NEWS
May 24, 2012 | By Joelle Farrell
TRENTON — The Christie administration backtracked Wednesday on its plan to borrow less in 2013 to pay for transportation infrastructure improvements. It hopes to shift $260 million originally intended for transportation spending into the state's general fund, which would help facilitate Gov. Christie's top priority in the coming fiscal year: implementing a 10 percent income-tax cut. The state would then borrow $260 million to replace that cash in the annual $1.6 billion transportation capital fund, a practice Christie previously criticized, State Treasurer Andrew P. Sidamon-Eristoff said Wednesday.
NEWS
May 23, 2012 | By Joelle Farrell, INQUIRER Trenton Bureau
TRENTON — When the electric company shut off Barbara Offredo's service last spring, she used flashlights to cheer up her 11-year-old son, Joseph, who missed lights, cooked meals, and hot showers. "Pretend we are camping," she told him, knowing it would be eight days before she could pay some of what she owed. Offredo, 51, of Hamilton, choked up telling the story Monday. A full-time hospice nurse and single mother of two, Offredo said she is on the brink of homelessness because rent for her two-bedroom apartment eats up half of her monthly salary.
NEWS
May 15, 2012 | By Jan Ransom, Daily News Staff Writer
COULD commercial and industrial property owners get an unintended tax break under Mayor Nutter's plan to move to a property-tax system based on market values? That's a question City Councilman Bill Green raised Monday during a Council hearing in which he said that an analysis by his office found that commercial and industrial property owners could see a huge decrease in their tax bills this fall under Nutter's proposal. "Commercial and industrial property owners will get a huge, as far as I know, unintended decrease in taxes at the expense of residential property owners," Green said.
NEWS
May 7, 2012 | By Jim Kuhnhenn, Associated Press
WASHINGTON - President Obama said Saturday his goal of defeating al-Qaeda was within reach and that it was time to turn the country's attention to domestic concerns. Just four days after his trip to Afghanistan, Obama said money saved from ending the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan should help pay down the national debt and go to health care, education, and infrastructure. "After more than a decade of war, it is time to focus on nation-building here at home," he said in his weekly radio and Internet address.
NEWS
May 7, 2012 | By Joelle Farrell, Inquirer Staff Writer
One of Gov. Christie's most colorful quotes last week had nothing to with the presidential race, Bruce Springsteen, or the fat jokes hurled at him at last weekend's White House Correspondents' Dinner in Washington. When Christie said Monday that he would rather "rearrange my sock drawer tonight" than debate Assembly Majority Leader Lou Greenwald (D., Camden), he was talking taxes, specifically their differing plans to cut them. Economics and tax experts interviewed for this story differed on the merits of the three tax-cut plans under review in Trenton.
NEWS
May 6, 2012 | By David Espo, Associated Press
COLUMBUS, Ohio - Plunging into his campaign for a new term, President Obama tore into Mitt Romney on Saturday as a willing and eager "rubber stamp" for conservative Republicans in Congress and an agenda to cut taxes for the rich, reduce spending on education and Medicare, and enhance power that big banks and insurers hold over consumers. Romney and his "friends in Congress think the same bad ideas will lead to a different result, or they're just hoping you won't remember what happened the last time you tried it their way," the president told an audience estimated at more than 10,000 partisans at what aides insisted was his first full-fledged political rally of the election year.
NEWS
May 1, 2012 | By Sharon Ward
For too long, big companies have benefited from Pennsylvania lawmakers' refusal to close tax loopholes. They have been free to use aggressive avoidance schemes to shield their income from state taxes and shift the cost of public services to families and other businesses. After close to a billion dollars in cuts to public schools and social services, state lawmakers from both parties are taking another look at this issue. This bipartisan recognition of the problem is welcome. Unfortunately, one proposed cure may be worse than the disease.
NEWS
April 13, 2012 | By Holly Ramer and Brian Bakst, Associated Press
EXETER, N.H. - Eyeing the November election, Vice President Biden on Thursday called presumptive GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney "out of touch" and "out of step" with history and basic American values. Biden also opened a new line of attack, introducing the "Romney rule" and contrasting it with President Obama's push for the "Buffet rule" to force rich people to pay more of their income in taxes. The measure, named after billionaire investor Warren Buffett, says the wealthy should not pay taxes at a lower rate than middle-class wage-earners.
NEWS
March 27, 2012 | By Mark Magyar, NJ SPOTLIGHT
Gov. Christie's treasurer last year chided the nonpartisan Office of Legislative Services for overly optimistic tax estimates. On Tuesday, the OLS gets to return the favor. When the Senate Budget Committee convenes Tuesday, Republican Treasurer Andrew Sidamon-Eristoff, who has been consistently conservative in his revenue estimates for the first two years of the Christie administration, will have to explain why he is projecting the equivalent of an 8.7 percent increase in revenue in the fiscal year that begins June 30 - a robust $2.2 billion New Jersey Comeback that is not only the most optimistic revenue projection in the country, but also twice as large as most other states are expecting.
NEWS
March 14, 2012 | By Andrew Taylor, Associated Press
WASHINGTON - A new estimate from congressional economists says the government will run a $1.2 trillion deficit for the budget year that ends a few weeks before Election Day. It would be the fourth straight year of trillion-dollar-plus deficits. The almost $100 billion spike from earlier projections for the fiscal 2012 deficit comes almost exclusively because Congress passed legislation recommended by President Obama to renew a 2 percentage point cut in payroll taxes and jobless benefits for people unemployed for more than six months.