Arnone in talks to keep Monmouth County projects going uninterupted
Governor Chris Christie issued an Executive Order last night shutting down all projects funded by the state’s Transportation Trust Fund. The fund’s authorization expired at midnight though published reports indicated that there is enough money in the fund to continue work through mid-August.
Christie’s dramatics came as a result of the Legislature failing to reauthorize the fund. The Senate was considering a bi-partisan plan to reauthorize the fund with a $.23 per gallon gas tax increase while also phasing out the estate tax and income tax on retirement income. The Assembly passed legislation negotiated by Christie and Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto in the wee hours of Tuesday morning that would increase the gas tax $.23 and phase in a reduction in the state sales tax from 7% to 6%. Christie said the last minute sales tax reduction was his idea.
The Christie/Prieto plan was widely panned from both the left an right and had little support in the Senate.
No plan under consideration addressed New Jersey’s highest in the nation cost of road construction: an estimated $2 million per mile on average.
TRENTON — Gov. Chris Christie on Thursday signed a $34.5 billion budget, but not before slicing into the $300 million Democrats added to the spending plan earlier in the week. Christie handed down his line-item vetoes Thursday evening amid a stalemate over transportation funding and hours before the start of the new fiscal year. The Legislature… Read the rest of this entry »
TRENTON — New Jersey motorists may not have to worry about their gas taxes skyrocketing this weekend. The state Senate will not vote Thursday on Gov. Chris Christie’s offer to raise the gas tax in exchange for a 1-cent reduction in the sales tax, Sen. Raymond Lesniak said Thursday. The governor, in a news conference Wednesday,… Read the rest of this entry »
TRENTON — Facing the possibility that a proposed gas-tax-increase-for-sales-tax-decrease proposal he brokered with the Assembly could go up in flames, Gov. Chris Christie made his case for the deal Wednesday. The governor called a surprise Statehouse news conference hours after Senate Democrats said they opposed the plan, which would raise gas tax by 23 cents to… Read the rest of this entry »
TRENTON — The state Assembly hastily approved a plan after midnight Tuesday to cut the sales tax by a penny in exchange for raising the gas tax by 23 cents a gallon to rescue the near-broke… Read the rest of this entry »
Governor Chris Christie is back on the Town Hall circuit…now he is calling them forums…as he meets New Jersey voters on Tuesday in Wall Township to promote the school funding formula that he announced last week.
The “Fairness Formula Forum” will take place in the Wall branch of the Monmouth County Library, 2700 Allaire Rd., Tuesday afternoon at 3:30 p.m. The doors open at 2:15 p.m and seating his first come first served. RSVPs are encouraged for planning purposes to [email protected].
Christie is saying that he wants a referendum in 2017 to amend the State Constitution so that State education funding is distributed equally to all school age children throughout the New Jersey. He says that the State would contribute $6,500 per student. Currently roughly 75% of State funding goes to 31 school districts, formerly referred to Abbott districts for the landmark Abbott vs Burke NJ Supreme Court decision that mandated that the State subsidize poor and urban districts.
TRENTON — Former Gov. Tom Kean has some political advice for Donald Trump: Don’t pick Gov. Chris Christie as your running mate if you hope to become president, and start surrounding yourself with better advisers. “If I were to advise him politically, it’s not the way to win the election,” said Kean of talk about a… Read the rest of this entry »
Bridget Ann Kelly, texting, with Governor Chris Christie and Michelle Brown at Seaside Park fire, September 12, 2013, photo by Phil Stilton
Lawyers representing indicted Port Authority of New York and New Jersey Executive Bill Baroni and staffer Bridget Kelly are asking for the cell phone embattled Christie was using at the time of Bridgegate. Baroni and Kelly’s attorneys cited Supreme Court precedent during the Watergate scandal, where it compelled President Richard Nixon to produce his audio tapes,… Read the rest of this entry »
WHIPPANY — With the state’s Transportation Trust Fund less than three weeks away from running out of money for new road, bridge and rail projects, Gov. Chris Christie said the fix being pushed by the Democratic-controlled legislature lacked sufficient tax breaks to be signed into law. Speaking to the Morris County Chamber of Commerce on Monday,… Read the rest of this entry »
Former Asbury Park Councilman Jim Keady, left and Belmar Mayor Lawless Matt Doherty, also left
Former Asbury Park Councilman Jim Keady, the man who provoked Governor Chris Christie into his famous “Sit Down and Shut Up” rant and then asked him out to dinner was easily defeated in his bid to become the Democrat nominee for the House of Representatives in New Jersey’s 3rd Congressional District.
Frederick John LaVergne will challenge Congressman Tom MacArthur the November general election. Based on unofficial results, LaVergne was the choice of 62.7% of CD-3 Democrats with 32,493 votes to Keady’s 19,347 votes.
LaVergne, who had the backing on the Burlington County Democrats, reportedly spent $600 on his primary campaign. Keady is reported to have spent $55,000.
Governor Chris Christie issued an Executive Order last night shutting down all projects funded by the state’s Transportation Trust Fund. The fund’s authorization expired at midnight though published reports indicated that there is enough money in the fund to continue work through mid-August.
