Corzine – Page 4 – Hank Kalet

CJ Radio: Corzine on consolidation

The latest podcast is done — actually, an early version went up yesterday — and can be found on our Web site, here or at iTunes, where you can subscribe.

Questions for Corzine

I put out a call via Twitter and Facebook earlier today, asking what questions people would ask of Gov. Jon Corzine if they could. I’ll be sitting with him as part of a meeting with editors of community papers in a little while and wanted to know what our readers want to know.

I got four responses, two of which were relatively serious: Why did he cut funding for South Brunswick preschool expansion and what does he hope to accomplish in the next four years that he couldn’t during the last four?

I suspect that much of the session will focus on the budget: I want him to explain how the pension deferral plan is different than previous decisions to withhold money from the system, whether he has considered changes in the state extraordinary aid program, and if an expanded income tax should be on the table to replace much of the money raised by property taxes. I also want to know his thoughts on consolidation and what can be done if towns refuse to participate in the discussion.

Look for a story on the meeting on centraljersey.com, in Friday’s Packet and in the rest of our papers next week. Also, look for a podcast tomorrow based on the meeting.

Empty rhetoric in the race for governor

Chris Christie appears likely to become the Republican nominee for governor in June and, according to the most recent polls, possibly the state’s next governor.

If this is to occur, it appears that it will be based on three things: an inflated reputation as a corruption buster, Gov. Jon Corzine’s inability to connect with voters and convince them that hte pain he is peddling is necessary and the general disrepair in which we find our state government.
It certainly won’t be because he is offering legitimate alternatives. He isn’t.

Consider Al Doblin’s column in The Record, which takes a look at what Christie has been saying in recent weeks:

Last week, Republican gubernatorial candidate Chris Christie went on The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Christie isn’t happy with Governor Corzine’s budget. He wants Corzine to go after waste, fraud and abuse. Christie said that he if were governor, he wouldn’t be increasing taxes and that Corzine has offered New Jerseyans “false choices” in what has to be sacrificed to retain other services.

Christie is skillful with a sound bite. Snap, crackle and pop, he has. Details are another issue.

Lehrer repeatedly asked Christie to name specific programs he would cut as governor. While Christie hammered away on waste, fraud and abuse, Lehrer countered that there are not billions of dollars lost to waste, fraud and abuse in the state budget. He wanted specifics.

Christie explained that wasn’t his job. His job as a candidate was to critique Corzine.

That, of course, is too easy. The fact is that Christie, were h to become governor, will have to make difficult choices. He has a responsibility at least to outline the philosophy he would use when determining what he would do.

I have covered local governments — and local elections — for the last 19 years and it always has driven me crazy when challengers would come in to our office and respond to questions about budgeting, taxes and local programs by saying a) I’m not in office, so I don’t have the information, b) my opponent is making the wrong decisions and I’ll do things differently (but I won’t or can’t tell you how) or c) I’ll go through the budget with a fine tooth comb and eliminate all waste.

Sounds real good, I guess, but it is completely meaningless, a copout. The budget is a public document that offers as detailed an outline as one can find of what public officials believe are important. Candidates have a responsibility to read it. They have a responsibility to formulate specific criticisms and offer a sense of what their budgets would look like.

Which brings me back to Chris Christie and Doblin’s column. From Doblin:

The state budget is all about choices. In his budget, the governor laid out his priorities. He wants to keep funding for education, health care and seniors intact as much as possible. And he is willing to raise some taxes and cut funding from other programs to accomplish that.

Massive layoffs of state workers sounds like an easy budget fix. Christie seems to indicate that he would do that as governor – reduce the state’s workforce. State employees have a right to know whether a Christie administration would make an across-the-board cut that would throw many of them onto unemployment rolls. Many state employees would be laid off according to their seniority in the system. The people left may not be the best-suited for the jobs they have the seniority to fill. That would impact the quality of services provided by the state.

Just as importantly, what is it that Christie believes is important? Gov. Christie Todd Whitman called herself an environmentalists, but gutted the Department of Environmental Protection, making it more difficult for the DEP to do its job. She also did away with the public advocate and created a business ombudsman post — two moves that summed up her philosophy fairly well.

What of Christie? Well, he is playing the political game and avoiding saying anything that might anger any part of the electorate.

‘Wham’-boozled (Plus a podcast)

CJ Radio podcast on the budget can be heard here.

We had a few friends over tonight and the talk turned to the Corzine budget and the NJ101.5 “analysis” — which comes straight from the Republican talking points — of a so-called “double-whammy” that is supposed to cost middle-class taxpayers oodles of cash.

The double-whammy — the loss of property tax rebates for families making more than $75,000 and the one-year elimination of the property tax deduction — is not something that will be easy to swallow. But it’s not the apocalyptic policy that the Republicans are making it out to be.

Consider these statements from Assembly Republicans. Assemblyman Peter Biondi, who represents Hillsborough, Manville and Montgomery, said the budget would “drive more people out of our state.”

Republicans warned that families should hold onto their pocketbooks, and we weren’t surprised by his plan. The average family would lose approximately $1000 by this budget, not counting the impact of reduced municipal aid.

Monmouth County Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon was equally extreme:

“Property taxpayers, who yesterday heard that their property tax bills will skyrocket with cuts to municipal aid, loss of the tax deduction and elimination of rebates, have learned all too well that while the governor speaks, his tax men creep.”

And then there was Alex DeCroce, the Assembly Republican leader:

“For New Jersey taxpayers who are already saddled with the highest property taxes in the nation and are in danger of losing their homes and jobs during the worst recession in generations, Corzine’s budget is the equivalent of a knockout punch. I don’t consider anyone who would do this to families struggling trying to survive a friend of the middle class.”

Now, $1,000 is a lot of cash, but the question is whether it is enough of a hit to recreate the anti-Democrat backlash of the Florio era — especially given that most people have come to understand how bad off the state is fiscally.

That said, as Charles Stile points out in today’s Record, the chances “the Double Whammy will spark the middle-class revolt … or deliver a deadly a political blow” appear somewhat slim:

For one thing, Corzine’s rebate plan is not an across-the-board cut. It would affect about 500,000 tax filers, or 20 percent fewer than in 2008, officials said.

The program has been narrowed over the years, he says, with most of the upper-income voters having lost their rebates a long time ago. At the same time, the plan “preserves rebates for sacrosanct senior voters and his lower-middle-class Democratic base.”

The second part of the whammy — scrapping a provision that lets homeowners write off the first $10,000 of their property taxes — is also not as politically treacherous as it sounds.

Officials said Wednesday that it could cost taxpayers, on average, $219. But tax filers can still take the deduction this year on their 2008 tax returns. That means the loss of the deduction won’t be felt until they or their accountants fill out their taxes in spring 2010, which in Trenton’s political terms, is an eternity.

Does this make the plan a good one or the best one under bad circumstances? It’s too early to tell. Let the debates begin.

Bad moon on the rise

Gov. Jon S. Corzine made his budget address earlier today, slashing state spending and eradicating most budget gimmicks from the plan. it is not likely to make the unpopular governor very popular, but he deserves credit for doing this during a re-election year.

Consider the above chart, which shows that few governors have been willing to consider spending cuts — yes, Gov. Whitman did cut some departments, but shifted the money elsewhere.

This is not a perfect budget, by any means — the pension deferral is a small version of the kind of gimmicks used in the past — but it is mostly honest (as our editorial will say) and he is likely to pay for it with his job come November.