As chairman of the New Jersey Benefits Task Force in 2006, he tried to raid public employees’ pocketbooks with a number of recommendations that gutted contracts the unions had so strenuously bargained for. In fact, Murphy wanted all of those hard-fought contracts torn up, saying that state budget costs would continue to soar “if the state cannot renegotiate its (labor) contracts.” He also called for massive cuts in the public employee workforce, declaring,”The cost of home rule is killing us.”
The recommendations by Murphy’s task force included:
— Increasing the minimum retirement age for public employees from 55 to 62.
— Calculating benefits based on an employee’s five highest salary years rather than three.
–And freezing COLA benefits for vested employees who don’t permanently retire as a state employee.
Murphy also argued for substantial increases in employee costs for their health-care premiums, and to raise co-pays for drugs and hospital visits.
And he urged a moratorium on covering future health benefits enhancements, which would deny employees coverage for critical services such as cancer treatments and certain prescription drugs.
In effect, Murphy and his task force laid the groundwork for the severe pension and health benefits reductions that were ultimately enacted.
So don’t let Phony Phil fool you. The record shows that when Murphy was actually in a position to help the employees, he went after their wallets. Budgetary sacrifices had to be made, and he saw to it that they would be the ones making the sacrifice.
New Jersey doesn’t need a phony. Tell Phil Murphy we want a candidate who has the guts to tell it like it is — not one who panders now but will stab you in the back after he gets your vote.
Phony Phil Murphy Plays Political Peek-A-Boo With His Tax Returns
Some two months ago, the mega-wealthy candidate straight out of Wall Street invited a few reporters into a hotel conference room and dumped a thick stack of complex financial files on a table. Inside were five years of Phil Murphy’s tax returns, covering the years 2010 through 2014.
But that’s where the long-promised “transparency” ended.
The journalists were granted only a couple of hours to sort through the huge trove of information — an impossibly brief time to peruse and take notes on all of the relevant data, much less make sense of it. Even an experienced accountant would need days to put the pieces of such a large, convoluted financial puzzle together.
After all, Murphy’s net worth is estimated at well north of $100 million, a figure that requires more than a few pages of explanation. His 2014 return alone ran 318 pages and was an inch-and-a-half thick. As far as we know, no one actually weighed the entire stack, but word has it a mini forklift was needed to hoist the documents onto the table.
Extensive as the haul was, the former Goldman Sachs executive put up even more roadblocks to review it. Murphy told reporters it was now or never if they wanted to see his financials. They could look (peek, really), and they could take notes. But…
–They were barred from copying the documents so they could study them later.
–They would not be allowed to review them again at a later time.
–And, more importantly, the records would not be posted online for the public to see.
And, by the way, Murphy’s most recent tax return, covering the year 2015, was not available.
This from a candidate for governor who promised to be an open book.
Which begs the question: Why is he being so secretive about his taxes?
Murphy has hundreds of millions in investments across the globe, linking him with people and companies, as well as governments, that could affect a public official’s decisions. The voters have a right to know the nature of those financial interests.
And Murphy’s net worth puts him in a financial class that the average New Jersey voter he claims to speak for can hardly recognize, much less aspire to.
What’s striking is that in releasing his tax returns, Murphy acted as if he was doing the public a favor. But the fact is that he did nothing more than most other candidates for public office have been doing for at least the last generation. Only most candidates don’t make it as hard as Murphy has for the press and the public to see them.
Phony Phil Murphy pontificates across New Jersey about his candor and transparency. And he claims to be the outsider who will reform the way business is done in Trenton.
Well, prove it, Phil. Let’s see some accountability when it comes to your personal business.
The next time you see Phony Phil tell him to stop playing political peek-a-boo and post online his complete federal and state income tax returns. Until then, he should refrain from using the word “transparent.”
More to follow. Stay tuned!
Phony Phil and His Felon Friend
When Phil Murphy wants something, it seems he’ll associate with just about anybody to get it.
Even convicted felons.
Even a convicted felon who turned Newark’s City Hall into a cesspool of patronage and corruption over two decades as mayor.
So now Phony Phil Murphy and the notorious Sharpe James are partners, joined at the hip in Murphy’s campaign for governor. Murphy, the mega-multimillionaire who made his fortune at Goldman Sachs and now badly wants to become governor. And James, the former Newark mayor who spent 18 months in prison for conspiring with his mistress to defraud the city.
Proving that nowhere is too low for Murphy to go in search for support, he accepted the endorsement of James — and is even campaigning with him. And Murphy, perhaps anticipating there may be a price for James’s loyalty, says he’s “seriously considering” putting the former mayor’s longtime aide on his campaign payroll.
This is the same Phil Murphy masquerading all across New Jersey as a political outsider sworn to clean up politics and government in the state. The “reform” candidate, or so he says.
But the man he was walking side-by-side with last week had walked out of prison just a few years ago — after being convicted of federal fraud and conspiracy for illegally steering city land to his mistress. The mistress then turned a quick profit of hundreds of thousands of dollars by reselling the lots instead of redeveloping them.
Does that sound like someone a “reform” candidate would be embracing as a top ally? Are they the values we look for in a governor?
Face it. Phony Phil Murphy is not the candidate he claims he is. He’s playing the old-style backroom, dealmaking politics he claims to loathe. And if that’s how he operates now, why would we trust him to operate any other way as governor?
Phony Phil Murphy’s Bogus “Selfie” Tour in the Name of State Trade
Phony Phil Murphy is at it again. Only this time the super-rich socialite masquerading as a down-home New Jersey populist took his act nearly 6,000 miles across the Atlantic to Israel.
In his quixotic quest to become governor, Phony Phil has tried to sell a phony personal bio that obscures a long, lucrative Wall Street career to depict a middle-class champion with working-class values. Nice try, Phil.
But now Phony Phil has pulled a stunt that takes his unabashed political grandstanding to a whole new level.
With no mandate from the voters or any authority from official Washington or New Jersey, Murphy traveled halfway across the globe on a self-appointed “trade mission” to one of our nation’s strongest allies.
New Jersey opened its newspapers and turned on its television sets to see images of Murphy mugging for the cameras as he strode merrily through the streets near Gaza. He claimed to be meeting with Israeli government and business leaders to negotiate trade deals and other partnerships on behalf of New Jersey. Say what?
Last time we checked, Phony Phil hasn’t been elected to anything.
Nor does he serve in any appointed position that would give him the discretion or authority to speak for the state. And no one in an official capacity either authorized, asked or in any way suggested that Murphy do government business on behalf of our state or the nation.
Not that they would even had he asked. This is the same Phil Murphy who was a flop as U.S. ambassador to Germany, his tenure marred by his sarcastic “private” comments about Chancellor Angela Merkel that became public through WikiLeaks. His comments angered the German government and embarrassed his bosses back home, putting a strain in U.S.-German relations. Murphy never apologized and apparently never learned the lesson that rogue diplomacy and reckless comments can have serious consequences.
Calling Murphy’s foray into U.S.-Israeli matters presumptuous would be kind. This is the guy, after all, who has spent the last year trying to hoodwink New Jersey voters into believing he is someone who he’s not. That he’s an average Joe with middle-class pedigree and working class values, when he’s actually a charter member of the One-Percenters with a few hundred million dollars in his pocket and a waterfront estate to call home.
It’s bad enough to see Phony Phil selling his bogus story in Woodbridge and Hackensack. Now he’s selling it in Tel Aviv.
Don’t Let Money Bags Murphy Buy the NJ Democratic Party
Philip “Money Bags” Murphy is an imposter. How else to explain the ultimate insider candidate who masquerades as a “political outsider,” an “independent reformer,” while simultaneously trying to buy — that’s right, BUY — the Democratic Party’s nomination for governor?
Short on solutions to New Jersey’s problems, unfamiliar with the hardships of working families, the mega-wealthy former top Goldman Sachs executive is letting his checkbook do the talking… and using his Ivy League degree in theater to hoodwink us into believing otherwise.
To date, Money Bags Murphy has poured nearly $1 million into the coffers of key Democrats: $91,000 to the Democratic State Committee; $79,000 to the Middlesex County Democrats; $63,500 to Bergen County; $67K to Union; $62K to Passaic; $25K to Mercer. And that’s just through the end of 2015. Ocean, Atlantic, Hunterdon, Morris, Warren, Essex and Burlington are among other county party committees receiving Murphy’s money. He’s also spreading his considerable wealth around to many municipal parties, as well as to candidates and others in anticipation of their future support.
Money Bags Murphy has poured another $5 million of his personal fortune into a pair of groups he formed — one overtly political and another a non-profit with questionable political ties — and loaned his campaign an additional $10 million.
Let’s face it… Money Bags Murphy is Jon Corzine Lite. Just as Corzine bought his way into the U.S. Senate in 2000, Murphy is using his personal wealth to influence the party powers who can help make him governor.
Money Bags Murphy won’t say how much he’s worth, but his limited tax returns show an income of $21 million between the years 2010 and 2014 alone.
He promotes himself as a new breed of candidate aghast at the old way of doing business, offended by the practice of leveraging money to gain support.
But Money Bags Murphy is practicing the same kind of backroom, deal-making politics he professes to abhor.
Haven’t we had enough rich guys running for office that just don’t get it?
Don’t let Philip Murphy fool you.
Another Phony Wall Streeter Who Thinks He Can Buy the NJ Democratic Party
They’re Back!
After one epic failure, another greed merchant from Wall Street is trying to seize control of the Governor’s office — and get his hands in the pockets of New Jersey’s taxpayers. Philip Murphy, who made his millions building up the Chinese middle class at our expense as Chairman of Goldman Sachs Asia, now says he wants to represent the common man in Trenton.
The last thing New Jersey needs is another phony out-of-touch multimillionaire parachuting into the state as a self-proclaimed messiah for the working class. Sorry, but we’ve been down that road before. It was not long ago that Jon Corzine left his cushy throne at Goldman Sachs and went on to become our governor.
Philip Murphy promises to be a friend of middle-class New Jersey. Yet he spent decades raking in millions while working at the epicenter of the very same corporate greed machine that’s making the lives of the middle class so difficult.
Murphy promises to be a political outsider, beholden to no one, who will sweep cronyism and corruption out of Trenton. Yet he has surrounded himself with the same group of consultants, lawyers, fundraisers and others who have profited from the old-boys political network in New Jersey for decades.
Yes, New Jersey has seen this act before: The Wall Street multimillionaire riding in on his white horse — spreading his money around in exchange for political support and vowing to shake up the system. That governor also hailed from Goldman Sachs, and it didn’t take the voters long to discover that Jon Corzine’s lofty promises were fool’s gold. After one miserable term, he was sent packing in an extraordinary repudiation of a sitting Democratic governor in a solidly Blue state.
We must not let Wall Street get the keys to the governor’s office in our state again.
If you’re interested in more law and cases then you might find notable cases and published caselaw worth your attention.