Bloomberg
May 15, 2012
By Stacie Servetah and Terrence Dopp

New Jersey's April revenue was 5.3 percent below Governor Chris Christie’s targets as income and business taxes fell short, leaving collections $230 million behind forecasts for the first 10 months of this fiscal year.
The state collected $3.26 billion last month, less than its projection of $3.44 billion. Income taxes were 2.8 percent less than forecast and corporate levies were 22.1 percent under budget, Treasurer Andrew Sidamon-Eristoff said in a statement.

Christie, 49, a first-term Republican, had predicted that April revenue would rise from $3.32 billion a year earlier. He has touted the “Jersey Comeback,” saying that tax cuts are possible now that the state’s “fiscal house is in order.” His $32.1 billion spending plan for the fiscal year starting July 1 predicts a 7.3 percent increase in revenue, the most since before the recession that began in December 2007.

“It’s now becoming clear the governor has built his plan on a shaky foundation,” Assembly Majority Leader Lou Greenwald, a Camden Democrat, said in a statement. Christie declined to comment after a hospital groundbreaking in Camden.

Christie is counting on a revenue gain to fund a 10 percent across-the-board income-tax cut. He has prodded Democrats, who control the Legislature, to pass his plan. Lawmakers have made counterproposals that would give middle-class residents property-tax credits on income-tax returns.

Discussions Continue

NorthJersey.com
May 1, 2012
By Charles Stile

Governor Christie slammed Assembly Democrats as liars last week, but his real target was Majority Leader Lou Greenwald, champion of his party's proposed 20 percent property tax credit.

"They're playing the oldest scam in the book," Christie said of the proposal. "They're hoping you won't read the fine print."

Actually, it's not a scam, and no one is lying. It's the art of political advertising, the boiling down of a complicated policy into an easy-to-digest bumper sticker slogan. Christie is very skilled at the practice.

Take, for example, his competing plan, an across-the-board 10 percent cut in income tax rates, announced with great fanfare in his State of the State address in January. The fine print there made no mention that the tax cut barely provides enough relief for a middle-class family to buy a bag of groceries – and that's only after it's fully phased in by 2014. The biggest winners would be those who earn the most — Christie's affluent GOP base.

But the fact is that the escalating war of words between Christie and Greenwald, a Camden County Democrat, has little to do with fine print. It's about competing philosophies of governing. And it's about the competing ambitions of both men.

NJ.com
April 30, 2012
By Jarrett Renshaw

TRENTON - Gov. Chris Christie said he has more important things to do than debate Assemblyman Lou Greenwald on tax relief.

"I have to rearrange my sock drawer," Christie said today during a news conference in Plainsboro.

Greenwald, who has repeatedly requested a debate, responded quickly, saying the governor used sarcasm to avoid the facts. Greenwald (D-Camden) said it was the governor who said he would debate anyone on his income tax relief plan, but reneged when he accepted the challenge.

"If the governor thinks rearranging his sock drawer is more pressing than working to boost property tax relief to working families, then that says a lot about his disregard for the middle class," Greenwald said in a statement. "Still, I’d be more than happy to come over to help him as long as we can have this conversation."

Greenwald’s plan would give all property owners a tax credit equal to 20 percent of their property taxes. The credit would be applied against their income taxes and relies on establishment of a millionaire’s tax. Greenwald is considering a run for governor.

Christie has called Greenwald’s plan "dead on arrival" because of the millionaire’s tax, and has instead begun talks with Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D-Gloucester), who is calling for a similar, though more modest, property tax credit.

Christie wants to cut income taxes by 10 percent across the board, arguing that everyone deserves tax relief. He also said it would help spur economic development by attracting companies to the state.

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Courier Post Online
May 15, 2012
Associated Press

CAMDEN — Gov. Chris Christie and other New Jersey political leaders are expected to be on hand as ground is broken on a new cancer institute building in Camden Tuesday.

The Cooper Cancer Institute already treats 2,000 new patients a year at scattered offices.

The new building in Camden is designed to bring several specialists and service to a single building.

The groundbreaking will bring together Christie and state Senate President Stephen Sweeney at a time when they are hashing out details of the state budget, including a proposed tax cut.

Cooper's board chairman is George Norcross. The Democratic powerbroker has taken on a central role in several big state policy questions.

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