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Corzine’s “Best Ideas”

Governor Corzine began yesterday’s budget address with the following words,

It is my honor and responsibility to stand before you today and offer my best ideas to meet our state’s recurring structural budget crisis.

Corzine’s best ideas are:

• “increase existing rebates 10%”
• “to seek net new tax revenues of about $1.4 billion, primarily through a 1 cent increase in the general sales tax along with a modest extension of that tax into some services.”
• “if we implement my proposals, at the end of the day, we’ll end up with a budget totaling $30.9 billion, an increase of $3.5 billion over last year’s proposed budget and about $2.6 billion over the adjusted appropriation for fiscal 2006″
• “Some critics will attack the size of the budget as too big, and they may be right.”
• “every time we use a gimmick or a trick to pay for this year’s expenses, all we’re doing is making next year’s problem bigger”
• proposed “one-shot sources . . . $500 million”
• “a modest increase for Abbott pre-schools”
• “support for special education in heavily impacted districts and state supported afterschool programs”
• “we will also push to expand FamilyCare”
• “If we are diligent, we will bring 50,000 additional children onto the rolls of FamilyCare with a targeted spending increase of $5 million.”
• “today I am announcing the formation of a Special Task Force to coordinate our efforts to reengineer state government.”
• “I renew my call for an elected, independent state comptroller”
• “To put the new tax in perspective: the added burden will cost the average New Jersey household with a family of four about $5 a week - or about $260 a year.”
• “we are proposing a 2½ percent surcharge for three years on the corporate business tax”
• “I’m proposing modest, targeted increases of no more than $50 million in programs that enhance and advance the values that make our society strong”
• “there are also long-term investments funded by long-term borrowing that are both appropriate and necessary”
• “Funding stem cell research . . . it’s time to act.”

Governor Corzine summed up his best ideas by stating,

All of these measures will help control spending

There you have it, dear reader, in his own words. Those are the best ideas our governor has for addressing our budget crisis.

Color me unimpressed . . .

Also blogged on this date . . .

• Dot . . . Dot . . . Dot . . . - 2008
• Name That Park - 2008
• Hypothetical Terrorism - 2007
• It's About Quality - 2005
• The Manor Macabre - 2005
• On the Road Again… - 2005

Tags: budget, Corzine, leadership, New Jersey, tax