Update: Gov. Chris Christie has called the legislature back into a special session Monday at 11 a.m. to give a speech about tax relief. NJTV will have live coverage of the event.
After a tumultuous week of public and private meetings among lawmakers, Gov. Chris Christie came through on his promise to line item veto his way through the budget. The Democratic-controlled legislature now has to look through the document to see which of their priorities is worth a fight. Some Democrats say they were disappointed with the governor’s role in the process.
“He drew a line in the sand and said, ‘If you don’t have my income tax cut in there, then I’m not going to negotiate,’ and I think that was really an abdication of leadership,” Sen. Barbara Buono (D-18) told NJ Today. “I think the people of this state deserve, and they count on us to come together and build consensus around the issues that aren’t easy to solve.”
But State Treasurer Andrew Sidamon-Eristoff disputed that account of the process. “That’s absolutely not true. It’s a nice sound bite but it’s not true,” he said. “There was a great deal of dialogue not only between the leaders and the governor’s office and the governor himself, but we had ongoing dialogue with members of staff over the last four months, plus, so frankly there’s been lots of interaction.”
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With all the supposed interaction, you may ask yourself what all the fuss was about. Even under the Christie plan, tax cuts weren’t going to happen until April of next year. The Democrats insist they’re being prudent by making sure that the money’s actually there to pay for a tax cut. They’ve even put it aside as part of a special surplus. So, why is the governor insisting on seeing it right now?
“What the legislature has now done is undermine certainty. When you have uncertainty, it’s more difficult for investors, taxpayers, business owners to make economic decisions, make investment decisions and that I think hurts our competitiveness,” Sidamon-Eristoff said. “New Jersey needs tax relief now, not some sort of contingent promise in the future.”
From the looks of it, the governor is ready for this game to go into extra innings. With a conditional veto of the millionaire’s tax, Christie could force the legislature to come back for a special session to consider his tax cut plan again. Christie says he’ll go toe–to–toe with Democrats for the hearts and minds of New Jersey voters.
“I’ll tell you for sure what I’m going to be doing this summer — it is going to be the Corzine Democrats Holding Your Tax Cut Hostage Tour,” Christie said.
The governor is betting that voters’ desire for a tax cut will be stronger than their desire to know how it’s going to be paid for. And if he indeed spends the long, hot summer bashing Democrats as tax-craving junkies, the Democrats might have to actually hope that the state economy remains sluggish enough to prove their point.
David Cruz reports from Trenton.