Yippee! We’re Closed!
Enlighten NJ has a good roundup of where NJ stands in the budget shutdown mess
Budget negotiations remain deadlocked. Governor Jon Corzine and Democrats in the state Assembly have agreed state spending should be increased by about 9.2 percent, but can’t agree on who or what to tax for an additional $1.7 billion or so. It’s all pretty hazy now, but one thing is for sure, millions are being lost in private sector wages, business income and taxes. All this has something to do with putting the state’s economy and budget on a more fiscally sound footing.
And he has an elegant solution to the problem:
There’s a simple answer to New Jersey’s budget stand-off. There’s no need to shut New Jersey government, especially when you learn state workers will be paid retroactively whether on not they work for the days the government is shut down.
Just because New Jersey’s legislature passes a budget authorization bill it doesn’t mean the Governor has to spend every last dime approved. It simply lays out the maximum the Governor is authorized to spend. So why not pass last year’s budget and allow state government to keep chugging along?
What a crock the bit that state workers will get retroactive pay for time they didn’t work during the shutdown. I’m sure the legislators are making sure that they get paid for all the work they didn’t do to avoid this mess, as well.
I’m sorry, but no one should get paid for when they’re not working (aside from usual vacations, of course). And every elected ‘representative’ should not get one more dime; indeed, they should be fined an amount equivalent to the amount of the tax revenues that the State has lost due to their inability to pass a budget in a timely fashion.
The one bright spot in this is that if anyone had any ideas of Corzine moving back onto the national government stage, this should effectively kill that. I mean, my god, if a traditional big-money Democrat, elected Governor in a Democratic state with a Democratically-controlled legislature can’t even get his budget passed than the man is worthless on the national level.
Of course, that means we are stuck with him for the next four years…which gives me time for my run.
Vote Bingley for Governor in ’09!
Nanny State | Mr. Bingley | 
July 6, 2006 7:55 am
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So they’re short of cash, but they definitely agree that they need to increase spending by nearly 10%?
BRILLIANT!
There is a certain brilliance to it, NB; that’s the beauty of playing with public monies!
Vote Bingley for Governor in ’09!
Then you’ve pick a bad time to stop drinking.
I’ll vote for him and he doesn’t even have to get me a house or a Cartier bracelet.
Stop drinking? Hell no: I’ll get the taxpayers to cover my bar tab!
that’s the beauty of playing with public monies!
Just don’t play with your monies in public.
(God, you’re so EASY! He forced you to eat TURDUCKEN, or had that slipped your fragile memory completely?)
Ok, I’ll take the bracelet, but it has to be new, not a hand me down
“Bingley for Governor in ’09”, does your platform include a no new spending and taxes pledge?
Why yes, it does, Enlighten.
And I’ll get rid of some old spending, too.