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Buono and Cryan criticize GOP legislators for positions they took in 2010
The state Senate and Assembly Democratic majority leaders Monday said Republicans legislators must begin the new year by, as they described it, taking advantage of the small window they have to show New Jerseyans that their concerns resonate with the GOP.
At a State House press conference, Sen. Barbara Buono (D-Middlesex) and Assemblyman Joseph Cryan (D-Union) listed issues where the they maintain Republican legislators have put partisanship and loyality to Gov. Chris Christie before the needs of working families, women and seniors.
"On issue after issue, legislative Republicans have shown only contempt for the challenges facing every day New Jersey, instead embracing out-of-touch ideology that if you give millionaires a bigger tax break, everything will heal itself," Buono said. "Instead, unemployment continues to be too high, too many woman have lost their access to basic health care and people still can't afford their property taxes. When Democrats offered a hand to help, the Republicans continually smacked it away."
"As we start the new year, our colleagues across the aisle have a small window of opportunity to prove to New Jersey that they get it, that they were elected not to represent a party but to represent real people," Cryan said. "When you look back at 2010, the Republican storyline was one of following only a rigid ideology of helping those who least needed to be helped. They preached ‘shared sacrifice,' but then made working families, women and seniors shoulder the burden. And when anything went wrong, they blamed someone else. That's not the type of leadership New Jersey is looking for."
DeCroce responded to Buono's and Cryan's comments saying, "... They are astounding and hypocritical, given the tax, borrow and spend policies enacted by the Democrat-controlled Legislature and governor's office over the eight years preceding Governor Christie's administration.
"It may be a new year, but taxpayers have a long memory when it comes to the Democrats' record," DeCroce said. "When Democrats controlled both the Legislature and governor's office, property taxes increased nearly 60 percent, driving people and businesses out of New Jersey. The Democrats spent the last eight years ignoring Republican proposals as they taxed and spent the state into bankruptcy and record unemployment," said DeCroce. "That ship has sailed. We're committed to reforming New Jersey government so that people can afford to stay here.
"The question on the minds of property taxpayers is when will the Legislature deliver property tax relief to the residents who pay the highest taxes in the country?" DeCroce added. "The Democrats would like the public to forget their policies increased taxes 115 times before Governor Christie arrived. Now that the state's coffers have run dry and the governor won't use the Democratic strategy of raising taxes to sustain their out-of-control spending, they want to blame Republicans. Businesses want us get our fiscal house in order so they can have a predictable environment in order to create real jobs that are desperately needed in New Jersey. Governor Christie has made great strides toward repairing a state badly damaged by previous Democratic governors and Legislators and today's attack by the Democrats proves they are more concerned with November's election than doing what's right for the long-term health of New Jersey."
Buono and Cryan said the Legislature will hold a voting session on Thursday to begin passage of the Democratic-sponsored "Back to Work NJ" jobs and business creation package. They said that with unemployment at over 9 percent and the recent news that nearly 330,000 more families rely on food stamps, any Republican opposition could fall under a harsh spotlight.They said some of their colleagues had openly questioned whether the state "could afford" Democratic-sponsored cuts in business taxes. And they added that not one Republican legislator spoke out against Assembly Minority Leader Alex DeCroce's comments last month in which he described the unemployed as "these people." DeCroce (R-Morris) apologized for the comment.
"Republicans have an early chance to show that they do understand the plight of working families and small businesses in a very real sense, not in partisan soundbites," Cryan said. "It will be interesting to see if they can live up to their own hype of wanting to help get people back into good jobs."
"Some of our Republican friends have questioned whether we can actually afford to enact a jobs agenda — we contend that we can't afford not to," Buono said. "Putting people back to work shouldn't be a partisan issue. But to the Republicans, it seems more and more that there's nothing they won't make into a partisan issue."
Buono and Cryan said Republican support for "Back to Work NJ" would begin what they described as the process of atoning for their many 2010 missteps.
Buono and Cryan pointed to a decision by seven Senate Republicans, who initially supported Democratic-sponsored legislation to restore $7.5 million for women's health and family planning programs — including cancer screenings, and then changed their positions when the proposal was voted on a second time.
"The failure of the Senate Republican Seven to stick to their convictions when they knew the governor was wrong was shocking and appalling," Buono said. "When women in New Jersey most needed their legislative advocates to stuck to their guns, their hopes evaporated. Now, there are fewer places for women to get essential health services."
Buono and Cryan also noted what they called the Republicans' failure to stand up for New Jersey seniors. Despite voicing private misgivings — forcing the governor to send top deputies to the Senate and Assembly floors to oversee the voting — every Republican member voted to provide millionaires with a tax break instead of providing property tax rebates for seniors.
Instead, seniors have only been given a shallow promise of a credit good only for one-quarter of their prior rebate (roughly $300) and it would only be given in March. The Republicans also supported the elimination of an average of $2400 annually in additional financial help for spouses of the elderly and disabled under the state Supplemental Security Income program.
"For seniors, the Republican cuts have been some of the unkindest," Cryan said. "Instead of helping seniors stay in their homes, our Republican colleagues decided to give millionaire's a huge tax cut so they could decorate theirs. Something is awfully wrong when shared sacrifice means cutting only from those who have the least."
Buono and Cryan also said the Republicans' silence on state aid cuts to towns and schools put them in tougher financial straits — "as evidenced by the inability of some towns to have the manpower and equipment needed to deal with last week's blizzard."
"When middle-class New Jersey needed champions, Democrats stood up and Republicans went on vacation," Buono said. "It's time the legislative Republicans understood that they serve the people who sent them here. Right now, they act as if they only have a constituency of one."
"There can be no do-overs, but Republicans have a chance to show residents that they now actually understand what's going on in the real world," Cryan said. "We and New Jersey's working families, women and seniors will all be watching closely to see if they can change their stripes."
— TOM HESTER SR., NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
