Excuses For NJ Tax and Spend Ballot Questions Failures

Politicians are furiously spinning how and why two of the New Jersey ballot questions failed to pass muster with voters. Senate Majority Leader Democrat Dick Codey thinks it was a combination of the "state's poor finances, low turnout and organized opposition."

In other words, he's thinking that it's the voters fault that the measures didn't pass, not Trenton's complete inability to pass budgets that are fiscally responsible and do not mortgage the future to pay current bills.

And he further thinks that voters may have simply voted no down the line - citing that 40% voted against changes to the State Constitution to remove the terms idiot and insane from restrictions on voting. In other words, he thinks that voters were mindlessly voting - not taking the time to read through the proposals and vote with their conscience or based on what the ballot questions and interpretive statements actually said.

The stem cell question is the one that really stings folks like Codey and Gov. Corzine, because they think that the state spending $450 million in debt financing is a wise investment, when they claim that the plan will cost $45 million per year over 10 years. Assuming those numbers, you mean to tell me that there isn't $45 million in the state's existing budget that couldn't better be served by being switched to this new program instead of creating new debt that in reality will cost the state double that amount over the life of the bond act?

If this issue was that important to supporters of the stem cell act, make the painfully necessary choices to make it work within the confines of the already existing state budget. As I've stated and restated in recent days, tax credits for stem cell research is a far more cost effective way of getting companies to invest in New Jersey - and improving the state's business climate is the surest way to get companies to come to New Jersey and stay here. Right now, all we have is polling showing that New Jersey residents are sick and tired of the high taxes, corruption, and no sign that any of this is changing anytime soon.