Waiting for Corzine's budget speech

TRENTON – However subdued his variations on this year’s most infamous catch phrase, “tough economic times,” members of both parties are prepared to hear Gov. Jon Corzine’s budget address tomorrow as a starter’s gun blast in the 2009 gubernatorial and legislative races.

Already exhilarated by Republican gubernatorial frontrunner Chris Christie’s argument that Corzine and the Democrats must accept responsibility for the state budget (which swelled from $25 billion to $33 billion in nine years) and not hide within the folds of an international economic crisis, the GOP wants to capitalize on a dismal tide statewide, which last year buried John McCain at the national level in a narrative of poor fiscal management by the Bush administration.

“It’s too late,” confirmed Assembly Minority Whip Jon Bramnick (R-Westfield) of Corzine. “You’ve been the governor. If the economy was doing great you would take credit for it. When it’s not doing well, you’re stuck with the hand you’ve been dealt. If the state ain’t getting better, end of story."

Presumably no longer able to rely on their most beloved if unwitting ally – President George W. Bush – to deepsix the Republican Party, New Jersey Democrats face a humbling nine point deficit in the gubernatorial contest, according to last week’s Fairleigh Dickinson Poll. 

“Obama can use the Bush administration – to a point,” said Bramnick. “But the Democrats can’t use the Whitman administration nine years later. You’re the one who ran for governor, doctor.” 

But Assemblyman John Wisniewski (D-Sayreville), chairman of the powerful Transportation Committee who has tangled with the Corzine administration over the course of the governor’s tenure, notably on the issue of asset monetization, said Republicans are wrong to act like New Jersey exists in an economic vacuum.

“I think Chris Christie’s argument that there’s a difference between the budget crisis and the international economic crisis displays his naiveté,” said Wisniewski. “Tax revenue is used to fund the budget, and when there’s an economic downturn, there is less revenue.”

The assemblyman admitted Democratic leadership lacked contingencies in the event of a financial crisis.

“In hindsight it was perhaps not the best collective decision when you consider that nobody’s ever planned for a down year such as we’re facing now,” he said.

While Wisniewski indeed emphasized the larger context of an economic crisis, in which New Jersey’s unemployment rate is bad but still under the national average, he acknowledged the unavoidably tough political climate in the state.

“I think candidly it is early, but there’s a sense of concern not because of what Democrats have done but because of the uncharted waters we are in owing to a global financial meltdown,” said the assemblyman. “There is indeed a sense of concern about how that will impact the voters in November and how will it influence their choices.”

There are few legislators who don’t fear cuts when the governor rolls out tomorrow’s proposal – an estimated $29 billion, or $4 billion less than what’s in place now. The difference is Republicans can translate what appears to be the inevitable hard luck impact into intensified voter dissatisfaction with a Democratic Party power structure, while Democrats must explain an upside – if it’s possible this year.

Assemblyman Declan O’Scanlon (R-Little Silver) sits on the budget committee and faces reelection this year in a Republican-leaning 12th Legislative District that Democrats - at least to this point in the campaign cycle - appear unlikely to vigorously contest. 

O’Scanlon said all told he hasn’t heard arguments from the Democrats that are too different from last year – before the financial meltdown.

“The governor last year and this year claims he’s cut New Jersey’s budget to the bone,” said the assemblyman. “He claimed to cut a billion dollars last year, but over half those cuts were either to municipal aid or in the form of tax increases. It’s impossible to raise taxes and call it a cut, and from what I’m hearing so far, the governor will still go back to that well.

“God willing, he will really have a plan to downsize government tomorrow, and if he does I will give him a standing ovation and work with him to make the cuts,” O’Scanlon added.  “But unfortunately I think what’s more likely is we’re going to see tinkering around the edges and a request for more money.”

If O’Scanlon’s particular concern as a suburban legislator remains the blowback factor on small towns, Assemblywoman Linda Greenstein (D-Monroe) in the neighboring 14th District faces the prospect of Corzine’s budget impacting state government workers, who populate her district. Corzine said he may have to release as many as 7,000 of New Jersey’s 70,000 workforce, a threat most Republicans see as a bluff. 

Hoping to win reelection in a battleground district, Greenstein’s guardedly upbeat.

“My sense is both sides (the Corzine administration and the state workers’ union) are really discussing different options: layoffs (God forbid), pay freezes and furloughs,” said the assemblywoman, chair of the judiciary committee. “I feel strongly that we have collective bargaining in place; that we don’t use the legislative process to get around that (collective bargaining).”

If the governor brings state workers’ representatives into the process and allows them to contribute to those plans for sacrifices they will make in helping to drive down state costs to plug a $2 bliion revenue shortfall, Greenstein said she might find furloughs or pay freezes acceptable.

“It has to come from them (the state workers) and their leadership,” said the assemblywoman. 

In conjunction with any action plan impacting state workers, she would like to hear the governor commit himself to cutting higher end salaries in state government, and present a coherent consolidation plan for towns and local and county government services. Moreover, she distrusts any pension deferral plan.

But as for Christie’s suggestion that the budget crisis is a separate animal from tough economic times everywhere, Greenstein said, “We have tried to address our budget shortfalls by paying off our pension fund, which hadn’t been done for ten years. 

“You can’t separate out an international crisis,” she added. “We see the unemployment rate going up. Whatever problems we had before have been exacerbated.”

Like O’Scanlon, Assemblyman David Rible (R-Wall) expressed outraged over Corzine’s anticipated elimination of property tax rebates for everyone except senior citizens and homeowners making less than $50,000 annually.

“The vast majority of the state’s middle class taxpayers will once again bear the brunt of another Corzine broken promise,” said the assemblyman. “Each time the governor faces a budget crisis – which he has for the past three years because he refuses to force the state to live within its means – he solves it at the expense of our middle class.”

Assemblywoman L. Grace Spencer (D-Newark) serves as vice-chair of the financial institutions and insurance committee. Like Greenstein, she anticipates government workers absorbing a painful but necessary hit.

“We have a lot of employees, county and city employees, who make south of $70,000 and they can’t afford to lose their jobs,” Spencer said of constituents living in her 29th Legislative District.  “They can take a cut here and there but they can’t lose their jobs, and so I think people realize in this environement that (government) pay cuts are better than being out of work with fewer prospects for jobs in this environment. 

As for Christie’s criticisms of Corzine’s budgeting skills, “It’s an election year,” said Spencer. “If we scream blue, Republicans are going to scream red.”

Even as they ride what they hope is a continued pendulum swing in their direction, Republicans remain wary of the impact an estimated $17.5 billion in federal stimulus dollars over a three-year period will have on the political landscape, and worry that a grim buildup by Corzine now on the budget front could result in a back-from-the-dead scenario for Democrats if the federal money kicks in pre Election Day. 

A lot of Democrats have their own doubts, though. The federal money’s dedicated, and whether it can open the doors and shades on darkened storefronts in time is a worry they will have to weather with Corzine.

“He has to take a tough stance in terms of spreading the pain,” Monmouth University pollster and political science Prof. Patrick Murray said of the governor on the eve of Tuesday's state budget address. “It’s not a matter of looking good. He’s never going to look good in this process. It’s a matter of looking fair.

“State workers haven’t looked that good to the public. They don’t look like they’re willing to meet the governor half way at time when one in ten new Jerseyans is losing his job,” Murray added. “The governor can gain respect from the public. Respect is something he doesn’t have right now. He hasn’t had it ever since he shut down state government in his first budget. The problem he’s faced all along is he hasn’t put us on good footing so we can weather this pain. But tomorrow, he has to look like a leader.”