NJ governor declares fiscal emergency as deficit soars

[cal04]

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE61A49V20100211

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie on Thursday declared a "fiscal emergency," allowing him to reserve or freeze state spending as part of his plan to tackle one of the largest 2011 deficits among U.S. states.

(snip)
In all, 375 budget lines are subject to cuts, efficiencies, and program eliminations. Cuts include $475 million in aid to school districts; $62 million in cuts to colleges, and $12 million in aid to hospitals. The cut in school-district funding will force them to use budget surpluses for the remainder of the fiscal year, Christie said.

(snip)
Democratic leaders blasted Christie's plan to balance the current budget as dictatorial and unnecessary. Louis Greenwald, Democratic chairman of the Assembly Budget Committee, called the action to reduce school aid a "reckless" move that would force school districts to raise property taxes.

"This has taken money out of the school district's pocket and put money in his pocket," Greenwald said. He accused Christie of acting without consulting the legislature, and promised to hold public hearings on the budget plan next week.


http://www.phillyburbs.com/news/local/burlington_county_times/bct_news_details/article/2465/2010/february/11/christie-plans-to-cut-nj-transit-subsidy-1.html

[no_hypocrisy]

1. Geez, higher property taxes to pay for the cuts . . . . .

[DaveinMD]

9. and New Jersey

already has the highest property taxes in the country. Goes back to when Whitman passed her income tax cuts and cut aid to the districts 20 years ago.

[nc4bo]

14. Those awful property taxes had us bailing out of there in '97. Godawful

how expensive it was. My grandmom's home was paid for but she was still paying over $5,000 a year for taxes on her "very much in need of improvements" house.

My stepmom is paying about $8,000 for a 30+ yo split level.

I often wonder why the state is so broke when there are so many sources of revenue available?

[NightWatcher]

2. how many states are flirting with being flat ass broke?

California, Nevada, Florida, Georgia, New Jersey...........

Jobless "recovery" my ass. It's not a recovery, it's big corporations learning to deal with things or more aptly how to use the shitty economy to manipulate things to turn a profit.

[notesdev]

6. Quite a number

You forgot New York, Illinois, and Arizona, all of which are in crisis as well. And the rest of the states? Only North Dakota is in a good fiscal position right now.

[NJmaverick]

3. Christie was and is corrupt tea bagger scum

he was a partisan hitman for the GOP who sadly is my governor for the next 4 long years. He proves you can fool some of the people all of the time. Not that clown boy Corzine didn't make it easy for him to get elected.

[karynnj]

7. Mine too - and he fooled people that he could lower property taxes

A moderate Republican friend of mine said that she thinks he won because Corzine eliminated the property tax rebate for families earning over $75,000.

The fact that this was done to preserve things like school funding to the previous year's level. Now, these people will see that their school funding is cut. I know here in Christie's county that will not go over well. But our Republicans should have remembered that they voted him out when he was a freeholder after one term. (Yes, that is not a typo - the Republicans voted him out, there are not enough Democratic votes to win a seat. There were 4 Republicans on the general election ballot for three slots.)

[Kahuna]

12. Absolutely that property tax rebate issue kept a lot of Corzine voters home..

and also voted against him. People KNOW the state is broke and has been broke for years. They KNOW that the state is bordering on fiscal collapse and still they expect hefty tax rebates. :banghead:

[karynnj]

17. It was even brought up by several Democrats

when Corzine met with the Morris County Democrats when that budget was in the works and he did all those talks across the state.

I think he had no real good choice that would have been better in the budget. Although we got no rebate, I thought it more important that he expanded the kids on NJ's S-CHIP program and kept the school funding.

Where I think he made a huge mistake, is that he really needed to spend even more time and money (ads) selling what he did there. There are real values involved here. Had he done this early in the year and it failed to work, he should have stepped aside and let Codey run. His negatives were sky high BEFORE the budget problems.

[tabbycat31]

8. at least the Democrats in the legislature are showing some spine

yes you heard me right. Blue Jersey has some good coverage.

[Grand Taurean]

4. Just like California.

Grey Davis warned the people and tried to balance priorities, but the people screamed and cried then voted in Arnie who made things worse.
The same thing happens again. People never learn, do they?

[blueworld]

5. NJ has a large source of potential revenue if Christie has the guts to go after it

NJ has the honor of being the state with the most freakin' Superfund Sites - 19 when I was a reporter there in my pre-geezer days.

The companies have mostly been identified, chastised, spanked, investigated, fined, penalized with interest & fees - everything except being forced to PAY. Several years ago there was a news story about rabbits in Edison Township that actually had green fur from drinking the water around one glorious site.

Instead of raising property taxes in a state that already has sky-high property taxes...instead of cutting aid to schools that are already drowning...why don't they collect actual U.S. currency from the corporations that turned it from the Garden State to the Garbage State? They owe BILLIONS.

Yeah, I know. Time for my Merlot. :banghead:

[blueworld]

10. This is in case someone doubts my green rabbit story

http://www.edisonwetlands.org/about/history/the-green-rabbit-story/

[Tesha]

11. Maybe he'll have to lay-off Hunterdon County?

And put Cape May County on warning?

Tesha

[lpbk2713]

13. ... and the BushCo dominoes continue to fall.

... while the corrupt and evil BushCo criminals count their money.


Will someone please wake me when they have all been subpoenaed?

[ck4829]

15. Remember when Fox News and the rest of them said electing these guys "showed Obama"?

How's that working out?

[DCBob]

16. This is going to get ugly... probably similar to what needs to be done in other broke states..

and eventually what may need to be done at the Federal level. It does not matter whether the Gov is Dem or Repub.. this has to be done.