NJ Dems cave to Christie: Will support tax cuts despite loss of revenue

Democrats bow to Christie's plan to cut income taxes

Democrats had enough ammunition Wednesday to blast a crater-sized pothole in the “Jersey Comeback” narrative, Governor Christie’s boast of a state that is fast on the road to recovery.

Instead, they lay down and let Christie roll right over them.

They could have made the case that New Jersey just can’t afford a tax cut — their own veteran analyst said the administration could collect as much as $1.3 billion less than expected in the next 14 months. The state may not have enough money to pay for its services and programs for the poor, the elderly and the venerated middle class.

They could have said that now is not the time to turn New Jersey into a laboratory of trickle-down economics, especially when the reward may not even help an average homeowner buy a bag of groceries.

-more-

http://www.northjersey.com/news/politics/nj_politics/052412_Stile_Democrats_bow_to_Christies_plan.html



NJ budget shortfall will force cuts in transportation, clean energy programs

Governor Christie is planning to raid New Jersey’s clean energy and transportation funds — but not scale back his proposed income tax cut — now that a $676 million budget shortfall has punctured his “Jersey Comeback.”

That shortfall was announced by the Christie administration during an Assembly Budget and Appropriations Committee meeting Wednesday, with the state treasurer acknowledging to lawmakers that the Republican governor’s spending plans must be revised because Christie overestimated the scale of the state’s economic recovery.

The governor’s earlier estimates predicted a state economy that would outpace any other state in the country and be enough for tax cuts and increased spending.

Yet even as Treasurer Andrew Sidamon-Eristoff politely downplayed the difference between the administration’s revised estimates and a new forecast put forward Wednesday by a non-partisan legislative budget analyst, Christie attacked the analyst personally.

-more-

http://www.northjersey.com/news/Christie_budget_to_fall_short_668M_this_year_analyst_says.html