Gov. Hochul, President Trump have ‘frank’ conversation on congestion pricing, other priorities

5 people, including 3 city council members, facing charges relating to Bridgeport ballot fraud case

Judge cancels Mayor Eric Adams’ trial and leaves corruption charges intact until mid-March

Suffolk Republican Committee nominates Chad Lupinacci for seat on county Legislature

Gov. Hochul won't remove Mayor Adams for now, but plans to increase oversight of City Hall

Latino leaders slam congressman after controversial citizenship comment

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News 12 Staff

NJPP215B

Well, just a week and a half from now, Governor Murphy will deliver his final budget address marking 8 years of one party control in Trenton, relegating Republicans to the place of vocal and often displeased minority where state spending is concerned with the governor in many ways cementing his legacy this final year in office, will this year's budget process be any different? Joining me now with his take is Senator and Republican budget officer Declan O'Scanlon. Senator, it's good to see you as always. Good to see you. Listen, based on the governor's state of the state last month, what is it that you're expecting to hear in this budget speech? And can you give us, I guess the, the no BS tough love assessment on where you see the state of New Jersey's fiscal house right now? The state of New Jersey's fiscal house is probably in the worst condition it's ever been, actually, uh, despite the governor's, uh, trying to brainwash people and thinking otherwise, we have a $4.5 billion structural deficit. Don't believe the reporting that says anything less, and, and you don't have. Be an accountant to understand it, we spent down $2 billion in surplus. We stole a billion dollars that has to go to transit. That brings you to $3 billion in just those two line items. Uh, we stole another half over half a billion from the, the supposed debt defeasance uh uh fund. Uh, and, and I can rattle off a whole batch of other items for another billion, so it gets you to 4.5 billion, certainly north of 4. that is a disaster waiting to happen. We have and we have less wiggle room now than we did when the governor took office. We could have used this past 7 years, uh, and the, the breathing room, the federal billions and billions of dollars of federal money that came to us because of COVID to. Fix our our position. We didn't, we just made it worse. We kept digging and papered it over with an unnecessarily borrowed billions and, uh, and federal billions of dollars, and this is gonna be one steaming hot pile of deficit left in the lap of the next governor. What do I expect him to say? I expect him to slather gallons of lipstick on this pig. And say that things are rosy, uh, he'll, he'll acknowledge that there's some challenges, uh, but, and, and try to, to suggest that potential looming cuts from, from Washington are cause are gonna cause the problem. I will be here to remind people that that's garbage. That might add to the the situation, but we have again a structural deficit of 4.5 billion right now. Uh, the governor likes to tout as well. Uh, that he's, he's trying to get our fiscal house in order. We still are the 2nd worst fiscally ranked state in the nation. Uh, and, and with the second worst, uh, debt rating, uh, so we made no progress, uh, uh, on the debt front, and we have dug the hole much deeper on the structural deficit front, and that should scare everyone. Senator, do you think that the, the cuts, the 5% departmental cuts in state agencies, the hiring freeze, uh, etc. is that gonna help make a dent in some of that structural deficit? Uh, by what, hundreds of millions, maybe, not billions. It ain't happening. Uh, so that's a lot of, you know, performative, uh, but, but mostly meaningless, uh, tips of the hat to the fact that we have a, a problem. But the, and the, the problem, make no mistake about it, was caused by this administration's reckless policy. And complete, uh, uh, abdication of the responsibility to behave fiscally responsibly. It's, it's really stunning. Uh, we could have reworked our school funding for him. He brags about adding $3.5 billion in spending to our, uh, to our schools, where most of that money went to a very select few school districts, hundreds of school districts are. They're closing schools. They're, they're increasing class sizes. Uh, they are ending all extracurricular activities. Uh, it's a mess. We could have reworked our school funding formula, maybe added an extra $2 billion rather than $3.5 billion cut our structural deficit by 1.5, and spread the money much more evenly and fairly, uh, and everyone could have been happy. Again, they abdicated the responsibility to uh to to be good stewards of our money in really every category. Senator, I want to talk more about municipal funding, a flurry of releases from some of your Republican colleagues as we gear up for the budget speech. Senators Bob Singer and Mike Testa among those calling on the governor to restore $150 million in municipal aid that was actually stripped out of the current budget. Can you explain what this is meant for and how not including it in this coming budget impacts New Jerseyans? Well, it will, so that money is spread out over a bunch of municipalities and look, the governor likes to say state aid to schools to municipalities offsets property taxes. When he increases those things, he pounds his chest and says, look what we're doing to cut property taxes. He fails to admit that the counterpoint is accurate as well, uh, reduced aid to municipalities. Reduced aid to schools and there's hundreds of them that are net less, uh, uh, increases property taxes. So that is what that translates to uh municipalities can make some cuts, but most of them, and certainly the well run ones, uh, will, will simply have to increase taxes more to keep the services, the essential services that they. Provide Senator, so that is what that means. Listen, we, we're running out of time here, but, but I wanna go back to something that you mentioned a few moments ago, and that's the, the potential for uh freezing or stopping federal aid and what that means to New Jersey. So if, if you're the one who's putting this budget together, given the fact that New Jersey could see quite a bit less in federal aid, what would be the first thing that you would do? Well, you've got to, uh, first thing I would do is, is eliminate all the pork in the budget. Uh, we are spending money on sports stadiums with VIP seating and, you know, giant screens and luxury boxes, uh, hundreds of millions, uh, lacrosse associations, uh, uh, you name it, uh, tiki bars in some towns. in parks, uh, the park's gotta go and if you, you probably could save a substantial amount of money, uh, if you did that, uh, that would be uh job one. Then you've got to get about trying to claw back some of the wasted money in the school funding formula. It's a shame that that wasn't, that we didn't rework the formula a few years ago. It would have been much easier, but there you might be able to save hundreds of millions of dollars as well. Uh, you need to go back to the, uh, to, to labor and the unions and start talking about how we can strengthen our pension system and save money, uh, and they're willing to do some of these things. The Murphy administration has ignored that. Uh, you have to have those discussions because it's coming, uh, whether they're federal cuts or not. Our budget is a mess. Senator Deco O Scanlon, as always, we thank you for being on the show. It's good to see you. Appreciate it. Thanks for having me. And please stay with us because President Trump reportedly said to have a sit down this coming week with New York's governor about congestion pricing and more. We'll have more on that straight ahead.

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It looks like President Trump may be having a sit down with New York's Governor Kathy Hochul in the coming days, and it's a safe bet congestion pricing will be on the agenda. Now they were supposed to meet at the White House on Friday, but the meeting was postponed, according to Governor Hokle's comms director. The president has said in the past that he put a stop to congestion pricing. Governor Hochul is gonna try to convince him otherwise and likely use MTA data to show it's working. Get ready to pay more for electricity in New Jersey. The Board of Public Utilities announcing billing changes are coming for all four of the major providers. Taking effect in June. Customers with PSENG and Atlantic City Electric will see an average of a 17% increase. JCP&L around 20%. Rockland Electric customers will see bills go up 18% just in time for summer when you can crank up your air conditioners. Uh, could local craft beer be tapped out from higher prices, from cans to kegs? Your neighborhood brewery is bracing for new tariffs on imported aluminum and steel. News 12 New Jersey's Jim Murdoch shows us what it means for the brew business. We built at one of the most expensive times to build, um, grain prices are going up. Uh, hop prices are going up now with more tariffs and stuff, uh, everything is getting more expensive. Kevin Curtis stands inside the hall of the new and expanded Icarus Brewing on Route 88 in Brick. A majority of our product goes into steel steel kegs or aluminum cans, um, so any cost that we incur, uh, unfortunately gets. Put down to the end user in the short term, I think that consumers are going to have to brace for higher prices because of this tariff. We could call it a war. Business analyst Purag Ain says President Trump's tariffs will eventually help increase US steel production and stabilize costs, but the effects could take a while. We've seen President Trump time and time again negotiate. beneficial deals for the United States and so I think we're all optimistic and hoping that the president will be able to do it here. Breweries like Icarus are hoping if these tariffs do go into effect they will have some relief. For example, tax breaks, so the higher prices won't be passed on to the consumers, but nothing is guaranteed. I'm hoping that he Work something out with Congress where he can actually get something passed that provides relief to smaller businesses and provide some assistance during this trade war. The tariffs will take effect March 12th, leaving a month of potential dealmaking between President Trump and the major foreign aluminum and steel providers before the keg is kicked. Hopefully the administration can Uh, come to a happy medium and figure out what works best for all of us at Icarus Brewing in Brick, Jim Murdoch News 12, New Jersey. Quick programming note. Next week, Governor Murphy will be here in studio for Ask Governor Murphy. Don't forget about that, and that'll do it for this week. I'm Eric Lanzer and we thank you for watching New Jersey Power and Politics. We'll see you again next time.

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Republican strategist Jeanette Hoffman, Highland Park Councilman Matt Hale and Republican State Sen. Declan O’Scanlon join the show this week. 

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