This Democrat Promised Not to Take Taxpayer Funded Salary – Then Took it Anyway
Did you see the latest editorial from the Burlington County Times where Aimee Belgard is called out for breaking her 2010 promise not to take a salary if elected Freeholder (full article below)?
By way of background, Belgard was one of several Democrats running the DCCC’s paint-by-numbers campaign for candidates who have nothing substantive to talk about. Belgard “pledged” that she would not take advantage of things like the Congressional gym (where DCCC chairman Steve Israel stayed in shape during the shutdown), but hoped that no one would bring up her own broken pledge about taking New Jersey Freeholder perks, like that $13,000 salary.
Maybe Belgard should take the Burlington County Times’s advice and focus on issues. One way Belgard could do that is to stop ducking Tom MacArthur’s request to hold five debates, beginning in July.
And while we’re on the subject, maybe Belagrd should back up her rhetoric and return the $13,000 salary she promised not to take.
NRCC Comment: “Aimee Belgard is clearly running Nancy Pelosi’s ‘paint-by-numbers’ campaign for candidates who have nothing substantive to offer. If Belgard really wants to talk about perks for politicians, then the first thing she needs to do is give back the $13,000 taxpayer funded Freeholder salary she gave herself after promising during her campaign for Freeholder that she would not take that salary.”– NRCC Spokesman Ian Prior
As the words turn
“Mission accomplished.”
Those words, on a banner behind former President George W. Bush as he announced “the end of combat operations in Iraq” back in 2003, barely had time to register with Americans watching on television when the situation in Iraq intensified. His administration spent a lot of time explaining that phrase, and it has come to symbolize the irony of the war in Iraq.
It certainly would not be the first time a politician has had his or her words come back to haunt them.
Democrat Aimee Belgard, a Burlington County freeholder campaigning for Congress, has come down with a similar strain of foot-in-mouth disease.
The Congressional Leadership Fund, a powerful Republican political action committee, has come after Belgard, who is vying to replace Republican Congressman Jon Runyan of Mount Laurel in New Jersey’s 3rd District, for accepting a Burlington County freeholder salary in 2013 when she said during her 2010 campaign that she would not.
Belgard did not dispute the PAC’s claim, but responded by slamming MacArthur’s status as a millionaire businessman.
To be clear, Belgard did not repeat her vow to forgo her $13,000 salary when she campaigned for freeholder again in 2012, but it’s likely many voters were left with the impression that she was continuing to serve on the board without pay.
Belgard has made another public pledge and challenged her opponent, former Randolph Mayor Tom MacArthur, most recently of Toms River, to do the same.
If elected, Belgard said, she will not accept taxpayer-funded perks offered to members of Congress, such as free gym memberships, allowances for campaign-style mailers, first-class air travel or the use of luxury vehicles.
Voters will have to decide if they believe her, and if such perks and pledges really matter to them.
We doubt it. A promise was made and perhaps, broken. But back in the real world of the 3rd District, there are thousands without job prospects or an affordable place to live. Thousands more are struggling to pay their property taxes or to put their kids through college. How does any of this help them? Where are either candidate’s solutions to those problems?
We believe we speak for the majority of the voters in Burlington County when we ask that both candidates spend more time focusing on the issues affecting county residents and less time making unrealistic pledges that impress no one.