’s why the term limits movement has concluded that a supportive president would be a game-changer for our issue.
The American people – Republicans and Democrats alike – are fed up with the broken system in Washington. Career politicians and special interests have teamed up to cheat the public out of the democracy they deserve. Congress has become the place where new and dynamic ideas go to die. We will work together with anyone who shares the vision of bringing term limits to Congress.
We invite all presidential candidates to join this movement to fix Washington by bringing career politicians home. So far, Donald Trump, Gary Johnson and Jill Stein have endorsed congressional term limits. Hillary Clinton hasn’t stated her position on the issue.
USTL President Philip Blumel commented “U.S. Term Limits does not endorse any candidate for any office, but we encourage every candidate to endorse term limits.”
TERM LIMITS FACTS
-Gallup polling shows that 75% of Americans back congressional term limits, including 82% of Republicans, 65% of Democrats and 79% of independents.
-The 1995 SCOTUS case U.S. Term Limits v. Thornton decided congressional term limits could only come by constitutional amendment.
-Citizens can bypass Congress to propose the amendment by passing resolutions through 34 state legislatures. This process creates an amendment-proposing convention of states. U.S. Term Limits introduced the Term Limits Convention strategy in 2016 to do just that, and has already passed in the Florida Legislature.
-Despite oft-cited myths, lobbyists and special interests are the primary opponents of term limits, with a long history of bankrolling campaigns to prevent, weaken or abolish term limits.
