The Tax Man

If you drive a car-car I'll tax the street/ If you try to sit-sit I'll tax your seat/ If you get too cold I'll tax the heat/ If you take a walk I'll tax your feet/ Tax man / Well I'm the tax man / Yea I'm the tax man

Budgets and taxes are the new scandal black. From Trenton to AH, talk of the Tax Monster is replacing bribery and pay-to-play around the water cooler and office sludge coffee machine.

AH Councilman Jack Archibald goes on the offensive in his Body Politic column on the AH Herald,

This will be the second budget for the Donoghue Administration and residents are still waiting for his team to deliver on their campaign promise of reduced water and sewer rates...The excess spending of the past few years by Trenton Democrats continues, and the pie in the sky campaign promises by local Democrats further erodes the public confidence. There is a property tax monster swallowing up our state, and Democrats from Trenton to Atlantic Highlands continue to shove
taxpayer dollars into its throat.

The Donaghue Administration are Predators on the taxpayer of At-lan-teeec Highlands. They must be Totally Recalled from Borough Hall. What with all the pies and the skies and the waters and the sewers and so forth and so on. You can't be a girly man with the budgets, you have to be strong like Conan the Tax Reducer not wimpy like Conan the Tax Increaser.

I'll be sure to attend the March 9th Council meeting when the budget is introduced as I'm fairly certain sparks will fly. The Harbor Commission got a sneak peak at the budget on March 2 and "voted" it down 3-4. Quotes because their vote does not hold any weight - the Council doesn't need their approval. One issue is that the Harbor Commission wants $100,000 for capital improvements such as paving the parking lots while the budget reflects $50,000 for capital improvements so that more money can go toward tax relief. Hold on there - did I just read that the Donaghue Administration's budget is trying to provide tax relief? How will we feed the Tax Monster? Will it eat us if it can't eat our money?

Do the harbor parking lots need to be repaved? If there's a capital improvement to be made at the harbor it's getting some kind of temporary something to put up on the pier before a gust of wind knocks somebody into the water on the way to the ferry. The seasonal hand rail doesn't really do the trick.

Middletown Committeeman Ray "I can smell a cop a mile away" O'Grady will not resign his position even though he was one of the 11 county officials arrested in the bribery sting last week. According to an article is the Asbury Park Press, "only death, resignation, term expirations, a recall petition or the finding of guilty in the legal proceedings would result in their [any of the officials] removal." Obviously they forgot common sense in that list.

The balance of the Middletown committee released a statement on 2/23 stating: “He has clearly lost the confidence of the people ... and he should not burden the township with his presence at governmental meetings and other activities. Frankly, that would be adding insult to injury, and embarrassing.”

And I thought our Council meetings were fun - I might pick up some Goobers and a Slurpee and head to Middletown to catch a show sometime.

It is Friday so let's have some fun:

• Lamb and orzo stuffed peppers: Things You Don't Expect to Find on a McDonald's Reader-Board Menu.
• Chunky: Adjectives Rarely Used by Wine Tasters
• Who's on First?
• How does bullshit differ from such precursors as humbug, poppycock, tommyrot, hooey, twaddle, balderdash, claptrap, palaver, hogwash, buncombe (or "bunk"), hokum, drivel, flapdoodle, bullpucky, and all the other pejoratives* favored by H.L. Mencken and his many imitators?
• The Rutgers women's basketball team finished 1st in the Big East Conference. Nize!
• Silly celebrity Scientologists.