To the Editor:

Just before the New Jersey Budget deadline Governor Christie has acknowledged that he cannot balance the budget. His proposal is to break his promise to fund the pensions of state employees as well as teachers, social workers, police, and firefighters. The short term debt is $800,000.

Since 2009, Christie as governor of New Jersey has not recovered at all from the Crash of 2009, when he was elected. And over his term, he has given corporations a total of $3.5 billion in tax cuts or subsidies. None of these gifts have moved the needle on unemployment in New Jersey.

New Jersey is dead last among the 50 states in recovery from the Great Recession.

Now Christie wants to balance the budget on pensions of the retirees like me and current state workers.

Meanwhile, those earning one million dollars a year or more have saved more than $450 billion (not million) due to the expiration of, and Christie’s refusal to sign, the N.J. millionaire tax passed by the legislature.

We need to not only sign the millionaire tax and stop the subsidies to corporations but also to increase the corporate tax. This is the only fair way to balance the budget and fund the potholes, and infrastructure improvements, desperately needed public schools, restore Earned Income Tax Credit, and cuts to the poor enacted by Christie.

Mary Ellen Marino

Retired state employee, New Jersey Chair,

Progressive Democrats of New Jersey, Hornor Lane