I believe it is the ten dollar bill which is now undergoing a facelift. I propose we put the sharp-toothed, none-to-friendly grin of U. S. Senator and candidate for New Jersey Governor Jon S. Corzine on the bill. My reason for saying this is the guy's hand is already in so many pockets, why not put his face there too.

The most recent news about Corzine is he made a hefty contribution to a group known as the Education Law Center whose mission is to take money from suburban schools and shift it into the inner city. The inner cities of New Jersey already claim the lion's share of the state's education dollars. When I attended public school many moons ago, the cities spent something like double or triple what the burbs did on a per student basis. In the state of New Jersey, we have enormous property taxes - the primary source of educational funding. I was shocked when I learned that North Carolina, for example, had taxes about 10% of what we do. In Jersey counties with the biggest inner cities, taxes are highest precisely because so much money is spent on the city schools. Corzine wants to run the government which is the butt of so many lawsuits filed by the organization he supports with his personal money yet he claims he will give us property tax relief. That's not talking out of both sides of his mouth, that's talking out of three distinct orifices.

Corzine has deliberately not promised to lower property taxes. In fact he has not been able to promise to keep a lid on them. And with good cause. How can someone promise to keep the revenue source for schools low when they also advocate spending much more on inner city schools. That would be too easy of a layup for an opponent. Yet he chose to criticize his opponent, Forrester, for raising property taxes in West Windsor when he was mayor. The only problem is the property tax he is talking about was a one time levy for installing needed sewers in the community. It was a reasonable charge for specific services, hardly fodder for substantive criticism.

Finally, Corzine is under the gun for holding stock in his former employer, Goldman Sachs, in the "blind trust" of his personal investments. Critics of Corzine questioned these holdings because Goldman is a contractor with the state of New Jersey. Corzine says he quickly called managers of his blind trust to put in a sell order. But the transaction couldn't be made because the shares had already been sold. Only one problem with that, however. It seems the sale wasn't reported on Corzine's tax return for that year. But even if he slithers out of that one, what about the obvious issue of when a "blind trust" is blind in fact. How does one give a sell order to the a blind trust? I suppose it isn't blind at all and the entire contents must now be examined to see precisely what he holds investments in.

At every turn Corzine shows he is going to tax New Jersey in a fashion similar to Florio who was pretty much forced out of politics for those efforts. Jim McGreevey did a far better job of hiding his tax increases by pushing them onto businesses. But those increases surely hurt New Jersey and continue to bear such fruit as companies pull up stakes under the current taxing structure. Corzine will not have such a handy magic trick so he will likely be forced to increase taxes right out in front of us. Corzine has expressed disdain for the "tax breaks for the rich" which evil George Bush forced down our throats. But he has not acknowledged that included in that legislation was a rather sizeable tax break for married people, for middle class married people. Corzine would like to reinstate the "marriage penalty" and that is probably a bigger issue than contributing money to a cause which runs counter to most of our budgets.

Jon Corzine plans to raise taxes and contributes to organization that will work ceaselessly to cost us even more. Even when we win the lawsuits he is himself funding, it will cost us tax dollars to defend against them. He holds investments which are not really in a blind trust and it remains unclear whether he always pays taxes when he should. He gives money to lovers who also happen to be leaders of important unions, unions whose members are told to vote for him. He criticizes his opponent for taxing property to the tune of $200 a family in order to put in sewers. Yet he will undoubtedly cost each of us far more. He is already in so many of our pockets whether we know it or not. Why not put his mug on the ten dollar bill so his face could reside there too. And if the ten is already spoken for, maybe we could create a new bill for the purpose. I suggest the three dollar bill.