WyBlog

Welcome to reality Governor Corzine!

New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine gave a speech today to the NJ Conference of Mayors meeting in Atlantic City. He's sticking to his "no tax increases" message in the face of mounting opposition to the relatively minor spending cuts in his proposed state budget. A coalition of activist groups including all the usual progressive thinkers and public employee union shills came up with a proposal to restore the cuts by raising taxes. No surprise there, groups like Jon Shure's New Jersey Policy Perspective reflexively clamor for new taxes at every turn and the public employee unions can hardly be expected to sit idly by while their members' jobs are in danger.

The surprise came in the Governor's rebuke of their suggestion:

"We cannot spend more than we take in. That's a very fundamental principle I've learned in the last year," Corzine said.

To many of us living in the Real World, not spending more than you earn is one of the fundamental principles of Life. It's nice to see our esteemed billionaire Governor finally coming to this realization; I wish it had happened sooner. His stint in the US Senate certainly didn't disabuse him of the notion that government can spend all it likes without consequence. When he sailed into Trenton he had big plans to spend, spend, spend on all kinds of liberal, progressive causes like stem cell research and universal health care. For the moment he has backed off, and he's talking a good game of fiscal restraint.

The problem is, can we really believe him? Governor Corzine has a habit of telling people what he thinks they want to hear, and then going off to do what he's always wanted to do anyway. He uses stand-ins like State Senate President Dick Codey to float his trial balloons (Codey's sudden desire to expand lottery sales didn't go over as well as he had hoped). What Codey's idea does show is that the seeds of new revenue sources are being sown. They're actively looking for ways to restore the spending cuts, and until the budget reaches the governor's desk for his signature we cannot be certain that "no tax increases" means what we think it means.

Posted at 15:51 by Chris Wysocki   []   Comments | Archived | Perm Link |   |   Tweet