Is this a case of good cop/bad cop? And exactly what message are these guys — Gov. Christie and Commissioner Schundler — trying to send to voters?
Gov. Chris Christie won 49 percent of the vote in November to defeat an unpopular incumbent governor by 5 percentage points.
To many — primarily his Republican supporters — that was a landslide and gave him a mandate. But the math is pretty simple: More than half of the state’s voters backed someone other than Christie and — a key point that has been lost in the discussion — only one Assembly seat changed parties. Christie’s win, it would seem, had more to do with him not being the other guy.
And yet, he has been governing aggressively from the right, using a hatchet to chop the state budget into bits, apparently ready to make Grover Norquist’s goal of a government small enough to drown in a bath tub a reality.
So, what has been the response? The state’s papers (aside from conservative Star-Ledger columnist Paul Mulshine and me) have given him a fairly wide berth. The public, however, appears to have a far less generous view.
Monmouth University released its latest poll today, showing that the governor’s approval rating has been on the decline and that many are dissatisfied with his budget:
When Governor Chris Christie unveiled his first state budget last month, he claimed the cuts were tough but fair. The latest Monmouth University/Gannett New Jersey Poll finds that Garden State residents agree with only half of that assessment. The cuts may be tough, but New Jerseyans see some groups, including teachers, as being disproportionately hurt. The poll also finds the governor coming up with the short end of the stick in his battle with the state teachers’ union.
Governor Christie’s job rating currently stands at 41% approve to 44% disapprove among all state residents, and 42% to 44% among registered voters. As a comparison, 34% of New Jerseyans gave thumbs up to the prior governor, Jon Corzine, at the same point in his term, while 37% gave a negative rating.
The driving force behind public opinion on the governor is his budget plan, something that an overwhelming 9-in-10 New Jerseyans have been paying some attention to. Governor Christie’s proposal gets mixed reviews. Among those aware of Christie’s budget plan, 46% say that his proposal is the product of tough and thoughtful choices, while an identical 46% see it as more of the same old political dealings. This may not represent an overwhelming endorsement of the incumbent’s plan, but it is decidedly more positive than opinion of Jon Corzine’s first budget, which only 32% saw as tough and thoughtful, compared to fully 60% who felt it was the product of backroom deals.
Furthermore, 22% of the public say they are satisfied with Chris Christie’s budget plan and another 32% say they can live with it even if they are not necessarily satisfied. However, a sizable 44% report being dissatisfied with the governor’s proposal. Again, these numbers are not great, but slightly better than his predecessor’s – only 10% of New Jerseyans were satisfied with Corzine’s initial budget, while 41% were dissatisfied.
To be fair, the governor had a disastrous fiscal situation to deal with. The state has been spending more than it has been taking in for years, and it has been clear since the day Jon Corzine took office in 2006 that something had to be done. To his credit, Gov. Christie is attempting to put the state on sounder fiscal footing; his approach, however, ignores public priorities and has little to do with fairness.
I’ve written about this before — including yesterday — but this budget leaves tax revenue on the table in the form of the expired income tax surcharge on those making more than $400,000. It slashes spending on public education (while leaving the charter school law in place, meaning that charters can form and ultimately siphon money from traditional public schools); asks poor seniors to pay fees for services and so on. There is a lot of pain being spread here, but the folks at the upper end of the income bracket, the ones most able to afford cuts, are the ones being spared.
We will have three more years of this — unless this petition to recall the governor catches fire (not likely). The best hope is a concerted and focused campaign by New Jersey voters to push back against the governor’s budget, to make it clear that the priorities he has outlined in his spending plan are not priorities supported by a majority of New Jerseyans and to give support to legislators of either party who are willing to stand up and make it clear that they will not support the budget.
What is the mania among conservatives for spending caps? They are a foolish approach to budgeting, because they restrict government’s ability to deal with what comes its way and forces future citizens to deal with priorities set by shortsighted leaders from some previous generation.
Chris Christie may want us to believe that he has no animous against the state teachers union, but his actions say otherwise. The New Jersey Education Association is the governor’s favorite target, a useful totem that he can trot out when he needs to deflect blame or anger from his questionable priorities.
He has called the union an array of nasty names, with bullying rhetoric designed to foment the festering tax revolt that has helped plunge the state deep into debt. Yes, the state spends more than it should on any number of things, but a lingering anti-tax sentiment (which first showed itself during the Florio administration) has exacerbated the problem. We want the programs we want, but we want them for free — a mathematically impossible equation.
But that is a topic for another blog post. The topic at hand is Gov. Chris Christie’s fevered assault on the state’s teachers union, one that no longer is just rhetorical.
Addressing the press today in an otherwise empty science lab at Montclair High School, Christie outlined a proposal to give districts money if teachers agree to wage freezes — a move the treasury department said could return just over $27 million to schools that saw $820 million in budget cuts.
Christie, essentially, is backing up is rhetorical assault with cash — a bribe designed to divide his critics and disarm them. The idea is to put the state’s nearly 600 school boards in the position of chasing scraps — the new aid pot amounts to just 3 percent of what was taken away — to save a handful of jobs and make the teachers union look like the bad guy. Local bargaining units that don’t accept pay freezes would be costing the district more than their salaries. They would be costing districts aid, as well. The governor could then use this refusal as a stick to beat the union down/
The reality of this proposal, however, is that the money won’t go very far. Consider South Brunswick, which lost $6.3 million in aid and is considering wide-spread layoffs and charging students to participate in extra-curricular activities. The district is likely to could recoup about $200,000 under the plan (about 3 percent of the aid lost), which is equal to about a quarter of a cent on the tax rate or maybe four or five jobs.
The state is in a budget crisis. It has been spending more than it has been taking in for too long. But just slashing spending — especially spending on schools and the social safety net — is shortsighted and can only deepen the pain already felt by families during the worst national economic crisis in more than a generation.
Christie obviously doesn’t care, so it will have to be up to the state Legislature to safeguard the state’s poorest and most vulnerable, while asking those who can afford it to pay more.
There is a better blueprint out there — the Better Choices for NJ campaign has a list of revenue sources that it says will generate $1.66 billion, money that can be used to restore cuts in school aid and children’s health care, among other things. And the Legislature needs to go back over the governor’s cuts to see if they match the state’s needs and whether there are better alternatives available.
Gov. Chris Christie, like his predecessor, has been pretty vocal about his opposition to the one-time budget fixes that previous governors have relied on to balance budgets. And just like Gov. Jon Corzine, Gov. Christie appears more committed to the rhetoric than the reality.
How else to explain his raiding of the state’s clean energy fund?
What exactly is the difference between taking money from the cap-and-trade program and relying on federal stimulus funds? Or raiding the pension fund — which he is doing — or the unemployment trust fund? If he were serious about balancing the books without gimmicks, he’s leave the energy fund alone.
Hank Kalet 