TRENTON, NJ – Have you seen those Jack Ciattarelli commercials on tv? on Facebook?
Guess what, you paid for them. On one hand, New Jersey Republican establishment candidate Jack Ciattarelli bills himself as a fiscally conservative Republican promising to reduce taxes and cut government waste. On the other hand, Jack Ciattarelli is blowing through $4,000,000 in New Jersey tax dollars that could have been spent on the pandemic rebound, but instead, he’s paying his political consultants.
How can that be? How does a candidate who is not in office get a $4,000,000 taxpayer slush fund to run his “fiscally conservative” political campaign? Well, that’s how the law works in New Jersey.
New Jersey will match funds raised by candidates who can meet a financial donation threshold. It doesn’t mean they have to, but the money is there for candidates who want to run political campaigns on the backs of taxpayers they claim to be “fighting Trenton” for.
And it’s not the first time he’s done it. When he lost to Kim Guadagno in the 2017 election, Jack used millions in taxpayer dollars to fund that losing campaign too.
In an article in Garden Stat Times today, Ciattarelli is criticized for taking the taxpayer money while claiming he will go to Trenton to fight for the taxpayers.
According to candidate Hirsh Singh, who is also running on the Republican ticket as unapologetically pro-Trump, “having Ciattarelli in the governor’s mansion would be no different than another four years of Phil Murphy.” Now, Ciattarelli has something else in common with Murphy: they are the only two candidates to accept tax dollars to fund their campaign.
Garden State Times Jack Ciattarelli Takes Millions in New Jersey Taxpayer Dollars To Fund His Campaign, Causing Outrage Among Republicans
Records show Ciattarelli has accepted $4 million in state funds to run his campaign.
According to recently released campaign finance data, Ciattarelli has already accepted $4 million this cycle, outpaced only by Murphy. Ciattarelli’s embrace of New Jersey’s public matching program has drawn rebukes from many conservatives, who are accusing him of taking advantage of the system to remain in power. Ciattarelli has been in politics since 1988, and is largely viewed as representative of the old guard Republican establishment in New Jersey.
Garden State Times Jack Ciattarelli Takes Millions in New Jersey Taxpayer Dollars To Fund His Campaign, Causing Outrage Among Republicans
Singh, who did not accept publicly matching funds for his campaign has been critical of Ciattarelli who is the only Republican candidate running for Governor take the million dollar taxpayer funded campaign bailout.
