Leonard Lance – Not the Fiscal Conservative He Claims to Be.

Lance has Proven Record of Voting for Wasteful “Christmas Tree” Spending.
Typical politician, says one thing to taxpayers, does the opposite in Trenton.

 (Peapack, NJ)… Today, Fiscal Conservative Kate Whitman released this statement:  “In his bid for Congress, Leonard Lance claims to be a fiscal conservative because he voted against the last 6 Democrat budgets.  What Lance doesn’t tell you is that he voted for all the Republican budgets before that, which included hundreds of millions of dollars in wasteful “Christmas Tree” spending (Source:  NJ State Budgets). 

 Wasteful spending in New Jersey is called “Christmas Tree” items.  On the federal level they are called ‘Earmarks’.  Either name, they waste taxpayers’ monies.  In just the last two federal budgets, wasteful “earmarks” totaled over $ 34 Billion dollars, yet still Leonard Lance refuses to sign the ‘Earmark Reform Pledge.’

 Lance’s state government record documents:

 Lance voted for over $ 467 million in Christmas tree items, some of which went to help places where he serves on the boards (Source:  NJ State Budgets 1992-2001):  including $ 500,000 in state monies paid for an athletic center for a private school in Warren County were Lance serves on the board (Source:  The Star Ledger, 6-23-01); and Lance voted for a new tax to restore $ 16 million in arts funding cuts.  Lance serves as a Trustee to the Newark Museum. (Source:  The Star-Ledger, 1-2-05)

 The June 2001 Republican budget, which Lance voted for, included 688 ‘Christmas tree’ items worth $ 150 million.  (Source:  Star-Ledger, 7-2-05) At that time, Lance was the then Assembly Budget Committee Chairman for Republicans, and he failed to stop this wasteful spending.

 In 2000, Lance voted to increase his own taxpayer paid for salary by 40%.  (Source:  S2297, 1-10-00) One year later, in 2001, Lance voted to raise his own pension by 9%. (Source:  S2450, 6-28-01)

 September 18th, 2007, politicsnj.com names State Senator Leonard Lance ‘among the weakest Senate Minority Leaders in decades.

(continued)

 November, 2007, unable to effectively lead, Lance was removed as Minority Leader by fellow Republicans.

 Lance recently sent out a news release attacking Governor Corzine for pushing to borrow $2.5 billion without voter approval. The funny thing is, Lance's own debt legislation, SCR-39, includes the loophole, which permits the borrowing he is now attacking.  Two months ago, Assembly members Marcia Karrow and Mike Doherty, Leonard Lance's running mates in the Assembly, introduced a resolution in the Assembly to close Lance's debt loophole with ACR-168.[1]

 May 19th, 2008, Lance voted to spend $ 68 million that doesn't exist on a government program the Asbury Park Press says is ‘plagued by lax oversight (Source:  S1557).   State audits found the program paid over $ 43 million in two years to participants without even knowing if they qualified.

 Under Lance’s watch, government salaries increased 1266%, state spending skyrocketed 103% and property taxes soared 103%.  (Source:  2007 Issue Book, August 2007, by Assembly and Senate Republican Staffs)

 All this, and still Leonard Lance refuses to sign the Earmark Reform Pledge to eliminate wasteful spending in Congress.

 Lance claims New Jersey has a borrowing problem (Source:  The Westfield candidate interview, 5-8-08, goleader.com).  Maybe that’s to hide his spending problem.   Because everyone knows you only need to borrow to cover your spending.

 After 17 years in state government, Leonard Lance has failed to reform property taxes and failed the taxpayers of New Jersey.

 Now after 6 months of campaigning for Congress, Leonard Lance never offered a legislative plan, never offered a way to eliminate wasteful spending and still refuses to sign the ‘Earmark Reform Pledge.’”

 In a clear contrast, Fiscal Conservative Kate Whitman has the ‘Earmark Reform Pledge’, the ‘Taxpayer Protection Pledge’ and offered up her ‘6 Point Plan’ to stop business as usual in Washington and put taxpayers first.

 Kate has identified over a dozen ways to cut wasteful spending including:
1) end duplicative government programs
2) enact a 10% pay cut for members of Congress – lead by example
3) cut the congressional operating budget by 10%
4) enact 10% across the board budget cuts for all federal bureaucracies
5) support the Balanced Budget amendment
6) support the Line Item Veto for President
7) eliminate fraud and abuse in government spending including: $ 60 billion lost annually because of Medicare Fraud
8) $ 100 million lost on unused government airline tickets from 1997-2003
9) $ 5.8 million lost in credit card abuse by USDA employees over a 6 month period
10) $ 8.5 - $ 9.9 billion income tax fraud in earned income credit line alone
11) $ 7 billion was lost to uncollected debt
12) $ 21.8 billion lost through Student loan fraud
13)  $ 1.9 billion wasted in government overpayment of 24 drug

 Plain and simple, when Kate Whitman is in Congress she will demand 100% accountability and transparency in government spending.

 The contrast is clear:  Leonard Lance refuses to sign the “Earmark Reform Pledge” and has a proven record of wasteful spending on “Christmas Tree” items.  While Kate Whitman has signed the “Earmark Reform Pledge” and has identified numerous ways to cut wasteful spending.

 For more information, please visit www.kateforcongress.com

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                   Paid for by Kate Whitman for Congress.