New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine had strong words yesterday for the Big Spenders of taxpayer money in his state: Game over, folks.
And while the reality of the $33 billion budget he proposed may fall short of the tone of his message, it could mark “a turning point,” as he called it, in Jersey’s historically disastrous fiscal path.
“Frankly,” Corzine said, “New Jersey has a government its people cannot afford. This budget declares the time of living beyond our means is over.”
His analysis is dead on.
New Jersey’s structural spending has long eclipsed reasonable expectations of revenue growth – even as vital needs, such as roadwork and other infrastructure, have gotten short shrift.
Meanwhile, the state’s mind-boggling per-capita debt load (and other encumbrances) have dogged taxpayers, throttled economic growth and, ironically, hamstrung reform itself.
Let’s face it: Trenton’s been headed full-speed for a fiscal cliff.
So what’s the governor’s prescription?
A budget he calls “cold-turkey therapy for our troubled spending addiction.”
Corzine wants to spend less, in actual dollars, next year than this year – something Jersey’s managed only three other times since 1951, he said.
Some outlays, as for schools, would jump – but others would fall, with overall spending dipping by $500 million.
Most noteworthy, Corzine seeks to:
* Axe three entire Cabinet departments and trim the state payroll by 3,000 (though it’s a trifle, given that the payroll grew by 23,000 from 2000 to 2006).
* Require state employees to chip in for their own health care.
* Trim Medicaid costs, local aid and higher-education spending.
Griping over the “pain” of his budget cuts has already begun, but even Corzine knows his plan isn’t enough to ensure Jersey’s fiscal future.
“This is a turning point,” he said, “not an end point. By itself, these cuts won’t solve the problem – they can’t. A long-term answer requires deeper changes.”
Even his plan for this year must survive the inevitable political haggling. (Watch for calls for accounting tricks, new borrowing and tax and fee hikes.)
But if the governor means what he says, if he stands up to the special interests and Big Spenders and follows up next year with more reforms (and without raising taxes!), he may well pull off the impossible: setting one of America’s most fiscally unfit states on a path toward soundness, once and for all.
We sure wish him luck.