(TRENTON) — Assembly Speaker Sheila Y. Oliver (D-Essex) and Assembly Majority Leader Joseph Cryan (D-Union) released the following joint statement Thursday on Gov. Chris Christie’s proposal to decrease benefits for unemployed workers:
“Gov. Christie’s ill-advised plan puts the burden onto unemployed workers already struggling to make ends meet. It is insensitive and unsound and raises serious concerns about whether Gov. Christie understands the plight of the working-class and poor in this state.
“We are open to considering serious alternatives and fixes, but any plan that saddles unemployed workers with the weight of fixing the unemployment fund is immoral and sends the wrong message to hard-working New Jerseyans. Everyone has to be involved in this fix.
“On a practical side, the plan risks our ability to receive federal unemployment benefit funding help and threatens the future solvency of the unemployment fund. It is, quite simply, an even worse fiscal disaster in the making.
“Nobody wants to see a tax increase on businesses, but Democrats have worked hard in recent years to provide our businesses with an array of tax breaks and incentives and postponed and eased many unemployment tax increases.
“Gov. Christie himself said just a few weeks ago that we cannot continue to run an unemployment fund based on debt, yet that is exactly what he is now proposing.
“It’s becoming more and more clear that under Gov. Christie, the rich will be getting richer while the working-class and the poor continue to struggle.”
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