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Tag: Steve Sweeney

LD3 GOP Slate Decided

Mar. 03 Celeste Riley, Election 2013, John Burzichelli, State Assembly, State Senate, Steve Sweeney 6 comments

Trunk, Wallace and Vanderslice Expected to Take on Steve Sweeney in Bid to Turn His District Republican Red

By Matt Rooney | The Save Jersey Blog

LD3We’ve had indepenent confirmation from a very reliable source that the Republican ticket in New Jersey’s 3rd legislative district is ready to roll, Save Jerseyans. All that remains is for an announcement date to be set.

A local blog, Salem County Watchdog, has also apparently been following this story closely and its information seems to comport with our own.

Attorney Niki Trunk is reportedly prepared take on Senate President Steve Sweeney; she is the former deputy mayor of Harrison Township and, until very recently, worked in New Jersey’s Office of the State Comptroller for the Medicaid Fraud Division. She has a MBA and law degree both from Temple University.

Trunk’s entry is no surprise and has been the topic of rumors for weeks; the more recent news is down ballot where apparently Gloucester County Freeholder Larry Wallace and Salem County Freeholder Bob Vanderslice are expected to run for the two Assembly seats current respectively occupied by Asm. John Burzichelli and Asw. Celeste Riley.

CONTINUE READING….

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Prepare for the Attempted Romnification of Chris Christie

Nov. 13 Chris Christie, Cory Booker, Election 2013, Steve Sweeney 88 comments

Newark Mayor Cory Booker (D): one of Governor Chris Christie's potential 2013 Democrat challengers.

It won’t be easy, Save Jerseyans. Chris Christie boasts a much more “relatable personality” than Mitt Romney. That’s what the pollsters tell us.

But New Jersey Democrats are desperate. They haven’t been able to land a serious political punch in three years. So they know there’s only one way to take down New Jersey’s celebrity governor in 2013:

shock and smear.

Jon “MF’n Global” Corzine’s anti-Christie smear campaign — which I eloquently dubbed the “boobs, bullets and b******t” strategy — didn’t work in 2009 precisely because Chris Christie is so relatable. Remember those horrendous “Christie hates mammograms” ads? Unfortunately for Corzine, Christie didn’t look or sound like a boogeyman who wants to steal your sister’s birth control and let your nutty neighbor purchase a personal tank. It was “the economy, stupid,” and Corzine came up short. The cold, remote, wonkish Corzine couldn’t convince voters that he cared about them; Romney suffered a similar fate for not-all-too-different reasons.

Would Corzine’s approach work better in 2013 if the Democrat candidate was more relatable? Someone who didn’t consider sweater vests a legitimate fashion choice?

CONTINUE READING….

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Encourage, Not Discourage Volunteers

Oct. 30 Chris Christie, Consolidation, Property Taxes, Spending, Steve Sweeney 10 comments

Last week the State Senate passed bill S-1650 along party lines to redesign New Jerseys’ EMS, sending it to the Assembly for consideration.

Taking a hard, honest look at this legislation is important particularly with Hurricane Sandy bearing down on New Jersey.

At first I didn’t think much of the bill at all, but then I realized it was sponsored by Senate President Steve Sweeney so there had to be more to it. And guess what, Save Jerseyans? Sweeney, the king of advocating service consolidation at the county level, wants to effectively replace local volunteers with paid services.

The New Jersey State First Aid Council (NJSFAC) issued the following statement:

The New Jersey State First Aid Council is deeply concerned that the changes proposed in S-1650 / A-2463 will result in a decline in the number of volunteers in EMS services throughout the state, and an explosive financial burden to municipalities. This could be avoided by addressing recruitment and retention issues and creating a process to coordinate a blended system of paid and volunteer first aid and rescue. Not only will it effect the day-to-day operations of local EMS agencies, it will also have a significant negative effect on disaster readiness and response if the number of volunteer squads is significantly reduced.”

CONTINUE READING….

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A Realistic View of What Sweeney’s Minimum Wage Hike Would Do to NJ Businesses

Oct. 05 Economics, Minimum Wage 53 comments

Folks, you’ve read on Save Jersey about Steve Sweeney’s plan to put a minimum wage into the constitution. You’ve heard from Matt Rooney why its a bad idea. Earlier in the year, when Sheila Oliver tried to raise it, you heard from me why it was a bad idea.

It’s still a bad idea now.

That’s why since 2010 New Jersey’s very own, super-duper committee on the minimum wage has recommended against raising it. But Democrats won’t listen. It hurts businesses, it hurts workers, it hurts customers.

Now, I could throw studies and economics at you to show why this conclusion has been arrived at three separate reports in a row. But I find putting things in everyday terms, to which we can all relate, is a much more effective approach.

Let’s look at things in terms of your local South Jersey Wawa (sorry, North Jerseyans. This is my analogy).

When I grabbed lunch there yesterday, there were 6 people working, which is typical for any Wawa at any given time of day. Let’s assume each of those employees earns $7.25: the current state minimum wage. Now, hours of operation for each Wawa location vary, so let’s assume our “generic” Wawa location is open 16 hours per day (some are 24/7, others aren’t), with 2 shifts of 6 people working 8 hours per shift. So you can expect to see an average of 12 people working 8 hours each at Wawa. So when you do the math, Save Jerseyans, 12 people making $7.25 (plus 17.5% payroll taxes) for 8 hours results in our generic Wawa’s total labor cost for one day totaling $817.80.

Now raise that rate to $8.25 an hour…

Total cost of labor for a a day is now $930.60, a difference of $112.80. So they lose that much in profit For one day. Extrapolate that out to a 360-day year, and it costs just that one Wawa location $40,608 more in labor. Again, all for just that single location.

CONTINUE READING….

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Meanwhile… Back in New Jersey…

Sep. 04 Big Labor, South Jersey, State Senate, Steve Sweeney 66 comments

Did you happen to catch excerpts from Steve Sweeney’s Labor Day Weekend speech to the South Jersey AFL-CIO.

He’s in North Carolina this week for the DNC. Check out what he said last week back at home (h/t NJ.com):

Addressing more than 400 union officials at Friday’s Southern New Jersey AFL-CIO Labor Day breakfast, Sweeney urged the crowd to “punish our enemies” in the upcoming general election.

“We have an election coming in November, and we have a person running [for the Republican Party] that doesn’t dislike us — he hates us,” said Sweeney. “I know this Labor Day you’re all going to be thinking about the long weekend, but the most important thing is to protect ourselves.

“Every single protection that unions have fought for and won — the 40-hour work week, prevailing wage and child labor laws — the national GOP, the Teabaggers, they are trying to wipe us out.”

Yup, this guy is interested in “higher” office!

Never think it can’t get worse, Save Jerseyans. Even in a state already represented at the federal level by Frank Lautenberg and Bob Menendez.

 

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Sweeney Defends Handling of Jessica’s Law on the O’Reilly Factor (VIDEO)

Aug. 03 Steve Sweeney 28 comments

In case you’ve missed it back on July 26th, Save Jerseyans, Fox News host Bill O’Reilly went after New Jersey’s Senate President Steve Sweeney hammer-and-tong on national television.

Bill’s beef was Senator Sweeney’s perceived “cowardly” refusal to move the “Jessica Lunsford Act” through the New Jersey State Senate. Jessica’s Law is already on the books in most U.S. jurisdictions; among other anti-sex offender provisions, the law imposes a mandatory 25 year-to-life prison term for aggravated sexual assault against a child under age 13.

The ambitious Sweeney must’ve recognized the opportunity which O’Reilly served up on a silver platter and voluntarily ventured into the dreaded “no-spin zone” this Wednesday evening to answer for himself. To summarize (watch the video below the fold for a full recap, or click here to read the transcript), Senator Sweeney pleaded ignorance regarding the bill’s seemingly endless slog through his chamber, pointing out that he didn’t run the Senate when the bill was first introduced in 2005. He also claimed to be the bill’s sponsor and pledged to ensure its speedy passage.

The most important thing is that the bill is finally advancing (or so he says), but much of what we do here at Save Jersey is keeping elected officials honest! So let’s set the record straight…

CONTINUE READING….

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Shared Services: Take it or Get Hit With a Stick

Jul. 11 Big Government, Property Taxes, Taxes 9 comments

Analyzing municipal services, determining how to make them more efficient and then lowering property taxes is a great thing.

The end result of an analysis might be not changing a thing, that the service should be privatized, that it might need to use part-time employees, or it might mean sharing services. Sharing services is a broad term that can include sharing employees and/or capital assets.

All of these choices, though, have associated costs, i.e. property taxes.

And each of these choices along with the cost provide a value to taxpayers.

CONTINUE READING….

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Obama Channels Sweeney to Deflect from Economy

May. 10 Barack Obama, Gay Marriage, State Senate, Steve Sweeney 16 comments

Obama made big money yesterday by “evolving,” conveniently just hours after swing-state North Carolina voted to ban gay marriage.

I don’t think ANYONE doubts the purely political motives behind this move, Save Jerseyans. There are only three camps in America this morning: (1) voters who know and hate it, (2) voters who know and love it, and (3) Democrats politicians who desperately need to embrace a distraction.

You can count State President Steve Sweeney (D-NJ) in category #3; yesterday, he issued an objectively over-the-top statement yesterday slamming North Carolina:

In light of the absolutely shameful action we saw in North Carolina yesterday, it is good to know that public support for marriage equality continues to rise. Setbacks, no matter how big or small, will not deter what we all know is destined to become a reality. It is time the opponents of fairness and equality, Governor Christie among them, realize they are on the wrong side of history.”

Well, he’s certainly called Christie worse!

Of course, Senator Sweeney is “absolutely shameful” by his very own standard. He infamously flip-flopped on gay marriage in New Jersey, admitting that his initial no-vote “was purely based on political calculation.” Now he’s in good company with his equally morally untethered president!

But Obama and Sweeney’s “pure political calculations” aren’t pure political cowardice, Save Jerseyans. It’s partly about fundraising as discussed above. It’s also a transparent liberal strategy to do something for which they’ve previously lambasted Republicans: raising “social issues” to unite the Democrat base and distract from the economic realities working against incumbents in 2012.

Think on it for a moment: as of late, we’ve seen much more passion out of Obama on the state-centric Trayvon Martin case (a.k.a none of his business), the year-old OBL story (a singular and now over-played instance of positive decisionmaking), and this instant gay marriage controversy than the plight of millions of indefinitely under- and straight-up unemployment Americans. And why is that? Because the President knows his economic policies have failed miserably! So he’d rather discuss something else. Something which, conveniently, his underperforming contributor core feel strongly about.

So the next time your obnoxious liberal friend complains about the alleged Republican/conservative “obsession with social issues,” Save Jerseyans, remind them that it’s DEMOCRAT pols like Obama and Sweeney who keep bringing it up to score political points and cover their own tracks!

 

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