Word: florio
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...taxes. Coupled with an almost equal amount in spending cuts, the money will not only allow New Jersey to dig itself out of debt but should also provide additional state education aid to relieve homeowners of one of the most onerous property-tax rates in the U.S. Here too Florio soaked the rich: the legislature approved a plan to shift the bulk of its education assistance from the wealthiest to the poorest districts by 1995, leaving the affluent to make up the difference on their...
Opponents have dubbed Florio "Robin Hood" for his overt redistribution of the tax burden, but the Governor is unapologetic. "Something historically significant is happening here," he boasted after his legislative victories. "This is a day we bring fairness to the children of New Jersey and to the beleaguered and besieged middle class." "Hardly," countered Assembly * minority leader Garabed Haytaian, who assails the new budget as a "farce, a tragedy of tax increases that will give us a Florio recession...
Moaning is about the best Republicans and other critics have managed since Florio, a former amateur boxer, beat G.O.P. candidate Jim Courter last fall in a campaign that got nasty on both sides. In his inaugural speech, the new Governor whacked at the state's auto-insurance premiums, the nation's highest; within weeks he had signed a 20% reduction into law. He quickly followed with a blow to the powerful gun lobby: in May, New Jersey enacted the stiffest law in the U.S. on owning or selling semiautomatic firearms. In March he launched his attack on the state...
During eight terms in Congress, Florio had a reputation as a somewhat sanctimonious loner, better known for tending to constituent needs than for innovative leadership. Even as a candidate, he skirted specifics, going so far as to proclaim that he did not see the need for new taxes. But budget realities and the assumption of command revealed a very different Jim Florio. "Legislatures react," he says crisply. "Executives initiate." With 67% of New Jerseyites grudgingly agreeing that new taxes were inevitable, Florio worked them relentlessly for support of his proposals. In diners, gyms, boardrooms and convention halls, he explained...
...hasn't hurt Florio to remind voters that his popular Republican predecessor, Thomas Kean, left the state with a $592 million deficit this year and a shaky economic future. "Florio didn't create the fiscal crisis, and he's made a strong case for solving it," says Richard Roper, director of the program for New Jersey affairs at Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School. "As a result, New Jersey is willing to meet him halfway...