O'Scanlon reacts to '25 State of the State: "Outrageous misrepresentations."
The Senate's Republican budget hawk slammed Gov. Murphy's 2025 agenda.
Monmouth County - Reactions have poured in from Governor Murphy’s final State of the State Address, but few, if any, have been as sobering as that of Senate Budget Officer Declan O’Scanlon (R-13).
“The Governor’s State-of-the-State message was filled with…outrageous misrepresentations,” O’Scanlon tweeted.
Gov. Murphy, who will be prioritizing abortion rights, reforming affordable housing, banning cellphones in schools, championing same-day voter registration, and codifying New Jersey's clean energy standard, told New Jerseyans that his administration will “spend every minute we have left fighting for you and your economic future.”
O’Scanlon threw water on the Governor’s agenda, citing untruths about credit upgrades and lamenting the fiscal insanity out of Trenton:
First, our books are not balanced. We have a $4.5 billion structural deficit. We will be in worse shape when he leaves than when he came in. I’ll debate anyone, anywhere, anytime on this front. We followed the ramp up - thank you [former Senator Steve Sweeney] & [Former Governor Chris Christie] - to full pension payments. This Governor deserves little credit for following that law and meeting that obligation. Especially when it’s paid for with non-recurring revenue we wouldn’t have but for Covid. His suggestion that anyone talking about spending less $ and balancing our books is targeting teachers and cops pensions is both false, and offensive. His claim of credit upgrades avoids the fact that NJ still has one of worst credit ratings in the country & credit agency’s warnings about our looming deficit. Our fiscal situation is a house of cards built on a fault line with ember-carrying winds blowing towards it. The next Governor will be handed a mess.
O’Scanlon has credited his republican colleagues for warning of impending fiscal doom on multiple occasions and has gone so far as to include a page on his website dedicated to GOP Budget proposals.
”Republicans have laid out detailed plans every year to begin to right this ship,” said O’Scanlon. “We won’t stop doing our jobs— and telling the truth..”
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