Podcast: Play in new window
Summary of the topics discussed by Seth Grossman on the “Liberty and Prosperity” WPG Radio program.
🗳️ The New Jersey Governor’s Election (Jack Ciattarelli vs. Mikey Sherrill)
The bulk of the discussion focused on the election, with Grossman outlining points he believes voters should know.
High Electric Bills: Grossman blames high electricity costs on Governor Murphy for shutting down six productive power plants (including nuclear and Beesleys Point) in pursuit of “green energy.” He argues that alternative sources (wind, solar, tidal) are unreliable and that only coal, oil, gas, or nuclear can provide consistent power. He states that Jack Ciattarelli has promised to reopen or replace these plants.
Critique of Mikie Sherrill’s Record: He challenges Sherrill’s background, claiming:
She was not a “military commander” but worked in an office.
She was a lawyer who didn’t practice in a courtroom but worked for a firm that bullied and shook down big corporations to promote “woke” causes. (DEI, anti-American).
She was “never a prosecutor” but an “outreach and re-entry coordinator”. Her job was to help criminals get housing, employment, health care and counseling when they got out of prison.
Sherrill’s Stances: He claims Sherrill is in favor of “open borders,” “sanctuary” policies in New Jersey, and “reparations for slavery.”
Teachers’ Union Endorsement and “Statewide Property Tax”: T
The teachers’ union pension fund was run as a “Ponzi scheme” fore years. Teacher got low salaries and made small pension fund contributions for years. Then they got big pay hikes just before they retired. Then their pension payments were based on their highest salaries just before they retired! By 2014, the pension funds were insolvent. The NJEA Teachers’ Union sued the state claiming that the pension fund was “$50 billion in the hole” as of 2014.
The union wants a constitutional amendment to create a new, “mandatory statewide property tax” to bail out the pension fund.
In 2017, the NJEA spent more than $4 million to try to defeat former Senate President Steve Sweeney for previously blocking this. In 2021, they finally succeeded.
Sherrill’s commitment to “secure pensions” a “code word” for her commitment to this new statewide tax to bail out the pension funds.
“Fake News”: Democrats and “billionaires” created a “fake charity” to fund a “fake newspaper” called the New Jersey Independent. We don’t know who is paying for it because it is registered as a “charity” and not as a political campaign organization. This fake newspaper is mailed voters with the big lie that Ciattarelli “talked about” raising the sales tax. He never did! He answered a question about why Tennessee doesn’t have an income tax. Sherrill’s TV ads are now quoting this “fake newspaper” as a source for this fake news. In reality, Democrat Sherrill made a commitment to raise taxes to bail out the NJEA Teacher pensions.
🏛️ Atlantic City State Takeover
Grossman criticizes Senator Vince Polistina’s proposal for a 10-year extension of the state takeover of Atlantic City.
He argues the only reason Atlantic City fell into financial trouble was because of the first state takeover under Governor Chris Christie (starting in 2010).
He claims Christie, to avoid conflict with unions while planning his presidential run, allowed Atlantic City to run “illegal budgets” for six years, accumulating $400 million in debt. The purpose of the “takeover” was to keep the City from suing the State to repudiate this illegal debt created by Christie.
☀️ A “Nightmare” in Florida: A Cautionary Tax Tale
Grossman discusses a ballot question in Florida, supported by Governor Ron DeSantis, that would give the option to eliminate property taxes and fund schools and services with state taxes instead.
He calls this a “nightmare” and uses New Jersey’s history as a “cautionary tale.”
He argues that property taxes are the “most fair” form of taxation because everyone (including renters and owners) pays, and it makes government spending accountable to the taxpayers.
He warns against creating “corrupt voters”—people who can vote for more government spending while thinking “somebody else” (through sales or income taxes) will pay for it. He points to New Jersey’s 1966 introduction of the sales tax and 1976 introduction of the income tax, both of which failed to lower property taxes as promised.
TRANSCRIPT:
SETH GROSSMAN: There’s a lot of new stuff posted on the LibertyandProsperity.com website, especially with the election. So if there’s anybody that you know who has who has not made up their mind on whether to vote for Republican uh Jack Ciattarelli or Democrat Mikie Sherrill, just go to our website and share the posts you see there. They explain everything.
MAMDANI CAN NEVER BE PRESIDENT. HE IS NOT A “NATURAL BORN CITIZEN”. HE WAS BORN IN UGANDA IN AFRICA.
First, let me put your nightmare aside. Mamdani’s not going to run for president because I believe he was born in Uganda.
Article II, Section One of our Constitution makes it clear that you’ve got to be a “natural born citizen of the United States” to be President. In fact, there were some doubts about Franklin Roosevelt because even though his parents were American, I he was born at their summer vacation home in Campobello Island in Canada. However, he qualified because both of Roosevelt’s parents were American citizens. However, Mamdani was born in Kampala, Uganda in Africa, and neither of his parents were American citizens. So Zohran Mamdani cannot be President.
JOHN DEMASI: Oh, well, that that makes me feel better.
SETH GROSSMAN: But there are some very scary nightmares out there that I will try to get to this morning. But since the election on Tuesday is so important, let me go through I guess eight points about what you should tell your undecided or Democrat friends about the election between Republican Jack Ciattarelli for Governor and Democrat Mikie Sherrill.
JACK CIATTARELLI’S PLAN TO REBUILD, RE-OPEN OR REPLACE THE POWER PLANTS MURPHY SHUT DOWN IS THE ONLY WAY TO BRING ELECTRIC RATES BACK DOWN.
First of all, electric bills are high in New Jersey because Governor Murphy shut down six productive power plants that produced almost half of the electricity we needed. Before then, New Jersey produced more than enough electricity to take care of ourselves. That is why we had low and affordable electric rates. But then Governor Murphy wanted only so-called green energy from wind and solar. So Murphy shut down the nuclear plant in Oyster Creek in Lacey Township. He shut down the B.L. England plant in Upper Township by the Milepost 28 Bridge on the Parkway, and four others. So we in New Jersey now have to get half of our electricity from Canada and other faraway places at very high prices. Jack Ciattarelli proposed and has a plan to reopen, rebuild, or replace those six power plants. That’s the only way to bring down electric rates. The Democrat Mike Sherrill is promising stupid gimmicks that are just illegal. You can’t declare a state of emergency and force electric companies to charge people less for electricity than what it costs them to get it.
And by the way, I know you get a lot of calls about alternative ways of to make electricity. The key to electricity is when you plug your toaster oven into the plug, it get 110 volts and 1200 watts of electricity every time. Otherwise, it either doesn’t work or burns up. It has to get the same flow of current all the time, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. So if the wind comes and goes and clouds come and go, you can’t use wind or solar to power an electric grid. I know you had a caller last week from Ocean City who said, “Well, let’s use the waves of the ocean to make power.” Well you can’t do that because sometimes you have calm days without any waves, and sometimes you waves that are too big and shut everything down. What do you do then? Either the whole grid shuts down, or you have to immediately get electricity from a reliable source. And that means you need tolots of electricity from a reliable source to replace it. There are only reliable ways to make electricity in New Jersey: coal, oil, natural gas or nuclear. You can’t have dams and hydroelectric here ins South Jersey because you need lots of water flowing downhill, and we don’t have any hills here. So, we need to use common sense and eighth-grade science to understand and fix the problem. Jack Ciattarelli, has training and experience as an accountant and a business owner. He understands the problem and has a real plan to fix it. Mikie Sherrill and the Democrats are spouting absolute nonsense. So, that’s number one.
MIKE SHERRILL COMPLETELY LIED ABOUT WHO SHE IS.
Number two, you got to dissect all the lies of the Mikie Sherrill campaign. No, she was never a a military commander. She was a Private Benjamin. She worked for an admiral in an office on land, not in a ship, not in a helicopter in the Navy. When she gets out of the Navy, she becomes a lawyer, but she’s a lawyer who never practices law in the courtroom. She worked for the richest law firm in the world which is also a woke law firm. They shake down big corporations and bully them into doing Diversity Equity and Inclusion in their hiring and promoting all sorts of woke agendas in their marketing. It’s all described and documented in detail on our libertyandprosperity.com website. Mikie Sherrill was She was never a prosecutor. Her job with the U.S. Attorney’s office was as a counselor. She helped criminals find jobs, housing, counseling and health care when they got out of prison. Things like that. And when he got out the prosecutor’s office, where she wasn’t a prosecutor, here career goal was finding a job doing criminal justice reform, whatever the heck that means. But then somebody gives her $3 million and she runs for Congress, and now she’s running for Governor.
MIKIE SHERRILL IS FOR OPEN BORDERS, SANCTUARY FOR ILLEGAL MIGRANTS, REPARATIONS FOR SLAVERY.
And look at where Mikie Sherrill is on the issues. She’s for open borders. She’s for keeping New Jersey as a sanctuary state. She wants anyone who is not Black who never owned slaves, to pay higher taxes so that Blacks who never were slaves get money as reparations for nothing. Mikie Sherrill was one of 130 congressmen who co-sponsored the legislation to force the federal government to have reparations.
MIKIE SHERRILL PLEDGED TO RAISE TAXES TO BAIL OUT THE “PONZI” NJEA PENSION FUND.
And now there’s an even bigger issue. Bailing out the insolvent teacher’s pension fund. The NJEA Teacher’s Union just endorsed Mikie Sherrill. I don’t have time to go through the whole history. But basically, the teachers union pension system was run like a Ponzi scheme for the past 30 years. They rigged all the salaries so that teachers would work most of their careers with relatively low salaries, and just before they retired, they would get super step increases to boost their pensions. And what that did, it allowed them to get pensions based on their last five years of high salaries, but they had like 25 years of low salaries. So, they were getting pensions they never earned. In 2014, they did a study that showed that the New Jersey pension funds were $50 billion in the hole.
And that’s why in 2016, the NJEA teachers union pressured State Legislature introduce a Constitutional Amendment to bail out the pension system with a mandatory statewide property tax on top of the county, local, and school taxes we have now. Did you know that?
JOHN DEMASI: No, I didn’t know that. No.
SETH GROSSMAN: Well, Steve Sweeney was the State Senate President at the time, and he refused to do it, saying it would bankrupt the state. And that’s when the teachers union did a vendetta against Steve Sweeney and spent $5 million to try to defeat him in 2017. Sweeney had to raise just as much money, and he barely got reelected. Then in 2021, the Teachers Union finished off Sweeney. Now with Sweeney out of the way, the NJEA Teachers’ Union is prepared to have a governor and a Democrat Governor and a Legislature to steamroll this bailout through. Again, this will be a State Constitutional Amendment to get rid of the protections we hafe now, and to have a constitutional amendment to bail out the pension funds with a mandatory statewide real estate tax on top of all the real estate taxes we have now. Few people know about this. It’s completely under the radar. But it’s all documented on our libertyandprosperity.com website. So, I urge everybody who is listening to go there, read the article, and share it.
JOHN DEMASI: So, if this thing comes to pass, we’re going to pay an extra property tax? Is that what I’m hearing?
SETH GROSSMAN: Exactly. Because, you see, right now we have a section on our State New Jersey Constitution that says that the voters or taxpayers of New Jersey can’t be forced to pay debts unless you vote to approve them. And you probably remember about eight years ago, we had the same issue with the broke Transportation Trust Fund, that used to be the Highway Trust Fund. That fund needed a bail out, but the state couldn’t do it without a public vote to approve it. At the time, our State Constitution said New Jersey taxapayers could not be forced to pay debts like this without a referendum and voter approval.
So what they did is they did a constitutional amendment with the gas with the transportation trust fund. They uh fooled the voters into voting yes. They said, “Oh, we’re going to have a lock box for our sales for our uh gasoline tax.” What that they did in the fine print, they they caused us to get automatic toll hikes and gas tax every year, not to build roads, but to bail out that bankrupt pension fund. So the teachers said, “Oh boy, this is such a great idea, you know, for the uh for the highway trust fund. We’re going to do that with the Teachers Union pension.” And and uh if you look at their website, the Teachers Union, they said, “Mikie Sherrill is for, quote, secure pensions.” And that’s code word for a constitutional amendment which will be approved by voters that they’ll steamroll through and uh and then have a mandatory real estate tax with mandatory hikes every year to pay for it. And uh so we have that going on. And why nobody is publicizing this is beyond me because it’s out, you know, everything I’ve said to you is just obvious. It’s out there. It’s documented, and I hope everyone will will look at it.
Yeah, well, it’s really important that people talk about this and especially what you’ve just said. I mean, that that’s really, that’s disturbing.
And let me tell you about the lies about uh Jack Ciattarelli. I mean, this is so insidious. What the Democrats did, uh they got this uh fake charity um uh and and it’s um uh it’s called the American Trust, I forget, I don’t I’m in Florida so I don’t have my notes in front of me. But they use a fake charity to do a fake newspaper called the New Jersey Independent that they mailed out to every voter for the past four years. And it’s totally, I mean for the past four weeks. Uh and they’ve been doing this for years, and it’s funded by these billionaires. We have no idea who they are because they’re a charity, so they don’t follow any of the campaign finance rules.
So now they have this newspaper come out uh every week for the past four weeks saying one lie after another about Jack Ciattarelli, uh claiming that Jack Ciattarelli is going to raise the sales tax when it’s a total lie, and the only one who’s going to raise taxes is Mikie Sherrill because she made this commitment to the to the Teachers Union. But yet they they have this fake newspaper has this these same lies week after week. And what have we seen for the past week? We see Mikie Sherrill uh lying in her TV ads, quoting the lies that were said in the fake newspaper that that they put out for the past four weeks. I mean, it’s just uh incredible that they are getting away with this. And that’s why we’ve just got to talk to everybody we know and tell them all that stuff.
Well, uh didn’t they, they said that that Jack Ciattarelli’s going to raise the sales tax, but isn’t it the opposite? I mean, Mikie Sherrill’s probably going to raise tax.
Not probably, she made a commitment. The Teachers Union would not be pouring all that money into her campaign if she didn’t do it. Uh because remember, uh during the Democratic primary, uh the Teachers Union poured $4 million into pushing uh their vice president uh who getting a $400,000 a year salary uh to be their candidate for governor. And I he’s so memorable, I don’t even remember his name anymore. But he lost. Mikie Sherrill won. Uh and I’m sure there was some conversation where Mikie Sherrill said, “Okay, if if you want a governor who’s going to push through this uh this constitutional amendment, uh you give me the $4 million that you gave your other guy, and I’ll do the same thing.” Because there’s no way the Teachers Union would give that kind of endorsement over the specific issue of, quote, secure pensions if that commitment was not made.
So the reality is that uh they’re saying or or Mikie Sherrill’s ads are saying Jack Ciattarelli’s going to raise the taxes, but in reality, Mikie Sherrill’s going to really raise taxes, right?
Right. Well, well, that’s what they, that’s what the socialist, the communist, the leftist, whatever label you want to use, they always accuse their opponents of doing what they’re doing. Uh it it’s classic uh, you know, Saul Alinsky tactics, and and we’re seeing it in real time.
Boy. That’s why we got to get out there. We got to get out there and talk to people. You’re right. You’re absolutely right.
NO NEED FOR TEN YEAR EXTENSION OF STATE TAKEOVER OF ATLANTIC CITY. ITS ONLY PURPOSE WAS TO STOP CITY FROM REFUSING TO PAY CHRIS CHRISTIE’S $400 MILLION ILLEGAL DEBT!
Our Republican State Senator Vince Polistina is proposing a 10-year extension of the takeover of Atlantic City. He claims that after 10 years, Atlantic City has not proved it’s worthy of of running itself. And I just want to repeat what we’ve been saying and what’s been posted on the website for years.
The only reason that Atlantic City got into financial trouble was because Republican Governor Chris Christie had the State take over the City’s finances in 2010. And 2010 was a terrible year for Atlantic City. It lost two-thirds of its casino business, taxable real estate in Atlantic City lost two-thirds of its value. The City was trying to run its government and public schools with only one third the money they had before. There was an immediate need for drastic spending cuts to balance the budget.
But that would have meant laying off people, it would have meant cutting salaries. But at that time, Chris Christie, the Governor of New Jersey, wanted to be President. And at the time, Chris Christie’s main rival for President in 2012 was Republican Governor Scott Walker in Wisconsin. Now Scott Walker was controversial because he was cutting taxes and balancing budgets by taking on the public employee unions. And there were all sorts of protests and riots against him. But instead of looking after taxpayers and bringing government spending under control in New Jersey, Chris Christie said, “I’m a different kind of Republican. I’m a Republican who gets along with Democrats like Steve Sweeney. I’m a Republican who is loved bv the unions. I can get along with unions.
And the reason Democrats and the unions loved Chris Christie was he gave all these big raises to government employee unions and didn’t lay anybody off. And how did he do it? Chris Christie as Governor completely disregarded the State Budget Law that requires all cities to have a balanced budget. So under Chris Christie for six years, he had illegal budgets with deficits of about $80 million in debt each year. Christie illegally put Atlantic City taxpayers more than $400 million into debt.
That’s the reason you had the state takeover. To pretend this was the City’s fault and to stop the City from suing the State to get out of paying this illegal debt. During this time, City Council members like Jesse Kurtz were talking to lawyers and they had a very strong case.
If state officials took over the City and created $400 million of illegal debt, why should Atlantic City taxpayers get stuck with paying it back? But when Christie had the State take over, the City officials couldn’t hire lawyers to do that. Christie force Atlantic City to hire his lawyers.
That was what the State Takeover was all about. It was a big giant cover-up. So why do we need that nonsense for another ten years?
BIG MISTAKE FOR FLORIDA TO GET RID OF ITS PROPERTY TAX. NEW JERSEY MADE BIG MISTAKE WHEN IT TRIED TO CUT PROPERTY TAXES BY CREATING NEW STATE SALES AND INCOME TAXES IN 1966 AND 1976!
I’m in Florida for the week, and there’s a real nightmare going on here. Florida has an important ballot question that that I just found out about. Governor Ron DeSantis thinks he’s helping taxpayers by putting a referendum on the ballot to eliminate the real estate tax, the property tax. He wants to fund the schools and other local functions with other state, county and local taxes like sales taxes. And I’ve had a lot of conversation with my friends in Florida saying, “Be careful what you wish for.”
Remember that not too long ago, New Jersey was one of the best run states in the country. We had no sales tax, we had no income tax, we had affordable property taxes, we had the best schools, we had the best highways in the country. It was a wonderful place. People from Philadelphia and New York were flocking to move to New Jersey. And then what happened? In 1966, people in New Jersey said, “You know, our property taxes, they’re okay, but let’s make them lower. Let’s have a sales tax, a brand new 2% sales tax to make our property taxes go down.” And what happened? We had a state sales tax, but property taxes went up anyway. So then we had a 3% sales tax, and a 4% sales tax, and it never ended. And then they said that wasn’t enough, let’s have an income tax in 1976.
Now, why does this happen? Why is it whenever you say, “We’re going to make one tax go down by raising another tax,” how come it never works? Because there’s one thing that’s worse than corrupt politicians in a democracy, and that’s corrupt voters. And raising one tax to lower another makes voters corrupt.
That’s because you give voters the idea that they can demand anything they want from government but have taxes that will be paid by somebody else, not them. That’s when you go downhill. And in a way, when you think about it, property taxes are the fairest way to tax people. Everybody has to live somewhere. Everybody has to pay property taxes. If you’re a homeowner, you pay them directly. If you’re a tenant, you pay through your rent.
And it’s good that if the government spends more money, you the taxpayer pay more, because you know you are paying for government. The worst thing you can do is have all these tax breaks and exemptions for senior citizens, exemptions for farmers, exemptions for veterans, because there are unintended consequences. Once you create voters who can vote for politicians to spend more money without having their taxes go up, you have corrupt voters. They demand and elect politicians who create taxes that force somebody else to pay for what you want. That is classic corruption. And in my opinion, corrupt voters are worse than corrupt politicians because they keep voting for corrupt politicians. That’s why property taxes went up even more after we started new sales and income taxes that were supposed to make them go down. The taxes went up because the spending went up. And the spending went up because everybody kept demanding more spending because they all thought somebody else would pay for it. So that’s the conversation I’ve been having with a lot of people in Florida lately, And all that stuff, of course, is posted at libertyandprosperity.com.
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If Charles Dickens read Grossman’s novel length posts even he’d say this guy just blathers on with too many words.
Man, Citarelli loses more elections than you, Grossman. As always, your endorsement means nothing.