Health care costs for the public sector are going to keep rising and it likely will mean service cuts, tax increases, layoffs and labor disagreements at both the local and state levels of government. The micro read on this is that the various government entities have been too generous — which is way too simple an analysis. The reality is that we should be discussing this as part of the national health care debate and not focusing so narrowly on public employees and turnining to the rhetoric of resentment (i.e., “I work in the private sector and get shafted on health care, so public employees should get shafted, too). Fix health care and health insurance and this should take care of itself.
Tag: budget
So, it’s broke: How would you fix it?
If my household budget was in as bad a shape as the state’s, I’d probably be filing for bankruptcy.
But the state can’t do that, so it has to find a way to balance it’s budget at a time when state revenues have cratered and few consituencies are willing to sacrifice their perks. The standard whipping boys in this debate, of course, are the state worker unions, who get generous benefits, but the reality is that all of us are beneficiaries of some piece of the state budgetary pie.
There are numerous small towns who use the state police as their police force without paying anything — basically, allowing them to not provide their own police while getting a subsidy from taxpayers in towns that have their own departments.
There are the open-space and farmland-preservation subsidies that go to primarily suburban towns to keep development in check.
There is money for the arts, for education, for recreation. A load of money is spent to help businesses, seniors, the working poor.
Basically, there are few people in the state who are not touched in some positive way by the state budget.
And there are few people in the state willing to give up even the smallest piece of their pie. At the same time, no one wants to pay more in taxes, meaning that we are asking the state to spend more money without paying into the kitty to ensure it has the money we want it to spend.
So, I can’t complain too loudly about the cuts to the tax rebate program, even though I am going to get hit by them. There are other options that could be considered, but most could not survive the political maelstrom that would inevitably follow.
My challenge to those who want to cut first and ask questions later is this: Make specific suggestions on cuts, explain why they are fairer or more logical and sell those specifics to the people of the state. Go ahead. I dare you.
A conspiracy of neglect and self-deception
Today’s tax-revenue report is just another example of how New Jersey is being hammered by the perfect budgetary storm — years of neglect and/or deception, selfishness on the part of Trenton politicians, contractors and taxpayers, a lack of leadership in the Statehouse from governors of both parties and a national economic meltdown — leaving in an ever-expanding hole.
It would be easy to blame the current governor, but this goes well beyond anything Jon Corzine has done or not done in his nearly four years in office. And it is something that will require some difficult choices as we go forward, regardless of who may win the gubernatorial race in November.
The first cut — and all the cuts — are the deepest
I don’t envy Jon Corzine. He inherited a disastrous budget situation created by a decade and a half of neglect and self-deception (on the parts of lawmakers, governors of both parties and taxpayers), began the process of reform and then gets smacked in the face by the worst recession in years.
So balancing the budget has been nearly impossible.
That’s not to say that he hasn’t made things worse by seeking to avoid confrontation. He has. Armed with a set of powerful tools — the governor of New Jersey is among the most powerful executives in the country — and faced with a Trenton culture that has allowed entrenched politicians to amass far more power than they are entitled to have, he too often has folded his hand, giving in to the legislative power-brokers.
That said, we need to be honest. He has done more budget cutting than any governor in years, slashing programs that cut across a host of constituencies that should be Democratic power centers. The cuts are problematic — aid to the state’s colleges and municipal governments, to its arts programs, to the DEP — and some may have been avoided with a) earlier and more aggressive budget and government reform during his first two years in office and b) targeted increases in taxes.
But the alternatives being put on the table right now — and this could change — by his chief rivals (Chris Christie and Steve Lonegan) are unlikely to address the deep-rooted budgetary problems we face.
Budget politics in an election year
No one who watched today’s budget hearing — or read coverage of it in the daily papers, as I did — could not know that the 80 members of the Assembly are up for re-election this year.
Hank Kalet 