Gov. Corzine Misses The Point

For the second time, Corzine used a major speech to promote the possibility of selling the New Jersey Turnpike, the state lottery and other government assets to private investors, an approach now being embraced by other states. Corzine believes a sale could be used to cut debt and bring long-term balance to the state's troubled finances. The plan is facing resistance from the public and lawmakers.

He said the list of past budget balancing fixes have not worked.

The state could raise taxes but that would stifle economic growth, he said. Government could be cut, but to get dramatic savings Corzine said he would have to slash the payroll so much that basic services would go unmet.

The only option left – and one that could bring in billions of dollars a year for new programs while cutting back debt payments – is to consider selling off state property, Corzine said.

I am unpersuaded about Corzine's claims to cut spending. He isn't even bothering to try to cut state spending, instead claiming that basic services would go unmet. Instead, state spending is increasing by well over the rate of inflation, just as it has for the past few years, and no one seems to care in Trenton.

Instead, we get a continuation of one-shots and fiscal trickery that do nothing to stem the functional and structural deficits built into the state budget. He claims that the budget includes a modest $100 increase for social programs including for autism research.

But if you look closer, the budget is 7.2% higher than last year's bloated budget – or $2.2 billion. Corzine knows that spending more than double the rate of inflation is crazy, so he couches it in terms that are more acceptable to Trenton (even as they spend like drunken sailors):

However, setting aside the growth in property tax relief and the increases in school and municipal aid, spending is up a mere 2 percent, year over year

.Corzine would like you to believe that the increased budget is tied to property tax reform and school and municipal aid, but the trick is that you have to ignore the tax increases at the local and municipal levels, not to mention the increase in the sales and use tax to cover the 'tax relief.'

What also goes ignored is that school and municipal aid are the largest chunks of the state budget, so writing them off so as to claim that there was only a 2% increase in state spending year over year is nothing more than blatant pandering.

And what do New Jersey taxpayers get for all this largesse? Not a whole lot.

Still, we could be doing worse - just as New York City.