NJTV News Chief Political Correspondent Michael Aron spoke with Assembly leadership at the State House after Gov. Chris Christie’s State of the State address.

Aron: I’m here with the Assembly Republican leader Jon Bramnick of Westfield and the Assembly Transportation Committee Chairman John Wisniewski of Sayreville. Assemblyman, what did you think of the governors speech?

Bramnick: Fabulous! Told it the way it was and is. Basically said you are putting mandatory spending in the Constitution of New Jersey and you are pitting one interest group against another. Really bad policy. This one they went took far on the Democrats.

Aron: Who went way too far?

Bramnick: The Democrats!

Aron: Oh, in proposing a constitutional amendment to boost the pension?

Bramnick: I am going to make it simple. This constitution amendment would say, that four or five years from now $5 billion would have to go to the pensions. Regardless of the financial situation of this state at that time. This is why we have budgeting and this is why you have to have a flexibility in the budget process. This is risky behavior.

Aron: Assemblyman, what did you think?

Wisniewski: You know after 261 days of absence, I was just glad the governor is in Trenton once again. People of the state of New Jersey voted for Chris Christie to be governor for four years. Not take a 261 day hiatus to leave Kim Guadagno  in charge. Look, Kim is a wonderful person and a good leader…

Aron: Some of those days are partial days out of state, not entire days out of the state, for the record.

Wisniewski: For the record. Still, the governor, when he is out of the state he is not the governor. Kim Guadagno is the governor. That is not what the people of the state of New Jersey voted for. The reality is that the governor, once again, failed to address the issues that face the state of New Jersey. New Jersey still has a structural $10 billion deficit no matter what he says. He loves to crow of his accomplishment of a balanced budget. Every governor who was sitting here in the audience accomplished a balanced budget because it’s in the constitution. He failed to address the Transportation Trust Fund. He failed to address the fact that eight of 10 school districts in this state have less money today than they did in 2010.

Aron: But he focused on New Jersey, to those who say he is focused on the national election. Today, at least, it was New Jersey focused, no?

Wisniewski: Well it is a speech about New Jersey. I would hope that his handlers would remind him he is giving a speech in Trenton not in Port Smith.

Aron: What about the fact…

Bramnick: But the Democrats are in the majority! They’re here. You can pass whatever you like. You have enough votes in each house. Why do you blame the governor? You can pass those reforms, you know what they are you can make it more.

Wisniewski: Jon, he has to sign the bill. You know that. He doesn’t sign bills, he vetoes them and you watched the bills that were passed, by the Legislature, in the lame duck session. He very frequently resorts to his unique opportunity … to do a pocket veto. The bills die with no explanation because he doesn’t have the courage of his conviction.

Bramnick: You lower a tax. I guarantee you he will sign that bill.

Aron: We only have limited time. Would you support doing away with the estate tax?

Wisniewski: What I would support is the governor giving us a recipe on how he is going to pay for that! The governor says I want to give away $700 million of revenue the state’s taking today which — everybody says hooray — how are we going to pay for it? The governor fails once again to explain how he would pay for the programs that he advocates for, that’s irresponsible. That’s not being a conservative. He was being as liberal as they come. The people on the campaign trail in New Hampshire and Iowa ought to know that the liberal Chris Christie promised to spend $750 million today and had no way of paying for it.

Aron: Your response?

Bramnick: We know this is the number one exit state in the country because the policies that you just heard about you will just reject that out of hand. What are you going to do to stop people from leaving  this state who know they can’t afford to die here? You need to change the law.

Wisniewski: New Jersey is not the number one exit state. Look, there are wonderful statistics that everybody can manipulate and that’s what the governor did today. You know while getting up there saying we shouldn’t be using sound bites. This is the master of sound bites. Who spent the portion of the speech today criticizing Jon Corzine who hasn’t been in office for five years.

Aron: We’ve got to wrap it up gentleman. Thank you for a spirited and quick exchange. Jon Bramnick and John Wisniewski, thank you.