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Greetings,
Tuesday, November 3, is the election!
On October
30, the New York Times commented that Christie has already
started reversing several campaign pledges even before
the election is over. Among the reversals is a pledge
he made to restore higher education funding back to 2002 levels.
In contrast, Corzine has made educatin funding a priority, while
trying to deal with a difficult financial situation in New
Jersey even before the recession.
Read the October 30 New York Times editorial:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/30/nyregion/30jersey.html?_r=2&pagewanted=1
Review
the NY Times endorsement of Corzine from October 17,
2009:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/18/opinion/18sun3.html?_r=1
Here
is an excerpt from the October 30 New York Times editorial
on Christie's reversal of campaign pledges:
Mr. Christie, who says New Jersey is caught in "negative
momentum" economically, focuses almost exclusively on the
state's strapped middle class, pledging to force concessions
from state employee unions and to bring "parental supervision"
to an overspending Legislature, without ever precisely saying
how.
"I think it's being responsible," he says about his lack of
specifics. "I'm not setting up expectations that I can't
meet."
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.
While Mr. Corzine wears his spending priorities on his sleeve
— education and the social "safety net" — Mr.
Christie's are more difficult to pin down.
An estimated $8 billion budget deficit looms next year, and
his tax cuts and rebates could expand that, but Mr. Christie now
says he will largely follow the governor's lead in closing the
gap: saving $2 billion by deferring pension contributions and
reaping a hoped-for $2 billion in additional federal stimulus
aid. Mr. Christie pencils in $1.5 billion more in concessions
from state workers — which would be little short of a
miracle — and $500 million from forgoing increases in
education financing.
The rest, some $3 billion, will have to come from
"programmatic cuts," Mr. Christie said. "I think everything else
would be on the table," he said.
The Executive Council also recommends several
candidates running for the New Jersey Assembly. Review the list
by District:
http://rutgersaaup.org/leg_surveys/2009_EC_recommendations_NJ.pdf
The polls open tomorrow, November 3, at 6 AM and
close at 8 PM. You may find your polling place online at: https://voter.njsvrs.com/PublicAccess/jsp/PollPlace/PollPlaceSearch.jsp
Activists
to do Labor Walks and phone banking to Get-Out-the-Vote are
still encouraged to come forward anytime during two blocks of
time on Tuesday, November 3: Morning slot between 9:30am-12noon
and 3:30pm-7pm. Contact Cathy Stanford at 732-954-1000 or
732-309-6942 (cell). The meet-up location is the IBEW Union
Hall. 1295 Livingston Ave., North Brunswick, NJ 08902
Sincerely,
Mike Slott, President, Rutgers Part-Time Lecturer
Faculty Chapter-AAUP-AFT
Adrienne Eaton, President,
Rutgers AAUP-AFT
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