Tuesday, July 29, 2008
Glass house
So, I'm watching New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine on "Squawk Box" talking about how important it is to bring the federal government budget deficit down, and how Barack Obama understands this. So far, nobody has pointed out that the state he governs has very close to the most disastrous fiscal posture in the country. Apparently even the governor of New Jersey can experience the magical Obama teflon by the simple speaking of the man's name.
5 Comments:
By 
K. Pablo, at
Tue Jul 29, 07:46:00 AM:
On a tangential note, if you look up the Twenty Most-violent Cities in the U.S., you will see that 19 of them have Democrat mayors.
By 
, at
Tue Jul 29, 09:25:00 AM:
TH -
I'm not normally one to defend the current governor of my erstwhile home state, but my sense is that this is at least a tad unfair to Governor I'm-too-good-for-seatbelts.
Corzine inherited a huge budget disaster because previous NJ governors from both parties (nominally at least... not sure I'd really put CTW in the GOP) took on lots of debt to finance all kinds of public spending. Layer on a highly activist court that mandates various expenditures and an intransigent legislature and it's not clear how much Corzine or anybody else can really do here.
By , at
Tue Jul 29, 09:36:00 AM:
If Obama "understands this", why is he proposing massive budget increases?
By , at
Tue Jul 29, 05:50:00 PM:
Howard, as a former New Jerseyian, I'm sure you understand the legislature plays a fairly nominal role in establishing the budget. Gov. Corzine has it within his power to substantially restructure state spending if he so chooses. He has done nothing at all.
Some might say, “hey, wait a minute! What about his highway bonding proposal!” That proposal had nothing to do with reducing state spending, and was motivated only by the most cynical of political reasons. It would have done nothing to solve budget issues the state faces, and would have removed the one remaining large asset the state can easily monetize.
Since public pensions are at best hazy promises of future action, at least for state governments and entirely subject to the exigencies of future economic realities—since a state cannot contract for long-tailed future financial obligations without voter approval, future pension payments are entirely subject to state budget appropriation-- the Gov hit on a way of monetizing state worker pensions in the here and now, much like the recent UAW deal with the auto companies. His thought was to make those pensions immune from future budget deals by borrowing a huge slug of money and giving the dough to the union approved pension managers, where it would be safely stowed away from any future efforts by state taxpayers to get out from under these ridiculous pension deals. Corzine could care less about the taxpayers; his only concern was to payoff Democrat patronage workers, pure and simple.
It's enough to turn my stomach.
By , at
Tue Jul 29, 06:23:00 PM:
Anonymous,
Thanks for your thoughts. I haven't paid particularly close attention to the exact details of Corzine's governance as I have been an MA resident for the past ~2 years and that gives me enough to get annoyed about from a political standpoint.
Please note that I'm not particularly inclined to defend Corzine - just wanted to caveat that the massive budget problems faced in New Jersey are not entirely (or, I'd argue, even mostly) of his making. Through the Whitman / McGreevey / Codey eras, there were warnings that the bills would have to be paid one day. Those warnings were constantly ignored as new spending was heaped onto old spending.
