New Jersey Can’t Afford Its Government
Kurt Brouwer May 11th, 2009
Occasionally, a politician actually tells the truth. Cory Booker, Mayor of Newark, New Jersey’s largest city is reputedly a good guy and an excellent mayor.
I don’t know whether he really meant this or not, but it is certainly the truth. State government is too expensive, not just in NJ, but across the country in California too (see Is California Broke?). This Bloomberg piece tells the tale [emphasis added below]:
New Jersey Can’t Afford Government, Booker Says (Bloomberg, May 5, 2009, Terrence Dopp and Henry Goldman)
New Jersey’s tax-strapped residents can’t afford their government and the state needs to rein in the mounting costs of public worker benefits, said the mayor of Newark, the state’s largest city.
Cory Booker, 40, said rising expenses for health care, pensions and salaries are impinging on government finances. Operations need to be streamlined in a state with 566 towns and cities, 617 school districts and 21 counties, Booker said during a meeting with Bloomberg editors and on Bloomberg Radio today.
“New Jersey will go bankrupt in 10 to 20 years because we cannot afford our employees as a state,” Booker said. “I’m talking about every worker from the cities and counties to the state government. Eventually, we’re going to price ourselves out as a government or tax ourselves to death.”
Governor Jon Corzine in March proposed a $29.8 billion spending plan for next fiscal year that includes $4.3 billion to operate state government. Seventy percent of that, $3 billion, is for salaries and wages. Corzine, a first-term Democrat facing re-election in November, is seeking unpaid leaves and an 18-month wage freeze to save $400 million.
In Newark, Booker said he is looking to cut “hundreds” of jobs from the city’s 4,000-person workforce as he seeks to create a long-term balance in the municipality’s budget, which is currently $659 million. The mayor also wants to force city employees to take 18 unpaid days off to help reduce expenses and close an $180 million deficit by 2012.
Personnel accounts for 70 percent of the budget of Newark, Booker said. The first-term Democrat said the employment reduction was among “very difficult decisions” he faces.
“There should be a tax revolt in the state of New Jersey,” Booker said. “We’re the most inefficient state in the country. We have more government per person than we need. You would never manage a business the way we manage our government - - we have overlapping provision of services and in my opinion, it’s insane.”..
The only point I would quibble with is the statement that NJ is the most inefficient state in the country. I suspect California could give them a run for that dubious distinction.
- Business , Economy , Geopolitics , debt , income taxes
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