Christie's Bargaining Chip: The Working Poor

Home Posted July 2, 2012 - 12:35pm

Chris Christie, your values are showing ...
- promoted by Rosi

The Star Ledger had an editorial over the weekend looking at Christie's war on the working poor and examining how they are just a bargaining chip for Governor millionaire:

Across the board, he took special aim at them. He grabbed money set aside for low-income housing. He took money earmarked to help families fighting off foreclosure. He killed a very modest plan to provide legal help for poor people facing eviction, domestic violence and divorce.
And in the most offensive move of all, he took $50 million that Democrats had set aside to restore the Earned Income Tax Credit, a program that Ronald Reagan and Christie Whitman both embraced because it helped only working families who played by the rules.
All this came a few months after the governor told us we could afford a big tax cut aimed primarily at the wealthy.

But the Ledger reminds us this isn't something new for Christie:

See why, below the fold.

From the beginning, this governor has been remarkably callous toward these families. It is a blind spot. It's as if he doesn't realize that one in three children in this state lives in a household earning less than $44,000, often much less. They do not have enough to cover the basics in a high-cost state like New Jersey.
The governor makes much of the fact that he will never sign a tax increase. But in effect, scaling back this credit is a tax hike. It reduces the take-home pay of these families.

They say he doesn't realize, but it might be more like he doesn't really care. And this fact about the tax hike should be included every time Christie goes out and says he's not raising taxes, but unfortunately it won't be. Looking at the Record, we see by this headline about who really benefits from this budget at the expense of the working poor: