Asm. Jack Ciattarelli Presents His Five Point Plan

Gubernatorial candidate, Asm. Jack Ciattarelli, talks about his five point plan that entails school funding reform, tax reform, employee benefits reform, streamlining government and improving bipartisan communication. Asm. Ciattarelli also shares why he spoke out against legislation that would force New Jersey taxpayers to financially support New Jersey sanctuary cities.

3/18/17 #102

Excerpt:

"Welcome to State of Affairs. I'm Steve Adubato. Coming to you from the Agnes Varis Studio at NJTV. It is our pleasure to welcome Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli, Republican candidate for governor of the great state of New Jersey. Good to see you Jack. Good to see you. And it is a great state. It is. By the way, why do love this state? I love it very much. I'm a lifelong resident. We have a second home at the Jersey Shore. My grandfather immigrated here over 100 years ago. And there are problems to solve. And I love solving problems on behalf of our 8.9 million citizens. And I have a sense your grandfather did not immigrate from Ireland? He did not. [laughter] Valentano in Italy. Yeah. Ours is from Naples. Very good. I just want to clarify. Jack, let me ask you, the pension issue. I've been asking candidates running for governor, on both sides of the aisle, the pension crisis. Massive problem in terms of public employees, state employees, are gonna be retiring, the money is not gonna be in place. If you were governor, what would your solution be... Not... ...to put the money in place? Not all hard problems need a complex and hard solution. There's a very simple solution here, I believe. First and foremost, anyone with less than 10 years in the system goes into a cash balance plan. That was the recommendation of the Tom Byrne Commission. Tom Byrne's a Democrat, a prominent Democrat. All... Former chair of the state Democratic Party. Yes. All new hires go into a 401k, and all retirees, current and future, if pension plus Social Security is more than $50,000 a year, on a sliding scale, they begin to contribute to the post retirement healthcare benefit, which is breaking us. We pay for that on a cash basis. That will free up a lot of money. It makes the pension expense less, and gives us more cash to put in. That will point the pension toward solvency. I've done pension and profit sharing plan accounting. I have a pension plan at my company of 20 employees. But see, here's the thing. We've had candidates, particularly on the Democratic side of the aisle, who we've talked to, and we'll talk to them as well. And I know what they've said publicly. You cannot, and should not, be touching public employees. That they have done their part. They have done their share. It is the state of New Jersey... the state of New jersey folks have a respon... has a responsibility to put their share in. I believe in 2011, there was an agreement reached..."