"The updated budget situation is a reminder of the extent of the economic collapse that is reverberating across the globe, but the time for empty rhetoric and criticism is over. Critics must offer alternatives. That has not happened. The public deserves better.
"Nobody likes this situation, but this global crisis is unprecedented and other states are doing worse.
"California and Kentucky are among those considering releasing inmates early. California is cutting its education budget by $7.3 billion. Utah shortened its school year. Florida is considering tossing younger people out of Medicare.
"There is no escaping the fact that we now live in a global economy and that this worldwide crisis is different than anything we?ve experienced. No state foresaw this coming, and others are taking bigger hits amid this broad decline that follows eight years of Bush economics.
"Through it all, New Jersey remains better positioned because of Democratic efforts to cut spending, increase senior citizen property tax relief, boost school aid and help families keep their homes. We are doing our best amid this historic crisis to protect the safety net vital to our most vulnerable and the education and health care crucial to our children.
"These extraordinary times require tough decisions, but we are known for being a tough group of citizens, and these tough decisions will position New Jersey for a better future and to thrive once the economy rebounds.
Mister Chairman, in FY 10 we face the most daunting challenge of any budget in State history.
Our revenues reflect the harsh realities of a national economy in turmoil. Conversely, our spending needs have never been more acute as we seek to counter the effects of the downturn on our citizens. Our citizens need us to solve a fiscal problem that simply defies comparison to any previous crisis.
Correspondingly, we face some of the most difficult choices ever on how to fulfill our constitutional obligation to balance the budget. While difficult, the choices we have made to balance the FY 10 budget are true to the values we share - values that the Governor detailed when he proposed this budget in March:
To invest in educating and providing health care for our children. To protect those who are most vulnerable, especially those who have been hardest hit by the national economic crisis. To ensure that senior citizens can keep the homes where they've raised their families.
At the same time, we are working to reduce the property tax burden and create jobs that will help spur recovery. Of course, we would like to fund these core priorities at levels above those proposed in this budget. However, we simply cannot spend money we don't have. So we have had to make even deeper cuts to a budget that already included billions in reduced spending.
To put things in perspective, we will be spending about $9 billion less than we otherwise would spend to more fully meet New Jersey's priorities and fully fund programmatic formulas. Since we have $9 billion less than we need to fund these priorities -- and since three quarters of our budget takes the form of grants and aid that goes back to New Jersey residents, businesses and communities - it makes our choices even tougher.
While this administration is spending more on homestead rebates and direct relief programs -- by far -- than any administration before it -- $6.5 billion, our fiscal limitations require us to reserve rebates, for this year only, to eligible senior citizens. Even so, we note that our other efforts to limit the growth of property taxes have taken hold. Our caps on tax levies are limiting increases and stemming the rise of property taxes on overburdened New Jerseyans. In 2008 the average growth of the property tax bill was 3.7 percent, the smallest increase in a decade.
This budget still builds off of this progress by dedicating half of all spending on property tax relief, including the preservation of funding increases to education, which will offset the largest slice of the property tax bill.
