You didn't hear this in Christie's speech but the budget has some good news for people who are sick and tired of political hacks hanging on to the too generous state pension system by getting appointed to some agency with pay just enough to keep them in the system -- currently $7,500. The Local Finance Board is a good example. Starting in the next fiscal year, Christie is proposing NO pay for LFB members, which would take members out of the pension system and save it for those state employees who really work. Good start. Let's hope he moves on to the other boards and agencies where they park political hacks.
He also wants to get New Jersey out of the public TV business by the end of the year.
There will no funding for anti-smoking programs.
The speech and the budget mark a defining point in the history of New Jersey. Details will come out in the days and weeks ahead. By law there has to be a balanced budget by July 1.
While the teachers union leadership and others will go ape over the proposals, the figures don't lie. This state is in dire financial straits:
-- The debt is equal to $4,100 for each man, woman, child which is 130 percent higher than in 2002.
-- State spending grew 59 percent from 2001-2008.
-- More than half of what the state spends goes to local government and school districts and that has risen 69 percent since 2001
-- The private sector in N.J. lost 121,000 jobs in 2009 but school districts and local government added 11,300 jobs.
-- We have the most unemployment in the region and highest taxes in America. Christie singled out the teachers union, saying its leadership has used its money and political clout to create two systems in New Jersey -- those who enjoy rich benefits and those who pay for them. He called it a system that can't be sustained 'a system fueled by mandatory dues of more than $700 a year taken out of every one of the nearly $200,000 teachers' paychecks.'
And the teachers are complaining about having to pay more for their benefits? Why don't they get their dues lowered and use that toward their benefits?
Christie says he wants a 2.5 percent cap on the growth of property taxes. He said in 1977 when Massachusetts did that, the state was 3rd in property tax burden. By 2005 it had dropped to 33rd place.
How are their schools? Many experts say Massachusetts has the best public school system in the nation. And, as for being progressive, they have a universal health care system and same sex marriage.
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