The Jaffe Briefing - July 12, 2022

TRENTON – It seems every day there is another story about dysfunction on the City Council. Hey, we can’t cover it all. But some stuff – served up by the Trentonian – can’t be ignored. And this brings us back to Councilwoman Robin Vaughn, who may challenge Mayor Reed Gusciora in the November election. Right now, Vaughn is focusing on a woman daring to seek her West Ward council seat. That resident is calling for Vaughn to resign, alleging the city leader viciously attacked her family as ‘ugly, ignorant and disabled,’ while she was picking up election petitions last week at City Hall. The confrontation in the clerk’s office was caught by the city’s surveillance cameras. The ‘disabled’ reference was an attack on the woman’s 20-year-old son, who has cerebral palsy. The Trentonian sought comment from Vaughn, who blocked the reporter on her cell phone and, thus, was “unavailable.” Meanwhile, let’s remind readers that Vaughn believes to “Jew someone down” is a legitimate verb during the negotiation process; no one, apparently, should be offended.

TRENTON – Under the category of boring, yet important, state officials have earmarked $5 billion to pay down debt as part of this unprecedented budget bursting with cash. This excites us tremendously, as it will help ensure our kids, their kids, and their kids won’t be paying interest on massive projects undertaken during our lifetime.  Wall Street credit agencies have noticed all the good intentions, giving New Jersey its first credit upgrade in nearly two decades, meaning that the state can borrow at lower interest rates. Not too long ago, New Jersey was hopelessly in a spiral of debt, as just paying the interest seemed the “strategy” as debt mounted. NJ Spotlight tells us to calm the heck down, noting New Jersey is still deep in bonded debt, a record-high of $48.2 billion in fiscal ’21. But the fact that state officials are trying to chip away, as opposed to borrowing even more, is a cause for celebration. Maybe, just maybe, we can afford to retire here.

BRIEFING BREATHER

The technical name for a fear of long words: “hippopotomonstrosesquippedaliophobia." 

STATEWIDE – It’s on again. It’s off again. And now it may be on again, again, as federal lawmakers (again) try to restore more of our federal deduction for state and local taxes. You may recall how Donald Trump capped the federal deduction on property taxes to $10,000, even though many, many people in New Jersey pay considerably more each year.  When Democrats seized power, all expected that the cap would be abolished. It hasn’t yet. But Sen. Bob Menendez, on the Senate Finance Committee, told reporters that he is still working on it, while the GOP dismisses the effort as just cutting taxes to all the “rich” who live in New Jersey. Glad that efforts are ongoing, but time is likely running out for the Democrats’ majority, as mid-term elections loom.

HOWELL – Independence Day seems to be the only federal holiday where you can guarantee some type of tragedy, somewhere in New Jersey. Maybe a couple of fingers blown to bits, as people guzzle beer, get lit and then start lighting stuff up. This year’s inevitable tragedy took place in Howell, where it appears bottle rockets and other illegal fireworks torched a mobile home. At 10 p.m. on July 4, the couple inside heard people screaming for them to flee. Luckily, no one was hurt, including a dog, a cat and three snakes, but the home was seriously damaged. The tired, ongoing message: In New Jersey, you are only permitted to shoot off non-aerial fireworks, leaving the big stuff to the trained professionals.

IN OTHER IMPORTANT NEWS

SEOUL, South Korea — There are some things you can’t kill, like cockroaches or fear or a Met fan’s dream of a postseason. And here is something you can’t kill in Seoul: the Internet Explorer browser.  Microsoft finally shut down the outdated browser from the era of “You’ve Got Mail!” on June 15.  But in South Korea, the defunct browser is still needed for a small number of critical banking and government-related tasks that many people cannot live without, the Seattle Times reports. Some see the irony here, as Seoul touts its blazing broadband as a tech city. Yet it remains tethered to this buggy, insecure piece of software abandoned by the rest of the planet, the only way Koreans can access some bank accounts, apply for federal funding for certain programs or even register to open a child care center.

THIS DAY IN HISTORY

Will the good times ever end??? It was this day in 2013 that the NASDAQ hit its highest level in 10 years.

WORD OF THE DAY

Tipple – [tipəl] – verb

Definition: Drink alcohol, especially habitually.

Example: As I tend to tipple, I will be visiting Scottish distilleries next week.

WIT OF THE DAY

“I would rather be the candidate of the NAACP than the NRA.”

-John Kerry

BIDEN BLURB

“Can this really be the United States of America? How has it come to this? We all know some of the reasons — the gun lobby, the special interest money, the rise of hyper-partisan tribal politics in the country…The right to bear arms is not a right that dominates all others.”

-Joe Biden

WEATHER IN A WORD

Sunburn