TRENTON – Senate President Richard J. Codey (D-Essex) today asked the members of New Jersey’s Congressional delegation to consider extending the federal government’s successful “Cash for Clunkers” program to active duty military personnel who were deployed during the duration of the program and unable to take advantage of its benefits.

“This program was incredibly popular, more so than I think anyone ever anticipated,” said Sen. Codey. “So I think it’s only fair that our men and women overseas, the ones who give of themselves day in and day out for their country, should at least be given the opportunity to take advantage of this program when they return.”

Senate Deputy Republican Leader Diane Allen called on Jon Corzine to join the bipartisan chorus urging Congress to delay a vote on a health care reform bill until Washington figures out a way to pay for the plan without shifting costs to the states.

VITALE TESTIMONY TO CONGRESS ON HEALTH CARE REFORM

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Senator Joseph F. Vitale, D-Middlesex, and Chairman of the New Jersey Senate Health, Human Services and Senior Citizens Committee, today testified before the Congressional Energy and Commerce Committee’s Subcommittee on Health regarding national health care reform.

“I am proud of what we have accomplished in New Jersey,” said Senator Vitale. “We have been one of the most progressive states in offering expanded access to hundreds of thousands of children and working parents and we are currently well down the road toward comprehensive and transformational health reform.”

My opponent was gracious  and I wish him success in this next term.  I appreciate the fact that our race never deviated from an honest, respectful competition of ideas and positions on important issues

If Republicans Scott Garrett, Christopher Myers and Leonard Lance win hotly contested House races next week, it is unlikely that Democrats would invest heavily in these traditionally GOP districts again in 2010.  But Democratic victories would make these districts battlegrounds in the 2010 mid-term elections.

If Garrett survives -- Politicker.com's The Pindell Report has the seat as Leans Republican -- he'll have a firm lock on the 5th district seat until at least 2012, when mapmakers draw new congressional districts.  But if blind Rabbi Dennis Shulman upsets Garrett, he'd immediately become one of the nation's most vulnerbale Democratic Congressmen. There is already talk among some Bergen County Republicans that Assemblyman David Russo would enter the race to challenge Shulman in 2010.  Russo sought the seat six years ago when Marge Roukema retired and lost to Garrett 45%-24% after splitting the Bergen GOP vote with State Sen. Gerald Cardinale.

The sub prime mortgage melt down and its ensuing financial “crisis” has tested the mettle of all of us who believe in and support the free market.  As Thomas Payne put it, “These are the times that try mens' souls.”

The Hon. Michael P. Hsing, independent candidate for Congress in the Seventh District of New Jersey, has announced his agenda that makes New Jersey Shine.

While the US Congress continues to do nothing about American energy woes, Constitution Party candidate Peter Boyce (NJ-2) has a solution much better than a tire gauge - the ocean. Boyce's patented Ocean Wave Converting Power Plant/Erosion Reversal System would generate $1.4 billion worth of electricity annually from New Jersey's coast.

The only by-product of extracting energy from the waves is a direct reduction in the rate of beach erosion on New Jersey's shores.

HATFIELD SAYS, ' SHE'S THE BEST'

Urges Congress to Pass His Bill to Protect Consumers from Ruthless Practice