Greetings,

Tuesday, November 3, is the election!

Camden County Activist Information

There will be an AFL-CIO bus tour with Gov. Corzine and labor leaders, including national AFT President Randi Weingarten, on Election Day. They will make the first stop in Cherry Hill at 10:00AM tomorrow, Tuesday, November 3. Arrive by 9:30 AM at the meet-up location, 2240 Marlton Pike West, Cherry Hill, NJ 08002, to be there in time for the rally/bus stop and, then, take the day's first Labor Walk to get-out-the-vote. You can reach Michael Cain, the AFT staff person, at 651-442-8031 on his cell in order to link up with other AFT members. He will be based at the meet-up location all day for those who can come at other times until the end of the day at 6 PM. When you arrive, look for the people wearing blue AFT shirts. Thanks to Patrice Mareschal for her work with AFT Rutgers at the Camden campus for Labor Walks!

Christie is already backing off from campaign promises

On October 30, the New York Times noted 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, Governor Jon 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 

Sincerely,

Mike Slott, President, Rutgers Part-Time Lecturer Faculty Chapter-AAUP-AFT

Adrienne Eaton, President, Rutgers AAUP-AFT