Star Ledger
Editorial
June 30, 2010

The budget signed yesterday by Gov. Chris Christie will reduce state spending for the third year in a row. The total now is roughly at the same level it was in 2005.

No serious person disputes the need for austerity in these times. We are headed in the right direction.

The pity is that this governor failed to demand the shared sacrifice that he himself made a central criteria for judging the final product. Yesterday, he continued to deny that central fact.

“We tried to spread the pain as evenly as we could,” he told a national television audience.

Here are the facts: The 16,000 families in New Jersey earning more than $1 millon will get an average tax break of $40,000 apiece under this budget. At the same time, a single mom working for minimum wage will pay $300 more in state taxes.

The biggest cuts in this budget are painful but unavoidable. That includes the deep cuts in aid to schools and towns, and in property tax rebates. His single biggest move was to short the pension fund by $3 billion. Together, those moves account for the bulk of the governor’s spending reductions.

The problem is the tax break. If the governor had not insisted on that, he could have softened the blow on the needy considerably.

He would not have had to increase taxes on that working poor mom, or make deep cuts in health care, affordable housing, child-care subsidies and school lunches.
So no, the governor is not spreading the pain. This budget plainly favors the wealthy.

NJ Assembly Budget Committee Chairman Greenwald Floor Speech on Gov. Christie's FY 2011 Budget (A-3000) from NJ Assembly Democratic Office on Vimeo.

(TRENTON) – Assembly Budget Chairman Lou Greenwald (D-Camden) released the following statement Tuesday after Gov. Chris Christie signed into law a budget that raises taxes by more than $1 billion on New Jerseyans:

“With a stroke of his pen, Gov. Christie has delivered tax increases on nearly everything that’s important to hard-working New Jerseyans.

“Property taxes will skyrocket. Health care will be taxed and slashed. Education will be cut. Public safety will be slashed. Auto and health insurance costs will rise. Job creating business incentives will be decimated.

“This is a tax-laden Christie budget that hits working families and businesses hard. It’s negative impact will reverberate throughout this state and make life unaffordable for millions of New Jersey residents.”

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For Release: June 30, 2010

Assemblyman Greenwald on his push to restore critical prescription assistance aid to seniors struggling to afford their medications:

Assemblyman Greenwald on his efforts to restore property tax rebates for 600,000 seniors by not giving a tax cut to 16,000 millionaires:

NJ 101.5
Kevin McArdle
June 25, 2010

Yesterday, one day after the State Senate Budget Committee did so, the Assembly Budget Committee advanced Governor Chris Christie's $29.4 billion budget proposal. The committee voted 5-4 yesterday to send the bare-bones budget to the full Assembly for a floor vote Monday.

The Assembly budget panel will reconvene today to consider budget-related bills left undone. Among them is a proposal to cap property tax increases at 2.9 percent. The Senate Budget Committee advanced the tax cap proposal yesterday.

Christie wants a 2.5 percent cap written into the Constitution that could be overridden only by a two-thirds majority of voters. The panel also approved four budget-related bills that raise taxes or fees after swapping out one Republican who opposed the measures for another who supported them.

Christie insists his budget does not include any new or increased taxes. Democratic Assembly Budget Committee chairman Lou Greenwald disagrees, saying, "There's at least 23 tax increases in this budget. You want to call them a loss of a benefit, you want to call them a fee increase, call them what you want. When there's money taken out of people's pockets it's a tax increase."