“Scary” Governor and Teacher at Kearny Town Hall

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The video we’ve been anticipating…

Not released by the Governor’s office

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Governor Christie Press Conference

Governor Chris Christie has a press conference scheduled for 11:30 this morning.

Watch it live here:

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Christie To Hold Town Hall Meeting In Monmouth County Next Week

Governor Chris Christie will hold a Town Hall meeting on Ocean Township next Tuesday, March 6, at 3PM.  Doors open at 2PM.

The meeting will be held at the Ocean Township Community Gym, 1100 West Park Ave.  Click here to get directions.

Seating is on a first come, first served basis and open to the public.  The Governor’s office asks that those planning on attending RSVP by clicking here.

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Why The Income Tax Cut Matters

Income Tax Cut Is Good For Business

By Senator Tom Kean, Jr

To hear the Governor’s critics tell it, New Jersey’s high income tax rates have no effect on our economic health. To them, the income tax can be raised without consequence to our economy, while reducing rates yields little or no benefit.

New Jersey’s business leaders- the entities responsible for employing the vast majority of the state’s workforce- disagree, however.

The New Jersey Business and Industry Association, representing 21, 500 businesses of all types in the Garden State, lauds the Governor’s proposed 10% reduction in the income tax as “the best thing you can do for taxes”. Noting that the majority of businesses file under the personal income tax rather than the corporate income tax, NJBIA says the proposal will give savings to “80% of the business community”.

More telling, however, is what individual small business owners and operators are saying upon learning of the Governor’s proposal.

“It signals your government is working with you, and that you’ve got government at your side at a tough time,” says a proprietor of a Hoboken print shop.

“I believe it to be a proposal that, in fact, could significantly alter New Jersey’s favorability rating, in terms of being a destination of choice,” said the president of a Linden-based manufacturing outfit.

Republican legislators join the Governor’s call for an income tax reduction because we trust the real world experience of job creators. Who better to help guide New Jersey on a path toward sustainable, good paying jobs than the people who do the hiring?

Democratic critics are putting their faith in higher taxes, more spending and bigger government as the solution to the problem. If history is any indication their trust is misplaced, given that the exponential increase in state spending, taxes, and debt we saw from 2002 through 2009 coincided with the loss of 150, 000 jobs.

Coincidentally, these are the same Democrats who raised taxes on middle class families repeatedly during those years, taxing everything from utility bills and car tires to gym memberships and home ownership. Their credibility on helping the middle class is suspect at best.

Smart income tax policy is good jobs policy, and New Jersey is currently at a severe disadvantage in a competition for jobs with neighboring states.

Pennsylvania’s 3.07% income tax rate is far more attractive than the 6.37% rate many middle income families and small business owners pay in New Jersey, and certainly preferable for businesses that file at the state’s 8.97% top rate.

New Jersey lost more residents to Pennsylvania- over 20, 000- than any other state in 2010. That figure is roughly one-third of the total population loss New Jersey experienced that year. The economic and cultural impacts of these moves are real.

The engines of job creation and population growth in America, states like Texas, Florida, and the Carolinas, have tax rates that either are far lower than New Jersey’s or no income tax altogether.

It cannot be sheer coincidence that the states experiencing economic success are ones that have favorable tax climates as compared with the rest of the nation. Income tax levies are a substantial factor in a state’s overall business climate and economic growth.

Opponents of the Governor’s tax cut plan in the Legislature are trying to confuse the issue by changing the subject to property taxes. I agree that New Jersey’s highest in the nation property taxes are the shame of our state and must not only be contained, but lowered. Unfortunately, the Democrats’ plan to use state tax revenues to offset local levies is unlikely to reduce a single county, municipal, or school tax rate.

Their plan is a state incentive for property tax increases, not a solution for reducing them. Permanently lowering property taxes requires us to help local governments control labor costs, share services, and live within their means so that fewer tax dollars are needed to operate.

The effort to reduce property tax bills need not, and should not, come at the expense of job creation and economic growth in New Jersey.

Income taxes do matter to our economic health and jobs climate. Businesses, and the experiences of states that have successfully attracted job growth, show this to be the case. It is time that New Jersey start listening to them in order to strengthen our economic future.

State Sen. Tom Kean, Jr., R- Union, serves as the Senate’s Republican leader.

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Quinnipiac: New Jersey Voters Approve of Christie and His Tax Cut

82% Don’t Know Enough About Kyrillos To Form An Opinion On His U.S. Senate Candidacy

New Jersey voters continue to approve of the job Governor Chris Christie is doing, according to a Quinnipiac poll released this morning.

Christie’s job approval is 55-38%, with a significant gender gap.  Men approve of the governor 62-32% while woman approve 49-44%.

New Jersey voters approved of Christie’s proposed income tax cut by a 55-31% margin.

If Christie were selected as the vice presidential nominee,  his presence on the ballot as Mitt Romney’s running mate would close the gap between Romney and President Obama, but not by enough to carry the state.  Obama beats Romney 49-39% in New Jersey.  The gap closes to 49-43% if Christie in Romney’s VP choice.

In the U.S. Senate race, incumbent Democrat Bob Menendez bests Republican Joe Kyrillos by 49-34% with Independents favoring the Democrat 44-32%.

82% of the respondents did not know enough about Kyrillos to form and opinion.

“Sen. Robert Menendez’s numbers are only so-so, but nobody has heard of State Sen. Joe Kyrillos.  He gets only the generic Republican vote,”  said Maurice Carroll, director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute.

In the Republican presidential primary, Romney leads former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum 38-24%, with Texas Congressman Ron Paul coming in third with 12%. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich gets 9%.  The Republican primary survey has a margin of error of +/- 4.6%.

Obama beats all Republican contenders in New Jersey.  Santorum by 52-34%, Gingrich by 55-30% .  If Quinnipiac polled Paul against Obama, they did not report the results.

Quinnipiac surveyed 1396 registered voters, 446 (32%) of them Republicans, between February 21-27.  The poll has a margin of error of +/- 2.6%

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Must Read: The Court That Broke New Jersey

If you want to understand what rule by liberal judges looks like on the state level, you need only look at New Jersey, which is teetering on bankruptcy though it remains one of America’s wealthiest states.  ~ Steven Malanga, writing in City Journal

If you want to understand how, despite being one of the wealthiest states in the country, New Jersey is teetering on the brink of fiscal disaster, read Steven Malanga’s The Court That Broke New Jersey.

If you want to know why no governor or state legislature can reduce New Jersey’s oppressive property taxes, read Steven Malanga’s The Court That Broke New Jersey.

Malanga traces the roots of New Jersey’s tyranical Supreme Court all the way back to Arthur Vanderbilt, the first Chief Justice under the 1947 state constitution.  In his opinion in Winberry v. Salisbury, Vanderbilt layed the foundation for judicial tyrnany by ruling that the court, not the legislature, has the power to make rules for the state judiciary.

That ruling set New Jersey’s judiciary apart from the court systems in most other states—as well as from the federal judiciary, which ultimately derives its authority from Congress. Some critics have even argued that Winberry violates the U.S. Constitution’s guarantee that every state must have a republican form of government. “Under the doctrine of Winberry v. Salisbury,” wrote New Jersey lawyer Anthony Kearns in a 1955 ABA Journal article, “we can only conclude that laws of practice and procedure are exclusively in the hands of men who are not elected.”

Malanga clearly lays out how New Jersey’s Supreme Court has taken over the state’s education policy and funding with no improvement in urban education to show for the $40 billion that has been wasted as a result of the Abbott decisions.  He lays out the history of how the court usurped local zoning power with the Mt. Laurel decisions and COAH.   He connects the dots in explaining how those two extra-constitutional power grabs have resulted in massive wealth redistribution, with no societal benefit, and an oppressive system of goverments.

Malanga stressed the importance of Christie’s promise to reshape the court with judges who will interpret the constitution rather than relating to it as a “living document.”  However, he is not optimistic because of “…a Democrat-controlled legislature that’s often happy to dodge responsibility for heavy spending by letting the court mandate it.”

Hat tip to InTheLobby for bring this important article to our attention.

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Unemployment Insurance Abuse

You know that bartender or waitress at your favorite summer spot at the shore?  The one that is there year after year, knows your name when you show up every season and remembers your favorite drink?  That one.

The really good ones make enough money in tips over the summer to support their households for the rest of the year.  Six figures in cash tips over the summer.

Way too many of these people are also collecting unemployment, every year, year after year, from September through May.   It is a way of life.

Two shore mayors from Cape May County, with the support of the League of Municipalities are looking for a legislator to sponsor legislation in the next session that would disqualify seasonal workers from collecting unemployment insurance, according to a report at NJ.com

The mayors and the league want to save money on unemployment for seasonal municipal workers.  That’s not a bad idea. However the real savings, for the state’s unemployment fund, can be found in eliminating unemployment insurance for private sector seasonal employees.

Governor Christie doesn’t want the State to be subsidizing the horse racing industry. Rightfully so. However the State is also subsidizing the labor costs of every other seasonal industry.  The State is subsidizing a comfortable way of life for many seasonal workers who don’t need it.

Unemployment insurance premiums are a major drag on the economy. They are a major disincentive to hiring new workers, especially for small businesses who have had to lay people off during this economy. 

Eliminating unemployment insurance for all seasonal workers, not just municipal seasonal workers, will go a long way to returning the unemployment fund to solvency, reducing premiums for the businesses who hire year round workers, and boosting overall employment.

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New Jersey’s Governor Has No Power

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2011/10/gov_christies_home_loses_power.html

Let’s hope it doesn’t last long.

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Recording Of Governor Christie’s Saturday Hurricane Update

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