Of all the promises Chris Christie made in order to become Governor of NJ, the one he seems to hold most dear is his promise to veto every bill that strays from the stated agenda of the Republican Party’s extreme right wing.
Last year, when the NJ legislature dared to reinstate $7.5 million in women’s health care funding to the 2011 budget that Mr. Christie had removed, he used his veto pen to once again eliminate those funds – leaving low income women in the lurch.
Last summer, he unilaterally pulled our state out of the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI). The Assembly and Senate voted to reinstate our participation. The Governor immediately vetoed that measure, and declared he didn’t need Senate or Assembly approval to create this 180-degree change the state’s environmental policy.
Last Friday, despite the support of a majority of NJ voters, Chris Christie delivered on his Tea Party promise to strike down Marriage Equality.
These actions may be wildly pleasing to super conservatives in other states, but here in moderate NJ, Christies moves are costing us hundreds of millions of dollars in lost revenue, lost jobs and debilitating expense.
Consider just a few of the Governor’s unilateral job and revenue killing decisions:
Cancelling the ARC tunnel project: Once Christie abandoned the project to build an additional train tunnel under the Hudson River, the Federal government demanded repayment of $271 million in grants NJ received to create what would have been the largest pubic works project in the country. Refusing to pay, and standing on what most legal experts posit are very weak legal grounds, Christie hired a DC law firm, Patton Boggs, to fight the Federal Government. They are now charging NJ $300,000 in fees every month. Add another $225,000 a month in interest on the unpaid loan and this single action has drained more than $7 million dollars from our state treasury… with the bleeding expected to continue for years until the litigation is resolved.
Vetoing Women’s Health Care Services: Some clinics were forced to reduce their operating hours. Six family planning centers were forced to close. As a result, NJ’s unemployment numbers rose, unemployment insurance costs increased and countless low income and poor women were left without access to reproductive health care.
Quitting RGGI: in March, NJ will lose about $10 million in carbon trades. Our coffers have been depleted of millions in clean energy funding, and staying out of the program denies us access to anywhere from $340 to $680 million in future carbon trade allowances. Leaving RGGI has crippled our once thriving solar energy industry, decimated clean energy initiatives throughout the state and thrown thousands more NJ voters onto the unemployment lines.
Marriage Equality Veto: the Garden State can now kiss $200 million in revenue, $15 million in taxes and about 1400 new jobs goodbye.
Based on the above, we say that despite Christie’s ongoing ad campaign trying to convince NJ we’re making a “comeback” we say NJ is swirling in a whirlpool of financial losses due to the Governor’s wildly inappropriate and politically self promoting use of the veto pen.
When a Governor makes decisions that cost his state upwards of a BILLION dollars we say it’s time to cut our losses.
The numbers add up to one simple fact: NJ can’t afford Chris Christie’s veto pen. The decisions are hurting our economy, our people and our future. We say the Governor’s ill-advised, narrow minded and completely self-absorbed approach to policy and politics is bad business, bad government and bad news for NJ’s hopes for any real, substantial and sustainable come back.
What do you say?
Post new comment