Feb. 25; Trenton, New Jersey
This afternoon, Governor Christie finished his 5th budget address to the NJ Legislature and once again has demonstrated he’s a hard-line anti-working people conservative in the same mold as Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker. He's more interested in shoring up his right wing base than helping NJ. Christie's real scandal is not Bridgegate, but his policies that have hurt New Jersey. Don't despair. There is something you can do.
The Governor's budget will not create jobs or increase wages because he does not make critical investments in our future by fully funding our schools, fixing our roads, or investing in green jobs and green technology.
Once again he hurts the middle class and working poor while sparing his super rich pals by refusing to ask them to pay their fair share by reinstating a small income tax hike for millionaires. With his latest budget Christie's public policies will continue to be disaster for a majority of New Jersey's families.
Bloomberg News examined Christie's time as governor so far and concluded New Jersey's economy was a mess, even when compared to his neighboring states. It had the seventh highest unemployment the second highest percentage of mortgage loans in foreclosure in America, and the states credit rating has dropped on Christie's watch.
As families struggle to make ends meet, he has reduced the earned-income tax credit that helps lift the working poor out of poverty and then vetoed a minimum wage hike.
Instead of reinstating the millionaires tax, Christie's budget will further endanger Jersey's credit rating because he intends to increase borrowing to cover the cost of road, bridge and rail upgrades in the new fiscal year, which begins July 1.
His claim that millionaire tax breaks will create jobs and improve New Jersey's economy has proven to be bogus. Yet his new budget just continues his crony capitalism policies that over the past five years have resulted in the worst unemployment rate in the region and an economic recovery that lags Pennsylvania and New York. And now we know he hires employees, at tax-payer expense, who cause traffic jams, intimidate public officials to support Christie and bully officials to support Christie's lawyer buddies and their development projects. We can do better. Here is the good news.
You can do something too that might get us good schools, good roads, and good jobs -- not continued giveaways to the wealthiest 1 percent of New Jerseyans. We all deserve better than what Governor Christie offered today.
You can sign NJ Citizen Action's petition demanding that NJ millionaires pay their fair share. Click this link and sign.
John Atlas, president of the Montclair based National Housing Institute and author of Seeds of Change: The Story of ACORN, America's Most Controversial Anti-Poverty Group (Vanderbilt University Press, 2010), is working on an ACORN documentary.