EDITORIAL
You’ve got to hand it to acting Gov. Richard Codey. In office all of two and a half months and with only 10 more to go before he turns power over to someone else he has managed to cobble together the most realistic state budget in anybody’s memory.
The reason we know it’s realistic is that it pleases absolutely no one.
Property owners are displeased because the budget suspends the popular NJ Saver tax rebate program. Senior citizens and disabled homeowners are annoyed because the budget will reduce their annual homestead rebates from $1,200 to $800.
People earning more than $200,000 a year are upset because they will no longer be allowed to deduct their property taxes from their state income tax. Retirees earning over $100,000 are distressed because their income from pensions will no longer be excluded from taxation.
Developers and Realtors are angry because real estate transfer fees, raised in each of the last two years to help balance the state budget, will be raised again and will now apply to every home sold for $150,000 or more. Cable television companies are perturbed because the budget will impose a 2 percent tax on their gross receipts.
Public-employee unions are agitated because at least 500 state jobs will be eliminated through attrition. Even members of the acting governor’s own cabinet are miffed because their offices will have to reduce spending by 10 percent.
School boards are disappointed (though certainly not surprised) that state aid levels will be frozen, meaning that any increased spending in their local budgets will have to come out of the pockets of those same homeowners who will be losing their state rebates. County and municipal governments face similar freezes in state aid levels, further burdening property taxpayers with the costs of providing essential public services.
And every special-interest group in the state is getting ready to berate the acting governor’s plan to extend the sales tax to items that are not now taxable, as soon as the details of this still-evolving component of the budget are announced. Whatever these items turn out to be certain types of food, articles of clothing, categories of personal services or Internet sales rest assured that individuals and associations representing supermarkets, retail stores, small businesses, professional groups and Web-based enterprises will join the chorus of critics loudly decrying this painfully penurious budget.
To all of these critics, as well as legislators of both parties who are already promising to restore this pet project or that popular program to the budget, acting Gov. Codey has thrown down the gauntlet. "If you want to do more spending," he said in his budget message to the Legislature, "show me how you will pay for it. If you want to talk about cuts, show me directly what you mean. If you want to remove a revenue raiser, show me how you plan to replace it.
"Don’t sit in the aisles and say you oppose this idea or that idea," he continued. "Don’t stand at some distant podium and say the state should just cut more spending. Don’t mistake appealing sound bites for actual choices or mislead the public with false choices about easy options that do not exist."
This is precisely the kind of straight and honest talk New Jersey lawmakers and taxpayers have needed to hear from the governor’s office for as far back as we can remember. That the only occupant of this office bold enough to tell it like it is turns out to be an unelected acting governor who isn’t interested in running for the job speaks volumes about what passes for political leadership in this day and age. But if that’s what it takes to bring a long-overdue dose of reality to the budget process in Trenton, so be it.