A hugely misguided attempt to eliminate the Department of Agriculture is the spark which has lit an angry fire which took over West State street recently as an unlikely combination of farmers with goats, pigs, tractors, and horses, CWA Local 1034 union members, labor leaders and politicians joined forces at one big statehouse rally to keep the “Garden” in the ‘Garden State’. One ‘Future Farmer of America’ student held a piglet donning a t-shirt that read “Butcher me, not the Department of Agriculture.” Another held a piglet adorned with a shirt which read “Cut the Pork, not Agriculture.” 

Eliminating the Department of Agriculture (NJDA) does not make sense and Governor Corzine should reverse course.  The agriculture and food complex is one of New Jersey's largest industries, and at $82 billion dollars, follows only pharmaceuticals and tourism in the economic benefits it brings to New Jersey. The Agriculture department is dominantly federally funded, with only $26.7 million of its $354 million budget coming from the state.  Closing the department, which efficiently and effectively serves that industry, fails to save significant, if any, money.

Accepting the Oscar for his leading role in the budget adaptation of "There Will Be Blood" is Governor Jon Corzine. This was a budget speech that reached out and stabbed nearly every constituency and hacked at countless services that the public holds dear. As intended, the Governor's speech was grim, sobering and gory. It was also dead wrong.

Slashing thousands of jobs of middle class workers, who had nothing to do with getting the state in this fiscal fix, is grossly unfair. More to the point, it doesn't save money, it doesn't attack patronage and it ultimately hurts all families in New Jersey. My local union, representing thousands of public workers, vehemently opposes these cuts and we intend to vigorously fight against them.

We've seen this movie before starring Governors past. As horror films go, each sequel gets bloodier. This year's version, seemingly written with a chainsaw, proposes to eliminate between 4,000 and 5,000 hard-working middle class workers while failing to present any real solution to state's ongoing fiscal problems. These cuts will be devastating to the critical services that our members provide to the public and which the public values.

Seventeen-year-old Dave Landstrom lives in Flemington, the county seat of one of New Jersey's most Republican leaning counties. He was a 10-year-old when George W. Bush was elected President, and he turns 18 this October 26th, making him eligible to vote on Election Day in November.

For Delia

The fight for family leave insurance has a face. It also has a heart and a soul. It is personified in Robert Serrano—a marine, a hard-working grocery clerk, a proud UFCW Local 152 member, a loving husband to his beloved Delia for a dozen years, and a widower at 39 years old. It is also embodied in his wife, Delia, who Robert always called “D”. A warm and family-focused woman, who raised her nephew as her own son, who thought the best times were cuddling and watching a movie, and who cooked with love and special skill.

On Tuesday, when Governor Corzine delivers his ‘State of the State’ address, it will no doubt center on the Administration's much discussed but still undisclosed ‘asset monetization’ plan to tinker with New Jersey's beloved roadways in an effort to stabilize the state's finances.  Word on the street has it that the Governor's speech will hold out a few carrots but what he’s got in his arsenal is a really big stick. 

Here’s the 'stick'--there is a gigantic and growing pothole in the states financial infrastructure that needs fixing before the whole road collapses. And, if the pothole doesn't get fixed, a whole lot of folks are going to get hurt.

We often define ourselves by our work but, in truth, our families and the people we love are the real engine and soul of our lives. This past February, my mother had a stroke that took her sight. It was the night before her 71st birthday.

Up until that night, my mom had worked crazy long hours at a Willingboro day care center taking care of others' children. She'd been caring for little kids for more than thirty years at that center and she just loved it. Too suddenly, everything changed. And now we, her children, would now be taking care of her.

Lucky for us, my mom survived and we would all juggle her care. But far too many New Jerseyans are just a moment away from the financial disaster brought on by a partner's cancer diagnosis, a parent's stroke or a child's complicated birth. Many of us are part of the so-called "sandwich generation" delicately balancing our increasing workload with caring simultaneously for our children and our aging parents.

Like many families, our Thanksgiving tradition is to go around the table before we eat and each say what we are thankful for. Each other, our friends, good health, music, amazing food and laughter inevitably top the list. My son added J.K. Rowling to his list this year. Traditions are an essential part of the glue that binds us as 'families', and as Americans, in an otherwise chaotic, over scheduled and stressed out world.

Traditions, like the three decades-long granting of an extended Thanksgiving holiday for public servants, are worth fighting for. This year, Governor Corzine broke with the tradition honored by his gubernatorial predecessors, Democrats and Republicans alike, and did not grant his employees off on the day after Thanksgiving. The Governor's action has made national news and touched a nerve in the public discourse.

This Sunday's New York Times lauds Governor Corzine for his support of same-sex marriage even though he has said that he wants to wait until 2009 to avoid muddying the political waters of next year's Presidential race.  Dr. Martin Luther King said it best when he said, "justice delayed is justice denied." While I, too, praise the Governor for his support on this issue, I think he is dead wrong to postpone equal protections for all in deference to politics.

As New Jersey debates when to enact marriage equality -- whether in 2008, as activists want, or 2009 as the Governor wants -- three factors predominate over the political and legal landscape.