MORRIS COUNTY -Assemblyman Anthony M. Bucco, the Republican conference leader, questioned the Democrats’ ability to reach a budget deal after abruptly cancelling today’s legislative voting sessions and heated negotiations.
“This just goes to show how bad things have deteriorated between the Democrats in Trenton,” said Bucco (R-Morris). “They’ve brought this state to the brink of collapsing under their tax and spend policies, and now they can’t agree on anything. Both sides continue to fight over which taxes to raise, which will just end up making New Jersey more unaffordable. The solution to the budget is simple and clear. If we just enacted certain reforms to the state’s pension and health benefits as proposed by a bipartisan panel of experts, the state would save over four-billion dollars. The Democrats simply can’t be trusted any longer with the state’s purse strings.”
A bipartisan commission tasked with finding ways to reform pension and health benefits without sacrificing them found in 2016 that their recommendations would have saved $2.23 billion in state health benefit costs and another $2 billion in pension costs that year. These reforms haven’t been discussed by Democrats during budget negotiations.
The Assembly canceled a scheduled Thursday voting session and the Senate canceled sessions for Thursday and Friday.
