Trenton was all abuzz today with word that Governor Christie and Senator Sweeney would be holding a joint press conference today on an alleged compromise to their competing tax cut plans. As you will remember, Governor Christie seeks a 10 percent income tax cut to all New Jerseyans, while Sweeney wants a 10 percent cut to the property taxes of New Jerseyans in certain income brackets. The plans would both cost roughly $1 billion over the next three years.
According to insiders, the two leaders were set to take the state this afternoon to announce the shape that the final plan would take. Then the story changed.
Literally minutes after hearing about the tax cut plan, we began to get word that the press conference would instead focus on abysmal April tax receipts in Trenton. This would mean that the entire foundation of revenue projections that the tax cuts were based upon were incorrect and could jeopardize the plans entirely.
Then the Governor’s schedule was updated to include the press conference at 3:00PM. NJ.com jumped on the story and ran with the missed projections narrative.
Then at 2:30PM, just a half an hour before the phantom press conference was set to take place, we got this email:
So now the press conference is cancelled. After all the buzz and news we are left wondering why. It appears that the slowly leaking information, especially all of the negative news on revenue projections, may have forced the state house into PR damage control mode.
Keep checking Save Jersey for the latest on your taxes and the press conference that wasn’t, then was, then wasn’t again.
UPDATE: PolitickerNJ is reporting that Senator Sweeney bowed out of the press conference for “health reasons.” No indication of what that means at this time.
