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Welcome back to Power and Politics. I'm Eric Llanz Kronner. We're continuing our conversation with the gubernatorial candidates right now. I'd like to welcome back to the studio Republican candidate Jack Cttarelli. Jack, it's good to see you as always. Great to be back, Eric. Thank you. All right, so listen, uh, you've been keeping track of the polls. I don't know how much faith you put in the polls, but right now they're showing single digits. Most of them are showing about 6 or 7 points separating you. And Congresswoman Mikey Sherrill, so you, you, you're a little bit behind in the polls, but then when you factor in all the independents and the undecideds in particular here, uh, I mean it could be a nail biter. So how are you approaching these last two months? Well, first, let's talk about the poll. That's the same poll that said that Kamala Harris was gonna win New Jersey. 20 plus points, uh, we think that Republicans and men in particular are very much underrepresented in that poll as I go around the state of New Jersey, Eric, I only have to compare this to 2021 when I really thought we were gonna win this time. The energy is electric. People have had it. They want change and electric bills just layer example of what has them so angry. Yeah, we're gonna kind of focus in on the electric bills in a few moments. Uh, let's talk about your game plan these these last couple months. Congresswoman Sheryl, who is also in the show. Joined us right before the commercial break, uh, she wants to paint you in the same light as much as she can as President Trump and as beholden to President Trump. How do you navigate that as it pertains to you, to what you want to do for New Jersey to your policy real easily. I just keep asking people rhetorically what does President Trump have to do with our property taxes? What does he have to do with our electric bills? What does he have to do with all the overdevelopment in our rural communities? What he has to do with the failure of our public school system? We just slipped from 2 to 12 on national report card. Nonviolent crime is through the roof, break-ins, car thefts, flash mobs on the Jersey shore. Why? Because of film. Murphy's policies along with his attorney general who she supports. President Trump has nothing to do with any of those things. We're gonna make this race all about New Jersey and what my ideas are on how to solve people's problems. So what are your ideas in terms of solving people's problems? Start with your day one priorities. You know, number one, we need a new school funding formula. The current formula is nefarious, arbitrary, and I believe unconstitutional. It's one of the reasons why property tax is so high in our suburban communities. We get a new school funding formula. 2, we need a rational energy policy. We need to reopen the natural gas fired electricity generation plants that Phil Murphy closed down. We need to expand our nuclear capabilities and we can stabilize electricity prices and get businesses to want to locate in New Jersey again. We're losing a significant amount of business to Pennsylvania right now. The Democratic governor of Pennsylvania is burning coal, natural gas just cut the ribbon on the 4th nuclear reactor. Why are we doing those things in New Jersey? I want to get back to school funding in a few minutes, but you, you just touched on. Crisis. So last week I asked Governor Murphy we spoke about the current state of affairs and, and really what is just New Jerseys getting absolutely hammered in in their electric bills, seeing despite this 20% increase, seeing bills that are are really twice as much, maybe 3 times as much, and I spoke to the governor about what you want to do and I also mentioned to him Congresswoman Sheryl's plan and this is how the governor responded. Let's listen very quickly. Why would you take offshore wind off? You gotta ask Jack when he's on here. Why would you do that? It makes no sense. The last thing we should be doing is taking supply out of the equation, further exacerbating that imbalance. wind here, what's your response to that? Offshore wind is never going to meet our energy needs. He's been trying to get wind in our ocean for 7+ years. When he took office, we were an electricity exporter. Today we're importing it through these exchanges and paying through the nose. Why aren't we doing what the Democratic governor of Pennsylvania is doing now? I'm not advocating for coal, but natural gas, it's the rational bridge to the future. It's reliable. It's cost. Effective, we should expand our nuclear footprint. If he had put a shovel on the ground 7.5 years ago on a 4th nuclear reactor, we wouldn't be having this conversation today. He shut down 7 different electricity generation plants, a couple of coal, but a whole bunch of natural gas ones, and here we are today as an importer paying through the nose and my opponent supports his energy policies. The governor claimed that through offshore wind, it would have powered a million homes. Then why isn't it here? He's had 7.5 years. Where is it? He, as you know, has been blaming the president's policies now for putting the kibosh on offshore wind. Last I checked up until 8 months ago, Joe Biden was the president of the United States. He and my opponent will blame President Trump for everything. So if you get a flat tire on the way home tonight, get ready, they're gonna blame President Trump. Uh, let's talk now about property taxes and of course about school funding. Uh, this is also something that came up in last week's show. Neptune Township just seems to be one of the, the, the, the latest examples. They're, they're looking, taxpayers, they're looking at the possibility of a $1500 increase on average in property taxes because of of what they say is. The school funding formula and and a cut in aid to Neptune. How do you prevent this from happening? So and that's the Democratic mayor of Neptune who's condemning the administration and the current school funding formula, a democratic mayor because they're getting short changed. We need a more equitable distribution of state aid to schools. Here's how it works under Governor Cttarelli. Number one, I believe the state should take over the cost of special ed. That's causing out a crowding out effect in our public school system. Next, every district. You get X for every English speaking student, Y for every English language learner, because that's a more educationally intensive student and then every district has to be within a reasonable range. I think it's somewhere between $13,000 and $20,000 per year. The districts that are getting the greatest amount of aid have a cost per pupil that could be as high as $37,000 a year. Is that fair? I don't think that's fair. We need a new school funding formula that's not only better for our school systems. It'll also help lower property taxes. The problem is is that we've been talking about a broken school funding formula for longer than I can remember. We've been talking about out of control property taxes, the highest in the nation for longer than I can remember. Every candidate, every person who sat in your seat has spoken about this, and yet we're still in the boat that we're in. So nobody's ever said what I'm saying. I've just given you a very specific school funding formula that I think will pass muster with the state Supreme Court. And we're going before that court on day one to talk about school funding and also all the overdevelopment we're seeing because it is Mount Laurel housing doctrine. I'm all for providing more high density affordable workforce housing. Young people, seniors, disabled people, veterans need housing, but the way we're doing it right now, the pro-environment Democrats are taking garden right out of the Garden State. All right, uh, Jack, keep it right here. We're gonna have more of our conversation with Republican gubernatorial candidate Jack Ctarelli right after the break here on Power and Politics. Stay with us.

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Continuing our conversation right now with Jack Cttarelli, uh, Jack, thank you again for being here in the studio. Earlier in the show during my conversation with the congresswoman Mikey Sherrill, um, I'd asked her about the prospect of having to work with Zoran Mamdani in New York City, who still has not condemned the phrase globalizing Intifada. Now the congresswoman was unequivocal in condemning it as anti-Semitic, but she sidestepped the question about whether she'd support Mamdani, and here was what her response was. I will tell you that the most I get asked about what's going on in the New York race is by journalists when I'm on the ground with people across the state, what they're asking me about is what's gonna happen with their utility bill and why is Trump. Driving up costs here, I know my opponent wants to focus on the New York race because he wants to take away from the fact that he won't stand up to the president, that he has no plan to lower costs here in New Jersey, and that the only person he really thinks he's going to serve is Trump. I want you to get to get you to respond to that. What we're focusing on is her lack of judgment. The Democratic governor of Pennsylvania has condemned Madami. Her colleague in North Jersey, who's also a congressperson, Josh Gottenheimer, has condemned Madame. She has not. This guy has filled the air with hate fueled rhetoric that is not good at this time of great divisions. She needs to condemn them. To her and by the way, she should also reject his endorsement. She hasn't done that. What is it that you think? That New Jerseys and and this goes to what she was saying right here that she's she's hearing first and foremost from people right now on the campaign trail that people just want a lower cost of living and and and and they do, and I would assume that you would agree and you have fundamentally different ways of going about that. So let's very quickly focus in on the one big beautiful bill because that was something that she mentioned and the salt tax cap, which as you know has been very controversial, it's now been quadrupled. Yeah, we're a donor state for decades. We send way more in federal taxes to the federal government than we get back in return. We want the salt deduction. And the president's bill quadruples it. It also doubles the child care tax credit. That's a big deal for families with young children. It doesn't tax tips over time and Social Security. It creates a $10 billion subsidy for those that send their kids to private school. They'll get a very significant tax credit. The congresswoman has called the bill, uh, heartless or cruel, you know, she's lying to you. One of the things that the bill does is makes you verify twice a year that you're eligible for Medicaid. You know who put that policy in place? Barack Obama. President Trump kept it. Joe Biden put it back to once a year. It's now back to twice a year. I think that's fair. I also think it's fair that if you're on Medicaid, you should have to put in 20 hours a week of work, education, and volunteerism if your children are 15 and older and you're able bodied. I think that's fair, she says that's cruel. Jack Citarelli, we have to leave it there. Thank you so much for coming into the studio. Appreciate your time is over. Eric, thank you and thank you for watching Power and Politics this week. We'll see you again next time.

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The candidates joined Eric Landskroner in studio to discuss issues voters will consider before the November election. 

Power & Politics: 1:1 with NJ gubernatorial candidates Rep. Mikie Sherrill and Jack Ciattarelli

The candidates joined Eric Landskroner in studio to discuss issues voters will consider before the November election.

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