The N.J. GOP’s internal struggles appear to be just beginning, Save Jerseyans.
On Friday, Assemblyman Erik Peterson (R-23), the Assembly Republican Assistant Whip, took sides in the open battle between Governor Chris Christie and Lieutenant Governor Kim Guadagno, coming down decidedly on the rebellious LG’s side.
“I am confident that the lieutenant governor fully understands the consequences of this tax increase and the accompanying ballot question. Which is exactly why she, like several of my colleagues, have vocally opposed this scheme,” Peterson explained in a statement obtained by Save Jersey. “The only person that is enabling ‘future wasteful spending by Democrat legislators’ is the governor himself. He must have misunderstood the voters of Hunterdon, Somerset, and Warren counties when they voted for him, because they didn’t expect more taxes and wasteful spending.
Peterson was responding to the Governor’s office’s suggestion that the Lt. Governor ‘misunderstood’ Ballot Question #2 which she publicly opposed for the first time on a Thursday segment of Bill Spadea’s NJ 101.5 radio program. The Governor’s attack on his number two echoed the simultaneously attack aimed at Guadagno by Democrat legislative leaders.
Spadea had shared his reasons for opposing this fall’s Ballot Question #2 here at Save Jersey the day before the Christie/Guadagno feud went public.
Peterson and Spadea agree that gas tax hikers’ criticism lodged against the LG is, in their opinion, both condescending and baseless.
“The only reason the governor and democratic leadership are pushing the Ballot Question is to enable borrowing against the new tax increases, which will exhaust all of the new revenue in eight short years and require a future tax increase,” Peterson continued.
State Ballot Question #2 is a proposed constitutional amendment designed to dedicate all future gas tax revenues to the Transportation Trust Fund (TTF). Opponents note how the constitutional amendment is tied to the recently passed gas tax package insofar as it authorizes $12 billion in bonding (borrowing) and makes it very difficult for a hypothetical future Republican governor and/or legislature to reverse the damage.
Question #2’s passage is heavily supported not only by Christie and Trenton Democrats but also the building trades unions who worked to achieve the 23-cent gas tax increase’s adoption.
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