Quote:
Originally Posted by njbchbum
richielion -
he's got another problem, too - one of the largest standard bred farms [400 horses from foal to broodmare] is shutting down and shuttering its barns because of the lack of support for the horse racing industry from the administration. the farm's owner expects that more breeders will be leaving, too!
the gov leased the two major race tracks to one industry guy [jeff gural] and to an owner of resorts casino [morris bailey] and then pulled the subsidies from a.c. gambling out of the racing purses. a.c. used to subsidize the purses rather than permit video gaming terminals into the tracks. a.c. is dying - 39 consecutive months of losses [to delaware, ny, and pa] - and the gov is going to pour $$ into the boardwalk area in hopes of restoring the city to its former grandeur. the loss of this business to local businesses selling supplies, feed and neighboring farms selling alfalfa and timothy hay is going to put a big economic hurt on these locals!
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The states, even more than the nation, are having to come to grips with the reality that government can no longer be all things to all people and/or all causes. There are endless worthy ideas: increased pay and benefits for state employees, more parks and recreation, highway expansion, industry support, expanded Medicaid benefits, head start programs, etc. The challenge of governing is to balance the priorities with the income available. Does the state require more first responders more than expanded head-start? Are class size limits more essential than expanded care to the elderly under Medicaid? Should we expand the prisons or expand the programs for drug rehabilitation?
We can all, or mostly all of us, agree that all these programs are worthy. What is difficult is to say that we will totally eliminate one so that the others can be adequately funded. Doing just a little of everything leads to accomplishing nothing. I do not envy Chris Christie or any of our other governors. Unlike our President they can no longer hide reality behind another debt limit increase. It's time for those with courage and the willingness to accept responsibility to step up and those that are afraid of the hard decisions to leave.