Recorder Newspapers have published a strong endorsement of Chris Daggett for Governor. This is the parent company for:  The Bernardsville News, Cedar Grove/Verona Observers, Chatham Courier, The Citizen, Echoes-Sentinel, Florham Park Eagle, Hanover Eagle, Hunterdon Review, Madison Eagle, Morris NewsBee, Mt. Olive Chronicle, Observer-Tribune, The Progress, The Randolph Reporter.

Daggett has offered a complex proposal to make New Jersey competitive again. His plan would cut the property taxes, income taxes and corporate taxes that are pushing people and businesses out of state by shifting part of that tax burden to sales taxes on services. He would clamp down on the annual increases in property taxes by imposing a strict cap pegged to the rate of inflation – one that would have blocked some of the 4 percent teacher contract increases several of our local newspapers editorialized against earlier this year. Daggett’s plan was praised Sunday by both The New York Times and the Philadelphia Inquirer. Daggett’s willingness to offer a detailed plan on how to cut property taxes and begin to address the state’s upcoming budget crisis and long-term debt contrast sharply with both Corzine, who is running on his record, and Republican Chris Christie. We endorsed Christie, who compiled an admirable record as a corruption-fighting U.S. Attorney, during the Republican primary against Steve Lonegan and Rick Merkt, but said we hoped he would offer much greater detail on how he would deal with the state’s fiscal issues during the campaign ahead. He has failed to do so.

But this campaign is about more than just fiscal issues. It is about what type of state we want to be. Like the Star Ledger, we were troubled by the Democratic bosses’ coup to oust Senate President Richard Codey, who represents the readers of one of our Essex County weekly newspapers, The Progress, and who filled in so honorably as acting governor, but was prevented from running in 2005 by Corzine’s willingness to spend $50 million to buy that election. We would have been proud to endorse Codey for governor, but now he’s going to be out of power too, and we are left, as The Star-Ledger put it, with a “corrupt crew” of a “pirate ship” that Corzine is powerless to control.

Would the Republicans be better? Unfortunately, too much of the current Christie campaign seems to be about Republicans saying, “it’s our turn, he’s our best chance to win,” and not what they want to do for our state.

Daggett’s campaign is based on the premise that only an independent – someone who doesn’t have to worry about whether his party is going to get campaign contributions from special interests or whether his party is going to lose seats in the next election – can make the difficult decisions needed to fix New Jersey. His campaign is proof of that, from his open discussion of the gas tax to his willingness to take on the New Jersey Education Association on teacher tenure.

Read the full article at: TheRecorderNewspapers.com