Carney Jumps in the Gov. Race, Expect the Musical Chair Race to Accellerate
Congressman John Carney (D) filed paperwork today to launch his campaign for governor next year.
“This is an opportunity to serve and meet the challenges that we face here in Delaware,” Carney said during an exclusive interview with The News Journal on Wednesday. “They are frankly challenges that every community and every state in the country faces right now.”
Carney, 59, who will bring deep government experience to next year’s race, said his campaign will focus on restoring Delaware’s middle class, improving public education and addressing Delaware’s budget issues. […]
The Paper of Record notes Carney’s long experience in government, with his connections to both Senator Carper and Senator Biden, and that it really was supposed to be Beau Biden running next year.
Carney spoke with the vice president by phone a little more than two weeks ago. Carney said he wanted to consult with the vice president about his plans to seek the governor’s office.
“This opportunity to serve comes because of the vice president and his family’s worst nightmare, which is Beau’spassing,” Carney said. “It’s a very personal thing. I just needed to know that he was comfortable with it. He could not have been better, he encouraged me to run. I can tell you it’s lifted a huge burden off my shoulders in terms of making that decision.”
Biden called Carney again Wednesday morning to wish him well, the congressman said.
I find it interesting that Carney spoke of Biden’s blessing and well wishes. It is well known that if the Biden wing of the Delaware Democratic Party was to have a stand in for Beau as a candidate for Governor, it would be Tom Gordon, while Carney comes from the Carper wing of the party. There is still much speculation that the New Castle County Executive will primary Carney for the Democratic nomination. So was this a move by Carney to box out Gordon? Or perhaps Carney knows that Gordon is not running so he is staking his claim?
Regardless, the other shoe has finally dropped. We have been waiting on this decision for a long time. Immediately, you will see official announcements and filings from State Senator Bryan Townsend and Representative Bryon Short to fill our lone Congressional seat.
Finally…
“What I do know is whether it’s education, whether it’s fiscal policy, or tax policy, the next governor is going to have to bring those people together,” Carney said.
You read this as a bipartisan Carperesque quote, but I read it as a dig at Markell.
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It looks that Short is first out with a Facebook statement:
Is there really a Biden “wing” of the Delaware Democratic Party? Or is there a Delaware Democratic Party (The House that Carper Built) and then a Biden Family Political Party (The House that Joe Built), which is and has always been separate from the Delaware Democratic Party? Not competitors, but just separate with a different focus.
Gordon’s decision not to get into a primary battle for gov. was made more than a month ago. He telegraphed the decision to Ciro Poppiti, who then announced for lt.gov. when he really had an interest in being the next county exec. Might also be why that other wannabe, Trini Navarro, decided to run for insurance commissioner.
Surely Gordon has figured out that he’s got a greater chance of leaving a favorable “legacy” by working at the county level than by attacking looming state budget deficits, trying to placate the casino oligarchy, getting schools back on the right track and dealing with a General Assembly that’s far more difficult to control than a compliant county council.
If John Carney is so eager to step into that quagmire, I’m confident Gordon is telling him to go right ahead.
Jesus. Carney is a fool who still buys into “austerity” as a legitimate economic policy. I can’t wait to hear Carney’s plans to cut taxes and the inevitable economic expansion that tax cuts, no doubt, will initiate.
We are fucked.
Sen. Coons issued the following statement:
“I am very excited John Carney has decided to run for Governor of Delaware, and I will wholeheartedly support his candidacy. I’ve known John as a friend and neighbor for more than twenty years, and I’ve always known him to be a tremendous father, husband, and public servant. John is someone who never forgets where he comes from, and he always puts Delaware first. In Washington, John is widely respected among his colleagues from both parties for his willingness to roll up his sleeves and work across the aisle to find solutions to difficult challenges, and that’s just the approach that will make him a great Governor. I look forward to supporting him any way I can.”
Please, someone primary him who is a real Democrat. Maybe he at least won’t be in the pocket of the educational corporations who currently are writing our schools’ policies.
Yeah one of the Democratic Six should primary John Carney! Let’s start the money bomb now.
OK it’s been bugging me all day DD: accelerate only has one “L”!
JTF… They’d get destroyed.
If all the state employees making less than 20K who qualify for welfare would just give up 5%, the budget would be aok
“…Surely Gordon has figured out …”
I wouldn’t bet the house on that, and don’t call us Shirley.
Hopefully, a Republican steps up and starts running. The administration has got to stop taking from the Transportation Trust fund to supplement the budget. They need to make cuts, as all of us had to do in our households.
We need change at the top!
“They need to make cuts, as all of us had to do in our households.”
If we emulated your household, we’d put a moron in charge, so no thanks.
Here we go again. What should be cut? Be specific. Here is a list to work from.
Education
Public Welfare
Corporate Welfare
Health
Highways
Police Protection
Corrections
Natural Resources
Parks and Recreation
Unemployment Compensation
Pensions
Workers’ Compensation
@ Geezer, you must be doing ok then, financially and good for you. But, others are not so fortunate. I would not stoop low to call you a moron, I won’t go there.
Reducing our cable bill
Keeping an eye on cell phone costs
Cooking in, instead of eating out.
Our vacation was local, instead of flying somewhere.
Keeping an eye on our htg/cooling costs.
Utilizing coupons/groupons, when we do go out.
Raising insurance deductibles.
Our kids have jobs, they are of age. To help pay for any extra curricular activities they want to be involved in.
So why is that being a moron??
@ Jason333
Give me a budget and I will be happy to consult on ways to cut spending. It would take a team!
Your household budget is not comparable to a government budget. Basic finance knowledge matters.
Do you own a house? If so, boy, are you in debt. Better take care of that.
It’s the cuts, sometimes we have to make tough choices. That is the point.
Hey my kids would love Showtime, HBO, etc. But, its not practical.
“Do you own a house? If so, boy, are you in debt. Better take care of that.”
Explain that one? Or you must be a 1%er. No, frugal! Because of some of the sacrifices, my mortgage will be paid off before my kids get to college.
We’ve also made cuts due to the continual increase in health insurance.
@Anonymous: Answer the question… Which of the following gets cut according to the your (paraphrasing here) yarn of “Hey, if I can balance my household budget for a family of four, how hard can it be to balance a multi-billion dollar budget that impacts over 900,000 people!”:
Here we go again. What should be cut? Be specific. Here is a list to work from.
Education
Public Welfare
Corporate Welfare
Health
Highways
Police Protection
Corrections
Natural Resources
Parks and Recreation
Unemployment Compensation
Pensions
Workers’ Compensation
What’s getting the axe?
They ask for monies, which are sometimes escalated, to hopefully get a half a loaf.
And your going to make any cuts?
See this is the problem with the Government, I don’t see you giving up any solutions either. The might ask for $100, hoping that they approve $50.
Okay, so we’ll ask the government to cut their cable and cell phone bills. Got it.
Seriously, if you make a statement that the government needs to make cuts then you need to tell us what you would cut. Otherwise you just look like you have no idea what you’re talking about.
We don’t have to propose cuts, though my first order of business would be to ban take-home government vehicles for everybody below the position of governor. We’d save millions just on the state police, and it would stimulate auto sales to boot.
Liberals are not calling for cuts. The liberal solution is to collect taxes that will pay for necessities, and taking care of the poor and helpless counts as a necessity for us.
Even the governor’s business-leaning advisory group said our property taxes are too low, which is the case because the land-rich, cash-poor du Pont family for generations had too much political pull.
The point about your mortgage is that you don’t own your house until you’re out of debt. In other words, the government runs just like your house in that regard — it spends now against future earnings.
Now tell us where you think the fat is to be found. Or are you, like Charlie Copeland, the sort of fop who facilely says he can cut 30% from every department in government without specifying anything?
Also, too, I’d be interested to know how the coupon thing would work.
Cut them all back. Meanwhile the guy we elected Gov. twice is in Germany on the tax payer tab..
Answer me this simple question – Why is Parks & Rec spending 500 thousand on the Rocky Run bridge within the Brandywine Creek? It’s called we can do what we want because we control the DE tax payer..
Haven’t you moved yet, Tom?
Not to agree with many of those posting above, but there ARE cuts to be made:
Corrections: pardon all non-violent drug offenders in the state of DE, moving toward mandatory addiction treatment where necessary, which will allow roughly $26K per former inmate/year to be reduced from Corrections budget (even with treatment costs) and then examine facilities for scaling back due to the abrupt underload of prisoners (there are several thousand).
Education–there are multiple offices at DEDOE to be consolidated removed; DEDOE needs to be converted to a service and Federal compliance organization; I did the serious look at this two years ago, when the possibility was to reduce DEDOE budget by roughly $23 million; return $15 million direct to schools, take $8 million in budget reduction. Then dramatically limit the ability of DEDOE to contract out multi-millions for services to for-profit companies who become employment agencies for former staffers.
Police protection: Eliminate the wasteful and overspending Office of the Secretary (which has ballooned more that 150% since the current incumbent arrived) and task the Commandant of the DSP with critical requirements of that office. Savings on the order of $8 million/year from an office wherein the Secretary has previously said our greatest security threat is snowstorms and hurricanes, not terrorism. Also, force the “black” budget for the DIAC to be placed as a separate budget item; my research suggests it can easily be cut by $6-8 million/year since it produces little decent actionable information.
Health–for God’s sake take consumer protection measures to keep Highmark of DE from achieving the same monopoly status in Medicaid contracting that it currently holds in the private insurance market. Highmark came in with a low-ball initial bid for services and them immediately filed at the end of that fiscal year for a major rate hike.
While we’re at it, let’s just terminate the Insurance Commissioner’s Office until KWS goes back to private life. We’ll save a shitload of money and nobody will notice that the office is gone because it does little or no regulating in the public interest.
Corporate Welfare has not been so much cut as it has been hidden in Markell’s last two budgets. Research is pretty clear that tax breaks are not the major consideration for company relocation, and that there is no causal link or even correlation to the size of tax breaks and the employment habits of the companies, especially since (in Delaware) we don’t actually hold the companies to the agreements they make (hello Bloom Energy).
Higher Education–require truth in budgeting, which means that there has to be someplace in the budget where ALL funds going to UD, DSU and Del Tech are specifically listed and totaled. It’s time to trim back the “extras” that UD and Del Tech in particular are taking home that are hidden in epilogue language and under subcontracts to other agencies. Moreover, make continuance of the state budget lines contingent on increasing fiscal transparencies.
Basic pork: while we have cut the money to transport indigent kids to school or to have police officers in the buildings, we have allowed our legislators to (a) send money to rebuild the nursing department at a private university; (b) build a shooting range in Sussex County; (c) build a horse show ring in NCC that we can’t find anybody who asked for it.
Highways: curtail projects that have been undertaken purely as a form of additive corporate welfare (like the way we dropped $110 million a few years back redoing intersections on behalf of AstraZeneca), and actually spend existing funds for only infrastructure repair. Kill that ridiculous 301 extension project while we still can.
Environment: let’s replace several of our programs of grants to aid polluters in purchasing technology they should have been required (under current law) to have anyway, and instead let’s aggressively collect fines and take them to court to require them to foot the bill for clean-ups. (I realize part of this will be difficult, as 40% of the fines and infractions assessed by EPA from 2009-2013 were on state and local government owned facilities, not private industry, but hey you can’t have everything).
Link any bail-outs to casinos to a removal of the state limit on the number of gambling facilities that prohibits competition. If we’re going to say that it is ethical for the state to raise money from private gaming industry (a dubious proposition at best) then we have no business privileging three specific corporations with a monopoly on the action. That is certainly NOT in the state’s best financial interest.
This is off the top of my head from research I have done over the past 2-3 years and written extensively about in other venues. I’m sure I’ve botched some of the $$ estimates because I didn’t go back and look. But the point is that there is serious money to be gleaned out even the last budget passed if you’re actually willing to look closely enough and question EVERYTHING.
The problem, of course, is that each of these items has its own built-in support in Dover, and few if any of these cuts could ever happen politically. But saying THAT is not the same as saying that the budget is as trim and tight as it should or could be.
^^^^^^^^^^^^
Post of the Day. That’s a clip ‘n save post if ever there was one.
Thanks Steve, that sure shut everyone up.
Anonymous
My intent is not to shut anybody up, and as I indicated in the first line of my response, I didn’t provide those cuts because I necessarily agree with the thrust of your comment.
Here’s my conundrum with state government (ala Geezer’s comment about liberal priorities in taking care of the poor): We live in a state wherein the recipient of corporate welfare–Bloom Energy–can enter into a contract promising to hire X number of workers in Y number of years in exchange for $Z million in public subsidies from our electric bills. Then, when Bloom Energy, collecting rough $33 million/year of DE citizens’ money, misses its target by hundreds of workers, DE state government excuses that and gives it a multi-year extension.
Now, compare that to what happened to my older adult daughter who has mental health issues and dyslexia but nonetheless works a full time job in the health care field: when sent her quarterly update form for Medicaid she made a typical dyslexic error and moved a decimal point in what she wrote on the form, accidentally raising her income by $10K. It was abundantly clear from the pay stubs submitted with the form that this was a simply copying error, and that she clearly met all the requirements for Medicaid. What happened? The State of DE canceled her Medicaid immediately AND the Medicaid people then sent the form to the Food Stamp people so that they could also cancel her benefits immediately.
The moral in Delaware: be a corporation and fail to meet your obligation for millions and the State has your back. Be a poor person and make a copying error and the State axes you in seconds.
(Oh, and for kicks and grins, when they axe you, they send you an “appeal” form so you can challenge the ruling, thoughtfully written in both English and Spanish. The only problem is–and you can’t make this shit up–neither the form nor the supporting documents provide you with the return mailing address to which the form must be sent.)
Steve did Anonymous’ homework and now Anonymous wants to cheat off of Steve’s paper and take credit. (FYI: Steve has written about many of these specific cuts before.)
The problem people were having with your comments about cutting spending (waste, fraud and abuse) was that you couldn’t name one thing to cut. You tossed that out here and couldn’t back up your claim. No one here stated that things couldn’t be cut (and I’ve written in the past about cutting DDOE and SD administration). The other problem was you comparing government spending to your household budget. Sorry, that was complete nonsense.
1. My point about households making cuts to their budget is this, WHY can’t the Government do the same thing?
2. I’ve made the same point about Bloom Energy before and was told to get over it. I still can’t believe that people are not up in arms about this and how:
A. They continually hid this “tax” in our Utility bills
B. They continually let Bloom Energy slide.
C. Wouldn’t this money be better used for: Education, Healthcare, Police protection????????
Pandora:
Ask an you shall receive – Here is the recent presentation by the Governor about the budget.
Eliminated state owned vehicles for cabinet members.
Reduced the size of state fleet by more than 20 percent.
Here is some of their proposed spending:
$3.15 million for the Riverfront Development Corporation.
$3.5 million for redevelopment of strategic sites, including NVF and Fort DuPont.
$3.0 million for Statewide Trails and Pathways.
Do we really need to be spending $3 mil on trails?? When your cutting:
Reduced the number of residents living in DHSS Long Term Care Facilities.
Estimated savings of $3 million
Where did these people go????
There is $9.65 Million that we could cut, to go to Education or a number of other services.
Thank you, Steve… Not only for doing Anonymous’ homework for him (I guess he felt he needed to make cuts on his answering questions himself), but for some damn fine suggestions. They all sound reasonable and legit, which probably means they won’t ever see the light of day with OMB or the Administration!
9.6 million from 3.8 billion budget (2014 figures)?
$3.5 million to the Riverfront represents a cut over many previous years.
Fort DuPont generates a significant part of its own revenue, and this $3 million matches Federal grants of IIRC a larger amount. The renovations are required to keep FD’s place on National Registers and as part of the DE National Park. You can like that “park” or not, but if the State is to stay in that business, then this is a minimum amount. Originally, again IIRC, park directors wanted $6 or 7 million.
$3 million for paths and trails: again scaled back from original requests and previous years, and part of a multi-year Federal matching funds grant that can’t be cut without reneging on the whole grant. I will agree that some idiotic bike paths have resulted from this. For example, my own state rep got (as pork) a bike trail up Limestone Road past Goldy Beacom College, which no sane person on a bike would ever ride due to the near-certain experience of death. (In the two years that lane has been there, I have NEVER seen a cyclist on it, and I drive that road at all hours multiple times per day.) At the same time, on Lancaster Pike, where dozens of people use the route to commute to work and where a number of people have been struck and died or (as in the case of a family friend) have been horribly and permanently injured, there is no trail and no plans for one that I can find in the current Lancaster Pike renovation plan.
On the other hand, the current project tying the multiple trails in and around Wilmington into a single trail about 23 miles long, and the C&D Canal Path are actually doing better than most of our corporate welfare schemes because they are starting to draw upscale biking parties out of PA, MD, and NJ, and the people with $500-$1,000 bikes who come out riding on weekends 100% of time spend money on meals and often do other shopping. I haven’t seen the economic impact quantified, but there definitely is one, and I know of at least one Wilmington restaurant owner who is thinking of opening a new location in Delaware City (!) to capitalize on that potential trade.
Oh, and it should be noted that both history buffs (Fort Delaware) and cyclists have effective lobbying efforts and work with legislators year round, unlike the people who simply stick their heads out every so often to say, “You idiots, anybody can see you need to cut here, here, and here!” but don’t otherwise engage in the process.
Point being: maybe these items should be cut, maybe not. But if you or any candidate is going to be taken seriously, then you can’t just toss up numbers from the budget like they were self-explanatory, because somebody who knows the budget, does the research, and actually engages legislators will feed you your lunch.
Here’s the deal; for the layperson we can make all sorts of assumption’s or potential cuts. But we really are not privy to what the money is being used for, for example:
$1.1 million for the renovations to the Delaware
National Guard Readiness Center in Georgetown. (2016 budget)
So we could say; that could be cut. But, what is the money really being used for?
Bathroom renovations?
Computers?
New special software?
Landscaping?
We just don’t know.
No. You don’t know. And there’s the difference.
Steve’s comments on this thread demonstrate why he’s my blog boyfriend. 😉
Anonymous what makes you think I’m not a lay person?
And if you don’t know, call up or email your state representative/senator and ask, or do the research yourself. It’s not that difficult, just time consuming. But if you want to have any impact on the discussion beyond simply complaining, then you’ve got to do it.
I don’t know about the NG center in Georgetown. I do know that in NCC the DE NG has been consolidating facilities and reducing costs.
But if you ask your legislator what it’s for, you’ll get an answer, because the one thing that all successful (as in re-elected) legislators in DE do (GOP or Dem) is answer their calls and emails.
Sorry Steve, I did not mean you.
Steve: I agree with most of your points, but disagree on the point about the road improvements connected to Astra-Zeneca.
While the government claimed it was done to satisfy A-Z, the truth is that before the reconstruction the stretch of 202 around that intersection was the deadliest in the state. It might seem like a lot of money, but it took care of a longtime problem and should last for several decades. In political terms, Carper used A-Z as a smokescreen to bypass the usual political outcry of favoritism that would ensue if DelDOT tried to spend that much just because it would save lives. If A-Z thinks we did it for them, all the better.
Which brings us to the real problem: Any of us can find cuts. What we can’t find is a way to get them through the Generous Assembly.
Geezer I will spot you the A-Z improvements (although I don’t completely agree with you), but it was merely the first one to come to mind, probably because it was so large. If I dig deeper into memory I get the (I think) $7.5 million spent by DelDot on “improving” the entry way into and intersection leading out of the Wal-Mart that moved from north Dover to southern Smyrna. I put “improvement” in quotes because it is still a manifestly unsafe entrance/egress set-up. My larger point is that one reason (not THE reason, but one of a collection) of Why We Can’t Have Nice Roads is that we keep dribbling away money for repairs and improvements to the roads people actually use as part of our covert corporate welfare program.
Trails bring in money. I bike the Gordon Pond trail to rehoboth yesterday to buy a pound of coffee beans and get a crepe. Then I biked back to Lewes on the Junction Breakwater trail and got a juice drink from Nectar. I spent almost 30 bucks because of the trails