It is official.  The Pew Center on the States report card on governance shows New Jersey to be a cartoon of government dysfunction.

As a March 8 Bergen Record editorial states:

It took years of pension increases, pork, patronage and other profligate spending to get us to this point. Now the state's debt load is almost the size of the budget itself.

Of course, the blame can't just be placed on our elected officials.  We, the people, have been – and pretty much remain – AWOL (Asleep With Open Lids).  We pay taxes not to play, outsourcing our state's political system to Boss controlled pay-to-play machines.  These monopolistic County Party Organizations stack municipal committees with government patronage employees who, in return for their jobs, make their Boss/patron happy.  How?  By rubberstamping his dictatorial monopoly over YOUR electoral choices, the candidates allowed to appear on your party's line.  And, in turn, these candidates do the Boss's bidding on no-bid contract awards and patronage jobs. Slick.

Justifiably, we regular folk tend to see politics like the sewer system.  We know it is vital and that it needs maintenance and attention.   But few of us want to climb in there and deal with it personally.   So the patronage/pay-to-play insiders have the field more or less to themselves.  They reward themselves with contracts, jobs and money -- and it is all quite legal. And it is only remarkable elected officials who are willing to be independent or bite the hand that feeds them.  After all, according to State law, County bosses have a special legal advantage: they can collect up to 17 times more per donor than any candidate is allowed to collect on his or her own!  Isn't that a recipe for loyalty from those running on the party line?  No wonder public financing is an idea pay to players hate.

We at the Englewood Report urge you to dig deeper, inform yourself and friends. Don't just buy the political talking points of the politician/marketers.  Inoculate yourself with a healthy skepticism and familiarize yourself with the Orwellian methodologies the insiders, the Bosses, spinmeisters, trash talkers, PR pros, patronage cronies and no-bid contract profiteers use to manipulate us into electorally ratifying their political power and selfish business plan. 

What to do? 

Short of volunteering to run for an elected position (please do!), exercise a healthy skepticism when reading or hearing political content. Apply such a skepticism to all sources...yes, even us.  So, we urge you to not only view our hyperlinks and sources, but to go further. Seek your own sources of data and facts (not just talking points, spin, assertions, namecalling or opinion).  Share them with us and your friends and neighbors.  It takes more effort, but the easy consumption of political marketing has led to voter ignorance, compliance and confusion.

And that has earned our State its duncecap.