TRENTON – Governor Chris Christie issued an Executive Order June 30, requiring plans for an orderly shutdown of Transportation Trust Fund projects to be prepared by 11:59 p.m. on July 2 and that ongoing TTF work must cease according to those plans.
“Senate Democrats are clearly conflicted over how to appease their public and private-sector union masters, because their union masters also are divided over the bipartisan tax fairness solution that passed the Assembly,” stated Governor Christie in a release. “The Senate’s inaction ignored the benefits the package would bring to the overburdened taxpayers of New Jersey, who would benefit daily from the sales tax cut it would provide and the retirement income tax elimination for 81 percent of senior citizens. The Senate’s inaction also ignored New Jersey’s necessary transportation infrastructure improvements, as well as the hundreds of private-sector workers who came to Trenton today with their jobs hanging in the balance, because the Senate failed to re-authorize this Transportation Trust.”
Executive Order 210, attached, was issued in response to today’s inaction by the Senate on the Assembly Transportation Trust Fund package that would have provided every New Jersey family two broad-based tax cuts that exceed the plan’s proposal for a dedicated gas tax increase.
“As Governor, I am entrusted with the responsibility to protect the health, safety, and welfare of the citizens of this State, as well as the responsibility to aid in the prevention of damage, loss, or destruction of property in the event of emergencies affecting the State. As this executive order states, in order to protect the health, safety, and welfare of the citizens of this State, it is necessary that the remaining amounts held by the TTF not be spent on any transportation project that is not absolutely essential,” Christie added.
