Or, if they don’t want to go back so far, the Chicago parking meter debacle, but history repeats itself, and Chris Christie’s privatization of the New Jersey lottery shows once again that privatizing the collection government revenues, does not produce additional revenue, it just produces waste and corruption:
The state Assembly budget committee chairman is calling for a review of the contract privatizing parts of the state lottery following a news report that the firm hired to manage the system fell short of revenue benchmarks.
Assemblyman Gary Schaer (D-Passaic), reacting to a Bloomberg report Monday that Northstar New Jersey missed its projections by $24 million in the first fiscal year of a 15-year contract, said the shortfall puts programs for seniors, veterans and people with disabilities at risk.
The premise of the lottery contract is increasing lottery revenues according to Northstar’s own projections, Schaer said.
“The administration brought in a company to work on the lottery system, and clearly the results are not what they should be,” he said.
Christie inked the deal with Northstar in July 2013, making New Jersey the third state to hire a private firm to help run its lottery in hopes of boosting lottery sales.
Four months into the arrangement, which began Oct. 1, 2013, Northstar secured a contract amendment reducing its revenue goals, according to Bloomberg. Northstar cited slowed sales from Superstorm Sandy in its request.
These deals never generate more revenue.
At best, what they do is generate a dollar today at the cost of many more dollars tomorrow.
In this case, considering that it is Jabba the Governor, it’s about payback for politically connected friends of Chris.
Hopefully, the media is over their man-crush on Christie, and and will begin to notice the morass of cronyism and self-dealing that is his tenure as Governor.