By Matt Rooney | The Save Jersey Blog
Assemblyman Erik Peterson (R-Hunterdon, Warren and Somerset) is the one legislator, besides Senate President Steve Sweeney, pushing any type of specific action after Tuesday’s landmark Supreme Court pension decision.
“It’s time to get serious about fixing the pension system and the only way to do that is with a special session focusing on this issue,” said Peterson, repeating his call for a special session that he’s made twice before. “This issue can only be resolved by ending the delays and finger pointing. Everyone, including taxpayers and public employees have a vested interest in pension reform.”
Peterson pointed to the recommendations of the bipartisan New Jersey Pension and Health Benefit Study Commission as a jumping off point.
“The Democrats are already talking about increasing taxes,” Peterson continued. “But to tax their way out, they would need to increase the sales tax to 10 percent or increase income taxes by 29 percent. If we hold a special session, we could take a hard look at the budget and decide what can be cut to make up the revenue.”
Sen. Sweeney’s plan (as Asm. Peterson says) is a tax hike. That’s a “plan” only in the broadest sense of the word since we all know it’s a short-term fix at best. But if the Republican caucus thinks it’s going to find and flip 9 Assembly seats this November by simply accusing the Dems of not having a plan, Save Jerseyans, with vague calls to “move forward” devoid of some snappy bullet points providing a strong contrast with the ruling majority, then we might as well skip the election because the end result will have been preordained.
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Voters in Paterson, Trenton, Newark and Camden couldn’t care less what tax rate is, since they don’t pay it anyway. The rest is immaterial.
So common
http://americansforprosperity.org/new-jersey/article/americans-for-prosperity-to-hold-press-conference-on-the-state-house-steps-on-pension-crisis/. I invite all of you to come tomorrow at 1 pm !