NJ Needs Peanut Butter and Jelly Thursdays

Coming back from my art workshop today, it hit me. Peanut butter and jelly. The perfect solution. Here I am, trying to stretch my fixed income over a month with an extra day in it, chomping on a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, and I am thinking,

"Self", I said out loud to the car in front of me, " If it works for me, might it just be THE ANSWER for the Governor?"

Senior citizens have spent the last five months, since their Social Security benefits were frozen, coming up with inventive and affordable ways to continue to be able to eat. More and more, we have found that the time proven P & J sandwich is the "go-to" solution for that end-of-the-month shortfall.

In spite of escalating expenses, increases in utilitiy bills, increases in PAAD and Senior Gold deductibles, loss of homestead rebates, loss of the senior tax freezes, and cutbacks in many programs and transportation needs, seniors carry on with forebearance and patience, as they learned to do in the first Great Depression.

How many of today's legislators can remember tomato soup made up of ketchup and water...of sandwiches spread with butter and sprinkled with sugar to hold you til supper because you did not eat lunch...of gnawing on raw potato sprinkled with salt...of making the best chocolate cake out of flour and mayonnaise because eggs were hard to get? How many of today's sophisticates can remember the heartbreak when the hail beat down the corn rows... because they would not grow back and it was too late in the season to plant again?

The rural elderly now find themselves living in urban settings, in order to receive the services they require, where freezing their incomes has meant cutting back the very essentials they need to live.

Yesterday Governor Christie announced that a new non-profit, Choose New Jersey, was going to help in promoting new business throughout the state. Its intention is to market new business and also to help retain businesses presently in the state. There was no announcement of the location for the new corporation, but both Ewing and Trenton have complained about the amount of tax exempt assets in their cities, pleading for relief.

The wording of the announcement was eerily like that of previous Republican press releases in which the "Keep millionaires in New Jersey" mantra repeats, repeats, repeats. The purpose seems to be that if you hear something often enough it must be true. Since millionaires in New Jersey are not leaving the state in droves, (see my previous blog), because this is a falsehood...the purpose to "keep" business in New Jersey is unnecessary.

The directors of the new non-profit are: Joe Colalillo, president, Wakefern Food Corporation; Don Correll, CEO and president, American Water; Robert H. Doherty, state president, Bank of America Merrill Lynch; Laurence M. Downes, chairman and CEO, New Jersey Resources; Bernard Flynn, president and CEO, NJM Insurance Group; Edward Graham, president and CEO, South Jersey Industries; the Rev. M. William Howard, pastor, Bethany Baptist Church; Robert J. Iacullo, president and COO, United Water; Bob Hugin, Celgene, president and COO (representing the Healthcare Institute of New Jersey); Ralph Izzo, chairman and CEO, Public Service Electric and Gas; Vincent Maione, president, Atlantic City Electric; William J. Marino, chairman and CEO, Horizon Blue Cross/Blue Shield of New Jersey; Raymond M. Pocino, vice president and Eastern Regional manager, Laborers International Union of North America; Kevin Rigby, vice president of public affairs, Novartis; and John R. Strangefeld, Jr., chairman and CEO, Prudential Financial Inc.

They are going to come up with incentive programs that would attract "job creators" which I take to mean new businesses. They are also going to provide "policy recommendations" that would make New Jersey a business friendly environment. Not bad when you consider that you have both the American Water Company and United Water represented, both NJM Insurance Group and Horizon Blue Cross/Blue Shield of NJ, both Public Service Electric and Gas and Atlantic City Electric, etc. It could be a heck of an opportunity to make "policy recommendations". Heaven help the little guy. Oh, yea, the Bethany Baptist Church is represented so I guess that means that heaven can help.

Actually most of their mission is probably unnecessary because they are obviously successes in their respective fields. But, looking over the members of the new non-profit, I see where it is a heck of an opportunity to get together over lunch---at taxpayers' expense. (see my blogs on tax exempts) The worthy gentlemen in this new non-profit corporation are fine and upstanding members of the economic engine that runs the state. All of them look like they would enjoy getting together to discuss how to network and run the state, so I am thinking, that to save money,

"How about Peanut Butter and Jelly Thursdays?"

You could still have your meetings because, after all, the most important thing is just getting together and sharing testosterone...right? How about giving the taxpayers a break and sharing our joy with our end-of-the-month peanut butter and jelly? Honestly.

Just think of it: no more "Greek salad, hold the olives, hold the cheese, no onions and blue cheese dressing on the side"...no more "corned beef on rye, provolone, no lettuce, has to be Grey Poupon mustard"...."that's right, no peppers on the roll, just olive oil and balsamic"...How simple for everyone on Thursdays to get P & J.

I suggest tea with that.

Hear, hear!

I propose that Thursdays be proclaimed "Peanut Butter and Jelly Thursdays" throughout the fine State of New Jersey.


Trenton rocks!