{"id":40802236221,"date":"2010-03-18T09:30:00","date_gmt":"2010-03-18T13:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/2010\/03\/18\/the-hard-sell\/"},"modified":"2021-01-25T11:22:07","modified_gmt":"2021-01-25T16:22:07","slug":"the-hard-sell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/2010\/03\/18\/the-hard-sell\/","title":{"rendered":"The Hard Sell"},"content":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared as a guest column for In The Lobby.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Governor Christie laid out his initial budget plan on Tuesday in his typical take-no-prisoners manner. The pain train is rolling down the tracks.<\/p>\n

The soft sell has never been part of his repertoire. His message was clear and so was his intent. What is not clear is whether he will be able to sell it to the public.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s why.<\/p>\n

Yes, the public was anticipating big cuts to state services and local aid. In fact, a good number of residents were demanding it. But when you look at the bottom line, some may wonder whether they got what they expected … and whether the pain has been fairly spread \u2013 particularly when it comes to education funding.<\/p>\n

This is as much an accounting issue \u2013 and lack of public awareness about the budget process \u2013 as it is about any of the specific cuts.<\/p>\n

To the extent that the public has been paying attention to the budget process over the past few years, they have been told that the last governor, Jon Corzine, reduced state spending from $34.6 billion to $29.0 billion by the time he left office this year.<\/p>\n

Governor Christie says the state appropriations portion of his budget for the 2011 fiscal year will be $28.3 billion.<\/p>\n

Huh? There are all these massive cuts, but state spending is going to be reduced by less than $1 billion!<\/p>\n

But there\u2019s more! Christie\u2019s budget also includes another $1 billion in state spending that will be covered by anticipated federal stimulus funds. This brings his spending total to $29.3 billion.<\/p>\n

Whoa? That\u2019s more than Corzine spent, right? Not quite.<\/p>\n

You see, Christie points out that Jon Corzine\u2019s total budget spent $32.2 billion, if you include $2.3 billion in federal stimulus money that the former governor did not put on the books.<\/p>\n

So, if we include the stimulus funds in both budgets, then Christie\u2019s budget reduces state spending by $2.9 billion \u2013 or 9% \u2013 from the 2010 fiscal year. (This, of course, assumes there will be no supplemental appropriations made during the coming year \u2013 which would be a first!)<\/p>\n

So, now that\u2019s settled.
\nHold on a second, you say. What about that gaping $10.7 billion dollar deficit we kept being told about? Doesn\u2019t this budget fall short to the tune of $7.8 billion?<\/p>\n

Well, yes and no. You see, the $10.7 billion figure was based on the assumption that the state would actually fulfill its legal obligations to fully fund the school funding formula, fully fund the property tax rebate program, and fully fund our existing pension obligations.<\/p>\n

The truth of the matter is we haven\u2019t done any of those things since the administration of George McClellan (I\u2019m just guessing here). The so-called structural deficit is a bit of a canard. Just because the law says we have to fund these programs doesn\u2019t mean that it happens.<\/p>\n

As a side note, is anyone else scratching their heads over the continued underfunding of our current pension obligation in Christie\u2019s \u201cno gimmicks\u201d budget? I know he\u2019s pushing hard for pension reforms, but when does underfunding current annual obligations cease to be a \u201cone shot\u201d to balance the budget? Just curious.<\/p>\n

That being said, it\u2019s probably best for the governor if he drops the structural deficit issue from his rhetoric. The public is already sold on the problem and conflicting numbers only serve to confuse the situation. He\u2019ll have enough trouble convincing the public that a $29 billion budget for FY11 actually represents a $3 billion decrease from FY10.<\/p>\n

Most significantly, Governor Christie will be called on in the coming weeks to explain why cuts in school aid make up more than $800 million of the $3 billion reduction. This will be the line of attack used by his opponents, because it\u2019s likely to present the best chance of undermining public support for his entire budget. The governor has to be ready for it.<\/p>\n

And then, we\u2019ll have to go through this entire process again next year, when \u2013 barring some economic miracle that starts filling the state coffers \u2013 Christie has to figure out how to make up for the $1 billion in federal stimulus money that will disappear.<\/p>\n

Now that\u2019s going to take a real hard sell.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This post originally appeared as a guest column for In The Lobby. Governor Christie laid out his initial budget plan on Tuesday in his typical take-no-prisoners manner. The pain train is rolling down the tracks. The soft sell has never been part of his repertoire. His message was clear and so was his intent. What […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":939,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40802236221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40802236221","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/939"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40802236221"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40802236221\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40802237375,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40802236221\/revisions\/40802237375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40802236221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40802236221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40802236221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}