Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin and Governor Phil Murphy. NJGlobe photo by NIKITA BIRYUKOV
The Democrat debate in Trenton over which taxes to raise on New Jersey residents and by how much ended last evening with no deal. Voting sessions scheduled for today in the Assembly and the Senate where cancelled. Legislators were told to report to Trenton on Saturday.
If Governor Phil Murphy, Senate President Steve Sweeney and Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin do not make a deal that is approved by the legislature by midnight on Saturday, New Jersey’s state government will shutdown for the second consecutive year.
Governor Murphy wants to increase income taxes on millionaires and the sales tax on everybody. Sweeney and Coughlin want to raise taxes on businesses to the highest in the nation, expand the sales tax to internet purchases, real estate sales, and impose a new tax on vacation rental homes and Airbnb rentals.
Senate President Steve Sweeney, right, enjoys a humorous moment with Gov Christie, and South Jersey Dem Boss George Norcross photo credit: Tim Larsen/Governor’s Office
New Jersey Senate President Steve Sweeney, the author of over 100 tax increases on NJ citizens, issued a statement earlier this week vouching for the outsider status and fiscal conservatism of Vin Gopal, the former Monmouth Democrat Chairman and a candidate for the Democrat nomination for 11th District State Senate seat in the the June 6 primary.
In addition to Sweeney, Gopal is touting the support of South Jersey Democrat Boss George Norcross and Phil Murphy, President Obama’s former Ambassador to Germany and the candidate for Governor who has already locked up the support of the New Jersey Democrat machine.
Senior citizen accosted by Democratic legislators’ staffers
Downey, Sweeny and Houghtaling. photo via facebook from a previous meeting
Senate President Steve Sweeney held a meeting with public officials and education stakeholders at the Freehold legislative office of Assembly Members Eric Houghtaling and Joann Downey this morning to discuss the school funding bill the three legislators are sponsoring.
Houghtaling told MMM about the meeting this morning during a phone call regarding former Assemblywoman Mary Pat Angelini’s call for him and Downey to join Sweeney in demanding that the U.S. Attorney and NJ Attorney General investigate the NJEA’s alleged extortion of Sweeney. Houghtaling repeatedly said that the Freehold meeting is “non-poltical.”
So why was Senator Jennifer Beck, a Republican excluded? Members of the Freehold Borough Council were invited. The state senator representing Freehold was not invited? That sounds like a political meeting with only Democrats invited. Beck’s spokesman Mike Hughes told MMM that the senator was not invited to the meeting in Freehold.
Hougtaling and Downey’s spokeman denies hearing of Sweeney’s call for a criminal investigation into NJEA
Mary Pat Angelini
Still smarting from her shocking loss last November, former Assemblywoman Mary Pat Angelini yesterday issued a statement calling on the Democrats who unseated her to join Senate President Steve Sweeney in his demand that the U.S. Attorney and N.J. Attorney General investigate the teachers union for extortion.
The Democrat leader of the State Senate accused the NJEA of extorition eariler this week after Democrat County Chairmen and other power brokers told him that NJEA leaders told them that the union would withhold campaign contributions to Democrats unless Sweeney allowed a vote in the Senate on an amendment to the State Constitution that would compel specified contributions to the teacher’s pension fund every year.
Angelini said that Assembly Members Eric Houghtaling and Joann Downey would not have defeated her if not for the “vicious lies” the NJEA broadcast about her and the non-profit drug abuse prevention organization she runs during the final days of the 2015 election campaign.
Brian T. Murray, Governor Chris Christie’s spokesman, told MMM in an email that Christie has not seen the Transportation Trust Fund legislation that Senate President Steve Sweeney and Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto announced today.
New Jersey’s infrastructure construction projects have been shut down since July 8 when the TFF was down to a $10 million balance which being held for emergency projects.
Senate President Steve Sweeney. file photo by Art Gallagher
TRENTON — State Sen. President Stephen Sweeney introduced legislation Monday that would cement state officials’ promises to fund government workers’ pensions in the New Jersey constitution. Such a constitutional amendment requiring the state to make payments into the public retirement fund was the expected to be the next step after the state Supreme Court this summer… Read the rest of this entry »
Senate President Steve Sweeney. file photo by Art Gallagher
TRENTON — State Senate President Stephen Sweeney said Wednesday the answer to New Jersey’s rising public employee pension debt lies in creating a trillion dollar federal loan program that will help states avoid insolvency, spare millions of government workers from economic devastation and take the pressure off state budgets. The government aid program — which Sweeney… Read the rest of this entry »
NJ2AS protest outside Sen. Sweeney’s home Video taken by the New Jersey Second Amendment Society shows how a confrontation between their members and state Senate President Steve Sweeney outside his West Deptford home lead to the senator turning on his sprinklers to disperse activists. The protesters had hoped to press Sweeney to relax the state’s gun… Read the rest of this entry »
A bill that aims to address ongoing problems raised by homeowners and advocates about New Jersey’s handling of Hurricane Sandy relief aid cleared the state Senate on Monday. The bill ( S2825), which was introduced by Senate President Stephen Sweeney in March, requires the state to give applicants in certain grant programs personalized timelines showing when… Read the rest of this entry »
TRENTON — Senate President Stephen Sweeney has a message for Gov. Chris Christie: Log off Twitter, come home and work to fix the state’s economy. “He actually needs to be back here meeting with the legislative leadership. He needs to be back here with a plan on what we’re going to do to fix this place,”… Read the rest of this entry »
