CHRISTIE’S FISCALLY RECKLESS BUDGET IS DISHONEST WITH NEW JERSEY

“You cannot promise all things to all people and call yourself honest”

TRENTON- Senate Budget Chair Barbara Buono and Assembly Budget Chair Louis Greenwald today held a press conference on Republican gubernatorial candidate Chris Christie’s fiscally reckless budget that would make New Jersey’s financial situation dramatically worse. They noted that Christie’s budget is a series of political promises that would blow a $7.4 billion hole in the budget.

Mayor Wilda Diaz, center, with her sisters, Lourdes O'Donnell, left, and Nancy Diaz.

PERTH AMBOY - There were days over the course of her first year in office in which Mayor Wilda Diaz wondered whether she could run Perth Amboy for a full four years.

She began to get a deepening sense that the problems were too entrenched, the solutions too troublesome and, in some cases, too hurtful to the people.  

Her 2008 grassroots take-down of City Hall fixture Mayor/Assemblyman Joe Vas proved to be but the beginning of an ongoing and intensifying drama in which Diaz and her administration uncovered an inherited $10.6 million budget shortfall and helped state and federal authorities pull together a corruption case against Vas.

"On this stage last July I could never have envisioned that we would discover a financial crisis so deep, or a web of tangled deals so wide," Diaz said tonight in her first state of the city address at Perth Amboy High School, where she attended school and graduated.

Once running and now continuing to insist on honest and open government, the new mayor in this first year enacted unpoplar measures to reverse course on a local miasma made doubly injurious on residents here by a national recession. Her policies have included a 26% tax increase, water rate increases, wage freezes and layoffs of municipal employees.

State Sen. Barbara Buono (D-Metuchen)

TRENTON - At a Senate Budget hearing here moments ago, state Sen. Barbara Buono (D-Metuchen) defended the working $28.6 billion budget as a well-prioritized document fashioned in hard times, while state Sen. Anthony Bucco (R-Boonton) denounced it as the worst he's seen in 14 years.

Buono put the work in context, noting California's continuing financial meltdown, by contrast, and what she described as the New Jersey Legislature's pro-active efforts to head off a national economic crisis.  

"We responded with an economic stimulus (earlier this year)," said the Senate Budget chair. "Our plan, the first in the nation, was emulated not just by other states, but by the Obama administration. The fiscal discipline in last year's budget has spared the people of New Jersey even more pain."

Buono laid out the nightmare.

"The budget has $4.8 billion in cuts," she said, 55% achieved through spending cuts and reductions in growth, 26% attributable to federal stiumlus dollars, and the rest attained through tax increases and revenue transfers. 

BUONO-VITALE BILL TO ESTABLISH MEDICAL HOME PROJECT IN NJ ADVANCES

TRENTON – A bill sponsored by Senators Barbara Buono and Joseph F. Vitale which would establish a three-year medical home demonstration project to enhance primary, patient-centered acute care for Medicaid recipients was unanimously approved by the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee today.

“The medical home demonstration project will provide enhanced access to primary care in the most appropriate, cost effective setting,” said Senator Buono, D-Middlesex, and Chairwoman of the Senate Budget Committee. “This comprehensive healthcare planning process includes a partnership between the physician, patient, and the patient’s family. Carefully integrating these elements of patient care will provide improved access to preventive and primary medical services for the uninsured, thereby reducing the number of Emergency Room visits for primary care services and the cost of those visits to the State.”

Gov. Jon Corzine and state Sen. Barbara Buono (D-Metuchen) at today's groundbreaking.

NEW BRUNSWICK - While the national media may fixate on the Obama implications of what happens here on Nov. 4th, Gov. Jon Corzine said the voters ultimately will decide whether or not to re-elect him based on local, New Jersey issues.

Appearing today at a groundbreaking ceremony for a $150 million transit village project, the governor expressed confidence despite a Quinnipiac University poll today showing him ten points behind GOP gubernatorail nominee Chris Christie, 50 to 40%. 

"I think every state has its own issues," said Corzine. "All politics are local and the challenges are local. ...There will be a lot of polls between now and November. The only poll that counts will be on Nov. 4th, and there will be a lot of communication with the voters (between now and then)."

The governor said the narrative of his effort to make $4.4 billion in absolute cuts stands in contrast to what he hears as GOP fulminating as he attempts to fight off Christie in this general election.

"I heard a lot of generalities and non-specific discussions in the Republican Primary about what needed to be done," Corzine said.

Gov. Jon Corzine will make a joint appearance with another potential running mate today, joining State Sen. Barbara Buono (D-Metuchen) at the groundbreakig of the Gateway Transit Village in New Brunswick.  Yesterday, State Sen. Loretta Weinberg (D-Teaneck) accompanied Corzine at a speech to the National Council of Jewish Women's Bergen County chapter.

There is much speculation that State Sens. Barbara Buono (D-Metuchen) and Loretta Weinberg (D-Teaneck) could wind up as Gov. Jon Corzine's running mate, but their home county Democratic chairmen are staying clear of making endorsements in the race for Lt. Governor.

Each recognizes the benefits of fielding the woman from his own territory in the number two spot behind Corzine.

"Any politician with a solid base in Bergen County should be considered," said Bergen County Democratic Organization Chairman Michael Kasparian, scanning his home turf of 497,444 registered voters, including 162,488 registered Democrats and 105,488 registered Republicans, where 10.65% of registered Democrats gave Corzine 87% of their vote last Tuesday.

"You lose Bergen, you lose Trenton," he added.

In Middlesex, where a total 410,185 registered voters includes 160,476 Democrats and 52,464 Republicans and where Corzine received 67% of the vote last Tuesday with 18.04% of registered Democrats voting, Middlesex County Democratic Organization Chairman Joseph Spicuzzo likes the idea of Buono to bolster a ticket with Corzine.

"I know she's on the short list," Spicuzzo said. "I don't know whether the governor has committed to her, but it would be a feather in the county's cap to have a lieutenant governor. Of course, it's the governor's choice, but Barbara is a very committed woman who brings a lot of savvy to state government."

SENATOR BUONO TO ADDRESS THE 8th ANNUAL “MICHELLE OFFSIE MEMORIAL WALK FOR HOPE” FOR BREAST CANCER  EDISON – On Sunday, June 7th, Senator Barbara Buono (D-Middlesex) will run in the 4 mile, 8th annual “Michelle Offsie Walk for Hope” breast cancer event.   She has been asked to address the participants immediately prior to the start of the walk/run beginning 8:45 a.m. at the JCC/YMCA Community Campus, located at 1775 Oaktree Road, Edison.Walk for Hope is part of a national breast cancer walk initiative that raises millions of dollars in support of breast cancer research, treatment and education programs.  Janna Zuckerman, a 19-year-old Edison resident, initiated the walk 8 years ago in honor of Michele Offsie, a close family friend, who died from the disease at the age of 46. 

State Sen. Barbara Buono (D-Metuchen), right, with daughter Ally and Today Show star Al Roker, who also spoke at the conferencce.

PISCATAWAY - Hours after Chris Christie gave a chest-thumping speech at the Marriott, unabashedly attitudinal in its North Jersey phrasing, someone else addressed another crowd and likewise leaned heavily on a never-back-down Jersey narrative.

State Sen. Barbara Buono (D-Metuchen), chair of the Senate Budget Committee, this morning addressed an audience at the New Jersey Women in Law Enforcement's annual training conference at Rutgers University.

"In politics, you must be very clear about what you want, otherwise people assume you lack ambition," Buono told the mostly female audience who had for the most part foregone dress blues for street clothes, and among whom sat one of Buono's daughters,in training to be a detective.

"Don't believe it when they say the deal is done, understand that this is an opinion, or a self-serving psyche-factor designed to make you step back from what you want," the senator added. "Never give up if you really want it."

Celebrating the passage of women from an era in which she grew up accepting the Tom Boy moniker without question, to the present when her own daughters are recognized as athletes, Buono intoned the words from her daughrer's field hockey team, "Never give up, never give up, never give up." 

Gov. Jon Corzine's surprisingly weak showing among Democratic primary voters in Middlesex County, where 33% of Democrats voted for someone else, could be a blessing for Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Barbara Buono (D-Metuchen), who wants a place on the statewide ticket as a candidate for Lt. Governor.