Runyan Addresses the Fiscal Cliff, Defense Spending, Storm Aide and Gun Laws

The national unemployment crises is also a shore area crises as a worried single mother from Barnegat calls Ask the Congressman for solutions Wednesday Night. The mother, who's receiving rental assistance as well as other aid from the County's Social Service safety net, is growing increasingly concerned as a deadline threatens to end her rental subsidies.

Congressman John Runyan offered a number of suggestions but many of them have already been exhausted by the caller.

Hearing her plight, a Toms River resident also called to ask Congressman Runyan about trying to get an extension of more than 60 days from the time a person gains employment and when their rental subsidies end to serve as a cushion? However, Runyan says the solutions rest with policy changes within social service that also need to be backed up with funding, a conversation they still must have on Capitol Hill.

Runyan also agreed to have his staff help another Toms River resident who has a family member with a disability navigate roadblocks in getting them into affordable supportive housing.

Runyan is hopeful the National Defense Authorization Act of 2013 will pass in the full house Thursday. He says the Act includes some key programs that will benefit the military in New Jersey. He says one of those programs include a major military construction project at Naval Weapons Station Earle as well as two other construction projects slated for the Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst. He says the NDAA is an independent appropriations package that already passed in the full Senate.

Runyan also talks about the "Fiscal Cliff" standoff. He says what's presently on the table, the first plan proposed by the Senate, makes people earning over $250,000 annually to pay more taxes. Runyan says House Republicans object to the proposal because they find the earnings threshold arbitrary. He says "in a states like New Jersey $250,000, I don't think anybody making that in New Jersey would consider themselves a millionaire and he says a vast majority of them are small businesses."

Runyan also addressed the $60 billion storm aid package introduced by the Senate saying that it's full of pork barrel spending and the need to come up with a comprehensive multi-pronged plan aimed at preventing shooting massacres like the one that occurred in Sandy Hook, Ct.