Moody's hands Governor Downgrade another negative outlook

For the sixth time in four years, New Jersey's credit rating took a hit yesterday.

Only a few days after news broke that New Jersey Governor Chris Christie may punt on a $1.58 billion pension payment, the GOP star and presidential hopeful incurred his state's sixth credit downgrade in four years. Moody's has lowered New Jersey's rating to A1, matching downgrades by two other rating agencies and sticking it with the third-lowest rating among states.

And another downgrade is right around the corner.

"The downgrade to A1 reflects the weakened financial position resulting from recurring revenue shortfalls and ongoing reliance on non-recurring resources that have deferred structural imbalances into future years," Moody's analyst Baye Larsen said in the report. She said the state's outlook was negative, meaning it may face a further downgrade.

It's easy to blame Christie, but he's working with an openly hostile and partisan state legislature which has shown no willingness to make tough choices. Still, his latest budget proposal is larded up with spending and his economic team's ability to forecast revenue has been spotty at best. He ought to be reining in the gravy train because he's running out of time to get New Jersey's finances under control.

Waiting in the wings for 2017 is the Steve and Steve clown show, as South Jersey Democrat Steve Sweeney faces off against North Jersey Democrat Steven Fulop in a race to see who can most effectively pander to their liberal base. Whichever one gets the nod the song will be the same — raise taxes, soak "the rich," and throw money at the public employee unions.

Because under Chris Christie we're only the 3^rd-least tax-friendly state in the nation. The Democrats want us to be Number 1!

No wonder our long-term outlook is "negative."

Posted at 11:29 by Chris Wysocki   [/nj_politics]   Comments | Perm Link |
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