New Jersey car emission tests are a waste of time

New Jersey requires drivers to have their cars tested for meeting emission standards every two years. What is the point of this?  When right-wingers complain about too much government, this is what they should be talking about.

 

Drivers have to wait in line for the testing, meaning the idling cars are polluting the air. Everybody knows air quality is worse when there’s lots of traffic, so having cars tested so often is defeating the purpose of having clean air.

 

Why not have all cars, new and old, tested once every eight years?  This would be enough. The old tests on cars that were required once year were proven to be useless in preventing car crashes. The government made the right decision in doing away with them. Now it’s time to change the emission requirements. The government should be focusing on other, more important environmental issues.

 

New Jersey legislators are morons

For 31 years, foothold traps have been prohibited in New Jersey. A law passed during the administration of former NJ Governor Tom Kean banned any animal trap of steel-jawed leghold types.

But last June the New Jersey Division of Fish and Wildlife changed the law, voting to legalize these traps. And now, the New Jersey state Senate has refused to over-rule the DFW, thus opening up the possibility that your innocent family pet will be killed in one of these inhumane traps.

The stupidity of the New Jersey legislators in the state Senate and Assembly is not surprising. The state is in a mess is so many ways, and this situation just illuminates the fact that politicians are foolish and incompetent.

It also shows how politicians are beholden to special interest groups. The legislators are bowing to the demands of 267 members of the New Jersey Fur Harvesters group, while ignoring the 60,000 New Jersey citizens who signed a petition urging the law banning traps be upheld.

So if your pet’s leg gets caught and mangled in one of these ridiculous steel traps, thank New Jersey legislators like Steve Sweeney and Bob Smith.

What is the New Jersey Council of County Colleges, anyway?

Who is the New Jersey Council of County Colleges?  And what do they do, anyway?

 

There’s a bill in the New Jersey state legislature that would allow the county colleges to not be required to join the council and pay the estimated $90,000 per year in annual dues. Instead the colleges could spend that money to lobby legislators on their own, or not spend it at all. Either way, taxpayers and students are on the hook, since that’s where all the money for the county colleges comes from. State taxes, students paying on their own, and federal funds that are given to students in the form of financial aid.

 

You’d think that the state legislators would be intelligent enough to provide sufficient funds to the county colleges to operate. I guess that isn’t the case, since taxpayers and students have to pay lobbyists to fight for their cause in the state capitol of Trenton.

 

Too many lobbyists, not enough common sense.  But what else is new?