Gov. Chris Christie is serious about balancing the state’s budget. The only question is whether, in doing so, he removes what few reasons remain for living in New Jersey.
New Jersey is an expensive state in which to live. Taxes are relatively high, as is the cost of living.
But New Jersey has at least had some solid public services to offer — among them a top-of-the-heep educational system and one of the more expansive children’s healthcare safety nets around.
But all of that could change beginning with tomorrow’s budget address by Gov. Christie. In it, he is expected to reduce school aid by a collective $800 million, an astronomical amount that comes on the heels of last month’s cuts. The result is likely to be local layoffs, larger class sizes, delayed upgrades and repairs to older buildings, fewer afterschool opportunities, new fees and a host of other changes unlikely to be popular with parents. Add to this the anticipated municipal aid cut — about half a billion — and we are looking at $1.25 billion in lost local aid that will result in huge service cuts and potential tax increases.
The troubling thing about what we have heard so far is that the governor is prepared to balance the books on the backs of people who really can’t afford it (the unemployed also are looking at benefit cuts), while offering a tax cut to the upper end of the income strata.
From a fairness standpoint, it makes little sense. From an economic standpoint, it makes even less — at a time of high unemployment the governor is creating conditions that will add public employees to the unemployment rolls, even as he is cutting their lifelines.
This is what the state’s voters get for supporting a candidate who refused to explain how he would cure the state’s fiscal ill-health.
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