Benevolent banditry. (Correction, Please!).

ITEM: "Hundreds of welfare recipients [in New Jersey] who have reached their state-imposed limit on cash benefits will continue to receive payments through September 2003," reported an account in the New Jersey News for December 5th. "The extensions affect those who have already received the two six-month extensions permitted under the state's 1997 welfare reform law. Since April, when the first group of recipients reached the law's five-year benefit limit, the state has granted extensions to about 2,000 families and 1,400 adults. Governor [James] McGreevey called the extensions prudent, humane, and necessary." CORRECTION: For liberals, being humane is to be adept at expropriating and redistributing other people's wealth. And who would better know about government giveaways than Governor McGreevey? This is the same high-flying solon who in his first 10 months in office spent tax dollars on close to 300 helicopter rides, many without a pretense of being government-related, at a cost of $1,200 per hour. If the liberal governor were truly a humanitarian, he would use his own money to help welfare recipients-not hard-earned tax dollars. Last summer, he went to Ireland on a "trade mission," as noted in the Cape May County News, "where he stayed in luxury hotels, toured the countryside in a chauffeured Mercedes Benz, hosted a luncheon for Irish relatives and rang up a huge cell phone bill. All told, one published report said the trip cost taxpayers $105,000...."

In December, McGreevey was among the leaders of the Democratic Governors Association seeking a cash infusion from Washington for infrastructure, education, and health-care programs. Not surprisingly, he berated federal tax cuts.