Mr. Speaker,
This bill represents the culmination of a disappointing chapter in the NJ State Legislature’s history.
While public union workers are about to get a two percent raise in just 26 days, nearly 1.2 million of our constituents, the people who we represent, have lost their jobs. Everything considered in this Assembly has no respect for the taxpayers or their future.
It has been 75 days and neither the governor nor the legislature has taken any bold action to minimize the damage.
We had the power to act earlier and we didn’t. We have the power to act NOW to bring about real effective change and yet we won’t.
Instead, we are trying to impose an unconstitutional Band-Aid on the state’s sucking chest wound. To add insult to injury, instead of growing up and cutting our spending and committing to be responsible moving forward, this bill allows the state to impose a SURCHARGE on our property taxes to pay it back. The Majority leader tried to ease everyone’s concerns that this would never actually happen, but quite frankly, I don’t believe him.
Instead of reigning in the Governor, we are enabling him to continue to rip apart our economy and mortgage his failures onto our children and grandchildren. This body wouldn’t consider any meaningful measures to try and save our businesses at the start of this pandemic and now it won’t consider any meaningful reforms that could save the state billions of dollars.
I’ve had enough and this entire body really needs to wake up and do our job. We need checks on the governor’s authority. We need to unhandcuff our businesses. And what we DO NOT need, is to take a 4 month problem and turn it into a 35 year obligation.
I worked hard to get here and, unfortunately, what I have witnessed so far has been nothing short of complete apathy. Our apathy is the cause for our current situation and our cowardice in seeking to borrow instead of reforming and most importantly re-opening our economy immediately is disappointing.
I will be a resounding NO on this bill and I hope my colleagues will join me and do the same.
Thank you Mr. Speaker.
Would you expect anything less from a Goldman Sachs alumni?
Hold on nothing past yet.
There is no way to keep this ship afloat.
Escape from New Jersey while you still can.
This gov is a complete idiot and needs to be recalled right now or an armed insurrection willoccur
I didn’t get any raise what are you talking about.
Fuck him and fuck the legislature….
The good people of NJ have had just about enough of supporting the “Heroes “ who are killing us everyday.
You want the people to rise?
We will exercise our constitution right and arm ourselves to fight the tyrant before us….you have been warned
“This gov is a complete idiot and needs to be recalled right now…”
.
Never gonna happen.
Your fellow Ridgewood neighbors will vote for Murphy in droves next election.
.
‘cuz they’re
RICH and STUPID
.
Who in their right mind would lend money to the State of New Jersey?
That’s why I moved out Jersey yrs ago! Stupid Democraps only looking out for themselves….Doubt there’s enough smart people in Jersey to vote the Dems out. Jerseys own fault. Been a Repubilcan Conservative for over 50 yrs
https://thefederalist.com/2020/06/03/prevent-george-floyd-tragedy-fix-police-unions/
Guess the NJ public pensions are going insolvent faster than predicted? Will happen when you send out $11 billion in excessive defined benefit pension checks to a bunch of “special” early retirees but have less than $70 billion in pension assets!
Yup the teachers state run pension system is going to collapse. Good thing the municipal Police and Firefighters were smart enough to get their pension system away from state control so they will not see their pensions collapse with the financial collapse of New Jersey.
https://www.nj.com/politics/2018/07/credit_rating_agency_says_new_police_fire_pension.html