Christie is a failure; there is no ‘New Jersey comeback’

From Senator Barbara Buono – Politico

republished by Paddy Ryan

Here is the reality:

Christie has failed to deliver

New Jersey ranked 47th in economic growth in 2010 and 2011, and our economy shrink by 0.5 percent last year. There are 175,000 fewer jobs in New Jersey today than in December 2007, before the recession started. New Jersey lost 12,000 jobs in July alone, the highest job loss of any state in the nation.

Meanwhile, property taxes for the average New Jersey family were at a 20 percent net increase during his first two years in office, up from $6,244 to $7,519.
To be fair, Christie, like President Barack Obama and all the governors elected from 2008 to 2010, inherited an economy crippled by the Great Recession.

The question to ask however, is: What has Christie done as governor to fix it? And are his policies a model for “America’s Comeback Team,” as the presumed GOP nominee Mitt

Romney seems to think? Or a prescription to avoid?

On taking office, Christie cut state aid for education by $1.1 billion, slashed property tax relief for senior citizens and cut government worker pensions — breaking campaign promises in all three cases, as The Star-Ledger, the state’s largest newspaper, recently reported.

In addition, Christie’s personal and political ideology has cost New Jersey billions of dollars in federal aid for education, transportation and women’s health funding.