New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie blocks jobs creation and safer schools

Daily Kos Staff

Tuesday November 15, 2011 · 1:20 PM PST

2011/11/15 · 13:20

One of these men wants to create jobs.
The other is blocking them.
(Kevin Lamarque/Reuters)

When New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie took office, the state had already designed and approved and spent $200 million on "53 major school facilities projects that are ready, or almost ready, to be built" and "halted hundreds of health and safety projects in existing schools," Theresa Luhm notes in the New Jersey Star-Ledger. But Christie put the brakes on all those projects, despite the money already spent on them and the fact that:

A 2008 study by the Heldrich Center for Workforce Development at Rutgers shows that $1 billion spent on school construction would have a significant impact on New Jersey’s economy, generating:
• 8,700 job years (or 2,900 new full-time jobs, each lasting three years)
• $469,072,000 in individual income
• $13,421,000 in state taxes
• $16,044,000 in local taxes
• $610,929,000 in gross state product

In 2008, the Legislature approved an additional $3.9 billion in bond financing to fund school construction projects. The state will have to make debt service payments on the bonds over time, but the impact on the budget will be offset by the substantial tax revenue generated by the thousands of new jobs and contracts created by the program.

Think Progress adds that "The state passed a tax on millionaires that would help provide revenue for these programs and projects. Christie vetoed it—twice—once in under two minutes flat." Of course he did. Christie gets off on this stuff. From his point of view, linking his veto of a millionaire tax and his refusal to create jobs in his state and give kids safer, better schools just makes it double the fun.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie blocks jobs creation and safer schools

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