BUONO: ARC TUNNEL REPORT SHOWS CHRISTIE’S PATTERN OF DECEPTION

For Immediate Release:
4/10/12

State Sen. Barbara Buono (D-Middlesex) issued the following statement today regarding the GOA Report regarding the ARC Tunnel cancellation.

“When Gov. Christie shot down the ARC tunnel, he sacrificed jobs, transit improvements, and $3 billion in federal funds. That was bad enough, but now we learn that he was misleading the public regarding the facts of the project.

“We’ve seen this pattern of behavior by the Christie Administration previously when they misrepresented the facts surrounding the $400 million in Race To The Top federal education funding that his administration failed to secure.

“Recently, the governor and his press secretary gave incompatible answers on whether Christie is pushing legislation bought and paid for by right-wing industrialists.

“The governor has created a pattern of sacrificing truth at the altar of his political ambition. This latest revelation – that he misstated facts to kill the largest public transit project in the nation – may be the most egregious and damaging.

“He said at the time, ‘I don't want to hear about the jobs it will create.’ Now, he owes an apology to the workers in the unemployment lines who would have benefitted from 6,000 construction jobs and 40,000 permanent jobs that were tied to the ARC project.”

President Obama's Weekly Address 2/19/11: To Win the Future, America Must Win the Global Competition in Education

WASHINGTON – In this week’s address, President Obama said that the United States needs the best trained and best skilled workforce in the world to win the global competition for new jobs and industries. Over the next ten years, nearly half of all new jobs will require education beyond high school. This is why his administration has made education a top priority, enacting reforms like “Race to the Top,” working to make college more affordable, revitalizing community colleges, and launching a nationwide initiative to connect graduates to the businesses that need their skills.

In Case You Missed It: N.J. officials did not provide missing numbers during Race to the Top presentation, video shows

In cased you missed it, the U.S. Department of Education released a video yesterday of New Jersey’s Race to the Top presentation that was held earlier this month in Washington, D.C.

It clearly show that New Jersey's delegation was ill prepared and did not respond to questions that were asked of them in the correct fashion even after being given multiple opportunities to do so, which appears to contradict what Gov. Christie had been saying by blaming the Obama Administration for not calling him when they noticed a problem with the application.

The following video was posted at the Newark Star-Ledgers website last night:

Excerpt of N.J.'s Race to the Top interview shows officials with no budget answer

Hardball's Unbelievable Big Number: Clerical Error Costs NJ

How much loot did the Garden State miss out on because of they submitted the wrong budgetary numbers? Hardball's Chris Matthews told eveyone on tonight's edition of Hardball just how much - $400 Million!

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

N.J. loses bid for federal Race to the Top money

Nice job the Governor did in helping to secure "Race to the Top" grant, if he tried any harder we may have come in 12th or 13th. What a shame!!

BY LESLIE BRODY
THE RECORD


New Jersey lost its bid Tuesday for $400 million in federal Race to the Top grants for school reform — by a nose.

Judges ranked New Jersey number 11 but only the top 10 contestants got money. Its score of 437.8 out of 500 fell only three points short of Ohio’s winning plan.

Public finger-pointing began immediately as the New Jersey Education Association, the state’s largest teacher’s union, blamed the loss on Governor Chris Christie’s last-minute rejection of the grant proposal negotiated by his education commissioner and union representatives.

Christie’s “irrational, ideological hatred of NJEA — which led him to throw his own commissioner of education under the school bus for cooperating, rather than conflicting, with NJEA — has led to utter failure, and the loss of desperately needed funds for our public schools,” union president Barbara Keshishian blasted to members online.

Christie spokeswoman Maria Comella countered that “if it’s a choice between choosing the children of New Jersey and capitulating to the status quo the governor will choose the children’s education every time.”

She also noted that an area where New Jersey’s score jumped 23 points since its failed first-round bid was the section on creating “great teachers and leaders.” That part included several of the key proposals the NJEA protested, such as individual merit pay and undercutting seniority rules by retaining the most effective teachers when budget cuts require layoffs....

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