What Governor Christie Will Not Talk About Today

Governor Christie is spending four hours this morning talking sports, avoiding any and all talk of his abysmal economic record. Here is what Governor Christie will not be talking about: 400,000 New Jerseyans are currently out of work. In July alone, New Jersey lost nearly 12,000 jobs. New Jersey has the highest unemployment rate in the region -- at 8.6% -- which is more than a point higher than the national average, 7.4%.  New Jersey has recovered only half of the jobs it lost during the Great Recession. Under Governor Christie, New Jersey ranks 45th in job creation. Property taxes have risen by 20 percent over the past three years. The middle class in New Jersey has shrunk by nearly 3% under Governor Christie.

CWA RELEASES TV COMMERCIAL: Tell Governor Christie To Stop His Lottery Privatization Scheme

Could Cost 7K NJ Jobs & Ship Profits Overseas to Foreign Corporations

(TRENTON, NJ) – Today, the Communications Workers of America (CWA) launched a six-figure ad campaign to educate New Jersey residents about Governor Chris Christie’s short-sighted scheme to privatize the state lottery. The television commercial will run as a statewide cable buy for the next few weeks. You can view the :30 second spot – entitled “Bad” below.

“Even though New Jersey has an efficient, award-winning lottery, Governor Christie is stubbornly seeking to privatize it. This is a big gamble in terms of both job loss and our state’s economy,” said Seth Hahn, Legislative and Political Director for CWA NJ. “With one in ten New Jerseyans already out-of-work, lottery privatization is a bad deal which would make foreign corporations rich while making things worse for taxpayers and small businesses.”

Only a single bid to run sales and marketing functions of the state lottery was submitted on December 27, 2012, and it was by a partnership consisting of three groups. One is Italian-owned, one is Canadian, and the other is from New York. The Christie administration estimates that $1 billion or more could go to the company over the life of the contract - meaning New Jersey dollars will be sent out-of-state and overseas.

To increase sales, the playing field will be tilted away from Main Street and small businesses and towards big boxes and chain stores. In fact, the Asian American Retailers Association (AARA) estimates the privatization scheme could result in 7,000 New Jersey jobs lost. AARA estimates local lottery vendors will lose a third of sales in the first year alone. Moreover, they’ll lose secondary sales that come with the purchase of lottery tickets - such as newspapers, coffee and other daily-purchased items. In other words, a politically-connected foreign corporation would rake in profits, while New Jersey’s local businesses would lose both revenue and jobs.

“Rather than stripping customers away from small businesses at a time when our state has the nation’s fourth worst unemployment, the governor should be working to make the lottery even stronger with dedicated public employees,” said Hahn. “We’re willing to roll up our sleeves and get this done if Governor Christie is, too.”

As part of the push to privatize, Governor Christie commissioned a study that showed how New Jersey’s award-winning lottery was one of the nation’s best-run public lotteries. The study found that our lottery had the highest net income margin in the country – making New Jersey America’s most efficient lottery. It ranks 5th in per capita sales, while online, instant and total sales growth have all far exceeded the national average. Nonetheless, Christie is still making the shocking decision to turn sales and marketing functions over to a foreign private company. Even worse, despite a 42% growth in sales from 2000-2010, this politically-connected firm will get a cut of profits if it increases sales a mere 9% over the next 15 years. The arrangement will also put taxpayers on the hook if the State wants out of the bad deal.

Just as the Christie administration has ducked questions on Ash Britt and Superstorm Sandy clean-up contracts, it has also refused to answer questions about plans for the lottery. In Pennsylvania, Republican Governor Tom Corbett was up-front regarding how their new lottery would function, and what, if any regulations would be changed to accommodate the new vendor. However, the Christie administration has repeatedly refused to answer basic questions, even rejecting invitations from the Assembly Budget Committee on two occasions. These rebuffs led the New Jersey State Assembly to seek subpoena power over executive branch officials on issues with significant budget impacts.

Today, the New Jersey Senate’s State Government Committee is discussing two pieces of legislation on the matter in Trenton. One bill requires legislative approval for private operation of the state lottery. The second is a resolution calling on Governor Christie to seek legal counsel from the Department of Justice before awarding the contract.

For more information on lottery privatization and efforts to stop it, please visit www.BigGambleNJ.com

BUONO ISSUES STATEMENT ON NEW JERSEY JOB LOSS, URGES GOVERNOR TO RECONSIDER VETO

For Immediate Release:
4/20/12

EDISON - N.J. Senator Barbara Buono (D-Middlesex) issued a statement in response to the New Jersey Department of Labor’s employment report for March 2012. The report shows the private sector lost 11,600 jobs with an overall loss of 8,600 jobs across the state.

“The jobs report from NJDOL underscores how fragile New Jersey’s economic recovery is.  Unemployment remained stalled at 9.0 percent for March, still higher than the national average and the highest in the region.  Now an additional 11,600 private sector jobs are off the books.   These recent job losses represent opportunities lost for our unemployed residents,” Buono said.

 “We must work together to create opportunities for job growth instead of seeing the governor veto and in the process, ridicule jobs bills passed at the end of the legislative session by referring to them as a “pile of crap”.

“This slackening of job creation in the private sector should serve as a clarion call to the governor to hold his fire before vetoing bills and refrain from deriding the Legislature’s credible initiatives to lift job growth and grow the economy.

Given the recent precipitous job loss in the private sector I urge the governor to reconsider his vetoes of the Legislature’s jobs creation package when these bills reach his desk again this legislative session.”

U.S. Jobless Rate Soared in January and Payrolls Kept Plunging

Shobhana Chandra
Bloomberg

Millions more U.S. workers are likely to lose their jobs after the economy’s freefall sent unemployment in January to the highest level since 1992 and payrolls tumbled, reinforcing the need for an economic stimulus plan.

The jobless rate rose to 7.6 percent from 7.2 percent in December, the Labor Department reported yesterday in Washington. Payrolls fell by 598,000, the biggest monthly drop since December 1974. Losses spanned almost all industries, from construction and manufacturing to retailing, trucking, media and finance.

“The scary thing is there is really no end in sight to the soaring jobless rate,” said Chris Rupkey, chief financial economist at Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ Ltd. in New York. “It’s difficult to see what’s going to turn the situation around. This is the sort of catalyst that could get Congress to move” to agreeing on a compromise plan.

President Barack Obama, who predicted a “dismal” report, is pushing for a stimulus plan to revive the economy and create jobs, and is expected to announce a new effort to shore up credit markets. The rate of the job market’s decline means it’s unlikely government efforts will halt a collapse in consumer spending until the second half of the year, economists said.

Read more >>>Here

President Obama's Weekly Address: 1/31/09

In his weekly address, President Barack Obama announced that Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner is preparing a new strategy for reviving our financial system, and urged the swift passage of an American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan.

Americans unemployed + those losing work hours = record 12.5 percent

Yesterday the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that the nation’s economy lost 533,000 jobs last month, one of the worst jobs reports ever. With that, the unemployment rate rose to 6.7 percent. But the actual percentage of Americans who have lost hours and are out of work is much higher:

More significantly, the unemployment rate does not include those too discouraged to look for work any longer or those working fewer hours than they would like. Add those people to the roster of the unemployed, and the rate hit a record 12.5 percent in November, up 1.5 percentage points since September.

Think Progress -

HOLT STATEMENT ON DRAMATIC JOB LOSS REPORT

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 5, 2008

(Washington, D.C.) – U.S. Rep. Rush Holt (NJ-12), today issued the following statement on the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics report that 533,000 jobs were lost in November and the unemployment rate rose to 6.7 percent, the highest number of job losses since 1974.

“Today’s U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics report – documenting the most jobs lost in a single month since 1974 - is further indication of the great challenge our nation faces to get our economy back on track. Job number one must be to create new jobs.

As President-Elect Obama and Congress work on an economic stimulus plan, I strongly believe we must bolster research and development, something we have underinvested in for years. Companies have failed to do it sufficiently and so has the government. To get the economy on the way to sustained recovery will require more innovation – in other words, more R&D.”