Scott: "So you're convinced that we are going to see in this next budget cycle property taxes generally not increase more than 2 percent."
Christie: "Yeah, not the property tax bills you are about to get this August."
Scott: "Right, but next Year."
Christie: "But next year, yes."
Scott: "There's a lot of people out there governor that hope you are right."
Christie: "Listen, I know I'm going to be right."
Christie went on to explain that municipalities will be forced to cut services when costs of contracts rise above the 2 percent cap.
As if cost of contracts is the only problem that there is. That sounds like a promise to me in Christie speak. Remember that, he know's he's going to be right. Even with all of the exemptions in the cap, we're going to see headlines that fly in the face of what the Governor says. We've already seen talk of it just the other day when news came out that healthcare costs were going up 12%:
"They (taxes) have to go up," said Frank Bradley, administrator for Union Township. "[Just] because it's outside the cap, don't be misled by that. It's still an additional amount of money that has to be generated through a tax increase."
Even if the Governor exempts it from his calculations, the towns and the taxpayers still are stuck doing the real math.
For someone who ran against one shot gimmicks, the Governor sure finds plenty of them to use in order to try and balance the budget. Here's the latest on how they will use funds to replace trees for keeping state parks open:
Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Bob Martin told the Assembly Budget Committee his department will use $10 million from the state's Shade Tree and Community Forest Preservation License Plate Fund to make up for lost state funding.
The fund was created in 1996, when a special "forestry" license plate was created to raise money for forest preservation. It became the depository for a larger source of money under the state's 2001 No Net Loss Act, which requires state agencies to replace or donate funds to replace trees destroyed by state construction projects.
So another dedicated fund the Governor is taking money from. This is the type of thing that got Republicans up in arms when done in the past under the leadership of Democrats, but they're cheering Christie on now. The environment is taking a beating under Christie's one shots. He is raiding the clean energy fund, the global warming fund and now the tree replacement fund. It's a good thing Christie is following his promise to stop the one shot gimmicks he campaigned against.
It's going to be difficult to keep track of all the promises that Governor Christie breaks, which Candidate Christie made if things keep going as they've started. Lets see what candidate Christie said:
The last thing Chris will do is to follow Corzine's lead in eliminating property tax rebates for 1.2 million New Jerseyans. The rebate currently is the only property tax relief we have, and it provides much needed, meaningful help while we put in place other reforms. We keep the rebate in place to give taxpayers some breathing room in these tough economic times.
Not only wasn't he going to cut, he was going to restore the cuts he said Corzine had made to the program, even though people said he numbers didn't add up. During the primary, Christie attacked Steve Lonegan with a radio ad saying he would get rid of property tax rebates to differentiate his position. But now Governor Christie has a new plan and it could be his latest broken promise if he follows through:
Gov. Christie is considering scaling back or eliminating property-tax rebates in his budget proposal, a move that could yield significant savings but would mean going back on a campaign pledge.
Democrats wasted no time pointing out Christie's latest flip flop and Joe Cryan remined people that it was Christie himself who called reducing property tax rebates 'a declaration of war on the middle class' and pointed to what Republican leaders said just last year
"After all, I couldn't agree more with a key Republican leader who just last year said cutting rebates 'is actually a tax increase' that 'will take money out of people's pockets and continue to drive middle class taxpayers and senior citizens to bankruptcy.'
"That same leader also added, 'It is of great concern when people cannot rely on the governor to keep his word.'
Adam has documented some of the other examples where the middle class will take it on the chin from decisions the Governor is making. Christie is trying to say he has no choice, but while he was handed the problem he is choosing the solutions he wants to go with. Christie's fantasy land promises are coming back to bite New Jerseyans in the ass. And in many cases, its those residents that can least afford that are feeling the burden. He'll continue to say he's not raising taxes, but it's really a word game because at the end of the day, we're all paying more and getting less. It's simply a transfer of who is footing the bill.
Not even in office for a week and Chris Christie is already raising taxes on New Jersey businesses - a tax hike of up to $1,000 per employee.
New Jersey's Unemployment Insurance Fund will be $1.6 billion in debt by March, according to Christie. Business taxes are automatically increased by law when the fund's balance goes below a certain level as measured every March.
---snip---
The fund is in such a precarious position because approximately $4.8 billion has been diverted for other purposes since 1992. Voters will have the ability to stop future raids through an amendment to the state's constitution on November's general election ballot.
I (as others) warned that he would cost employers tens or hundreds of millions of dollars in state and federal unemployment taxes (see the links above), and sure enough - he wasted no time in selling small businesses and the teabagging crew down the river. Let's take a short trip down memory lane
There is little doubt that we (Tea Party and grass roots organizations) helped decide the election in Chris Christie's favor. Exit polling showed that Conservatives voted for Christie by five to one and Independents by almost 2 to 1. I am proud and privileged to be among those who helped lead this charge.
I wonder when the teabagger crew will call Christie out for one of his first acts as Governor being a massive tax hike on employers.
The Corzine campaign is out with a new web ad this evening hitting Chris Christie over comments he made to the New York Times saying that he's breaking his campaign promises before he even gets elected to office. First, from the NY Times article:
Regarding property tax rebates, Mr. Christie now says he cannot fully restore them - though his commercials omit this qualifier - and that he will send back the money only "on a sliding scale depending on what the economic conditions were." He explained the turnabout by saying he was "prioritizing out of a set of bad choices."
Referring to looming deficits, he added, "It's not like I can click my heels and say, 'Make the bad stuff go away.' "
The change is one of several recent reversals. Mr. Christie now also disavows a promise, made in a primary-season debate, to roll back a sales tax increase. He has backed away from a pledge to avoid using "one-shot" revenues to close the budget deficit. And he is now deferring until later in his term plans to eliminate a business tax surcharge, cut income taxes across the board, identify a permanent financing source for open-space preservation and restore higher-education financing to 2002 levels.
His biggest surviving pledge is to roll back Mr. Corzine's tax increase on people making more than $400,000 a year.
One of the main reasons environmental groups went with Christie was because he supported a permanent financing source for Open Space. So now he not only opposes the bond question, but won't come up with a permanent solution as promised. And what happens if a Christie economy doesn't get better? Do those choices get deffered to the next Governor? Here's the ad:The Democrats have been all over Christie's comments to the NY Times today. Assemblyman Greenwald had this to say:
"It's amazing that Chris Christie has waited until only four days before the polls open to admit that his entire economic plan was built on a foundation of sand," said Greenwald (D-Camden). "The more Christie tosses his grandiose promises of the spring under the wheels of his campaign bus, the more it becomes obvious that his proposals were meant only to make good sound bites, not sound fiscal policy. New Jersey couldn't afford Christienomics in the 1990's, and we can't afford it now."
And Assemblywoman Quigley didn't miss the chance to hit Christie for his latest broken promises:
"It only took 268 days since he threw his hat into the ring, but with four to go until the election Chris Christie has finally come to terms with the devastating fact that his fiscal platform is a non-starter," said Quigley, a member of the Assembly Budget Committee. "But now he faces an even more painful reality: telling prospective voters that his entire plan was a mirage."
He may have only formally declared 268 days ago, but he's been running for much longer than that. It's amazing that of the few specifics he does give, they always seem to get him in trouble. He lost his shared values in the course of a "website re-design", he tried to delete the words mandate-free from his website altogether and since he can't hide the fact that his fiscal don't hold up when exposed to the real world, he's backing away before he can even implement them.
