New Jersey To Issue Its Own Currency? Springsteen And Sinatra To Appear On New Paper Money.

From www.whatexitnj.com:

“My personal favorite for the One Hundred Dollar bill is Joe Piscopo.”

“Everyone agrees that Jerry Lewis (of Weehawken) or Lou Costello (of Paterson) should be on the One Dollar bill,” said Assemblyman Michael Patrick Carroll, sponsor of bill A-1776. “And that either Frank Sinatra (of Hoboken) or Bruce Springsteen (of Long Branch) should be on the One Thousand Dollar bill.”

Carroll is the main sponsor for legislation, A-1776, that would “…immediately initiate, create, fashion and grant authority to the state of New Jersey to print monetary paper currency to be valid for all debts public and private for the state there in.” The bill is cosponsored in the State Assembly by fellow legislators Allison Littell McHose (NJ-24), Erik Peterson (NJ-23), and John DiMaio (NJ-23). The same legislation is sponsored in the Senate by Senator Michael Doherty as S-117.

“The Obama administration has so devalued American currency, by its failed economic and fiscal policies, that this is the best a state can do,” noted Carroll.

Under Article I Section 8 of the Federal Constitution, Congress has the authority to:

“To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures; To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States.”

One would think that this alone would deter Assemblyman Carroll, ––– however he claims that “Article I Section 8 merely refers to ‘coin money’, and not paper currency.”

“In an originalist interpretation of the Constitution, as the Founding Fathers would have us interpret the document, there is no mention of ‘paper money’ – just ‘coin money’ ”, noted Carroll.

“Obviously, the intent of the Framers was to leave this to the Several States, under the 10^th amendment––which says ‘The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.’ The Founding Fathers clearly had it in mind for states to issue their own paper currency. It is only liberal activist courts that have subverted this Original Intent.”

Additionally, under A-1776, “An exploratory New Jersey Currency Commission shall be set up in the following manner: Two members shall be appointed from the general public by the governor; Two members shall be appointed by each house of the legislature; and the Seventh member shall be the Chief Justice of the New Jersey Supreme Court, unless he is a ‘liberal’, whereby the governor shall have the power to appoint his own additional nominee subject to the advice and consent of himself.”

The New Jersey Currency Commission shall have the power to decide which persons, living or dead, will appear the on the various denominations of the paper money.

“There are those liberals who have their favorites; Princeton is lobbying for Woodrow Wilson or Paul Robeson. My personal favorite for the One Hundred Dollar bill is Joe Piscopo. That ‘I’m from Jersey’ bit from 1980s SNL still cracks me up,” finished Carroll.

Conservtive Donerty's call for Big State Government

Conservative libertarian Assemblyman Michael Doherty wants Big State Government to shut down the Golden Parachutes ----the hefty severance packages paid by school districts to retiring school officials.

Such deals are freely negotiated by the two parties, but Doherty wants Big State Government to get involved to nix them ----now, in the past, and for the future.

Is this state involvement in a freely negotiated contract between two parties constitutional?

If it's an Abbott district, maybe---since they get a good portion of their money from the state, maybe a higher level of state scrutiny is warranted. But, what if it's Hunterdon/Warren Counties school districts? Then what?

My good friend Ed Smith of Doherty's office said that 'contracts made by public entities can be nullified for the public good'. But, that still seems like Big Government getting involved in a freely negotiated deal.

I am always amused when so-called “conservative libertarian Republicans” default to the Big Bad Government they usually disdain ---- to help solve a problem in the state. While a strong argument can be made that such a deal may be bad public policy, the question is:

Who gets to decide the solution? Legislators in Trenton ---or the folks who pay the bills and vote for the school boards who cut the raw deal?

The bill, passed by a good sized coalition of Ds and Rs, ---would ban such payments for both current and future top school officials. And that kind of state government involvement in the market place seems OK for Doherty.

This was all spurred on by a retiring school official in Monmouth County who got paid three quarters of a million bucks. That is a nice piece of change to go home with at the end of a school day. He would have to serve in Trenton almost 15 years to make that much.

As much as state taxpayers do not like the idea of such deals, one must question the constitutionality of the state of New Jersey being able to retroactively alter existing contracts.

Some people think the real answer should be political---in the voting booth, and maybe not legislative, in Trenton. Let the local voters in Monmouth County ----the folks who are paying the tab for such deals ----vote to bounce out school board members who negotiate and support such deals.

In the months ahead, keep your eyes pealed for lawsuits from those same top school officials who cut such deals in the past, and now have been nixed. Hope the school districts have budgeted for legal fees to pay their

I am sure that the attorneys for those same retired school officials will have an eye toward Article I, Section 10 of the U.S. Constitution:

No State shall … pass any Bill of Attainder, ex post facto Law, or Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts…

Thomas Jefferson, in a Letter to Isaac McPherson, August 13th, 1813, said this of ex post facto laws:

“The sentiment that ex post facto laws are against natural right is so strong in the United States, that few, if any, of the State constitutions have failed to proscribe them. The federal constitution indeed interdicts them in criminal cases only; but they are equally unjust in civil as in criminal cases, and the omission of a caution which would have been right, does not justify the doing what is wrong. Nor ought it to be presumed that the legislature meant to use a phrase in an unjustifiable sense, if by rules of construction it can be ever strained to what is just.”

STOP THE PRESSES: Republicans in Warren County Want MORE Government

"Warren County voters will decide this November whether the freeholder board should expand from three members to five. The current three-member board authorized the public referendum Wednesday. A group of residents had been circulating a nonpartisan petition to get the expansion question on November's ballot.” (Olanoff, Express-Times)

The good bet is that this year in November the voters in the northwest county of Warren will add two new Freeholders to their ranks. Currently, they have three freeholders, and they are the last holdout in the state to have a freeholder board that size. All the current freeholders are Republicans.

Hunterdon County added two more freeholders in 1998. And, quite frankly, I am not sure if it has made any difference with regard to the efficiency in the County workload or the cost of running the government.

However, I am always shocked when those purveyors of smaller and smaller government ---the conservative libertarian Republicans --- actually wish to increase its size. Their reason can be summed up in the words of Hackettstown Councilwoman Nancy Brown who said, “It's not bigger government, it's better representation.”

Yeah! That’s the ticket! When Republicans want bigger government, they just say that it’s ‘better representative government’ that they want. Now, I see. Why wasn’t that clear before?

The truth is, even with just three freeholders, Warren County residents have outstanding representation. Case in point: Hudson County has a population of 608,975, and nine freeholders. That’s 67,663 people per freeholder. Now, Warren County has a population of just 102,437 and the current three freeholders. That’s 34,145 per freeholder. Warren County has fewer residents per freeholder by almost half: So, even with just three freeholders, Warren County residents have better representation than those who live in Hudson.

Another supporter of bigger government in Warren, is Mr. Libertarian Conservative Republican himself, the former Warren County freeholder and current Assemblyman, Mike Doherty. Of course, when it comes to stem cell research, that’s where his desire for bigger government stops. He firmly opposed the New Jersey Stem Cell Research Bond Act, a $450 million bond referendum that will provide financing for stem cell research grants to eligible institutions over a 10-year period. This is even though the people in a completely democratic process will decide this on in November.

The real reason Doherty wants bigger government in Warren: So that the Republicans can meet privately in caucus to discuss county legislation without violating the Sunshine Law. That’s it: Private meetings of Republicans to discuss legislation.

Right now, if two of the three Republican legislators meet to discuss any county issue ---even casually at a political event --- it is possible that they could violate the Sunshine Law.

Doherty told the Express-Times, "Down in Trenton, we caucus before we go in for a vote…[A]nd we cannot do that here in Warren County, and that's a detriment to good government."

So, a “detriment” to good government is the lack of secret meetings of Republicans? Because the Republican freeholders cannot meet privately to discuss county business, Doherty wants bigger government? Is this better government?

Folks in Warren County should have a better reason than that to increase the size and cost of their county government.