Quinnipiac poll on how to balance the budget

by: Hopeful

Tue Nov 24, 2009 at 12:17:58 PM EST

Quinnipiac has put out a new poll with the headline
New Jersey Voters Say 3-1 Freeze State Worker Wages, Quinnipiac University Poll Finds; Voters Back Layoffs Almost 2-1 . I think there's much less news there than Quinnipiac suggests by the headline, as it is simply a fact that the supported policies were followed by Governor Jon Corzine and will be by Governor Chris Christie. The good news, such as it is, is that the public does believe in the crisis, with 83% saying the budget problems are "very serious," and another 14% going for "serious." So Governor Christie, it would seem, would have support for strong measures, but the sad truth is that the government is already trying all the policies in the poll, and disapproves of the people who tried them.

The most popular positions according to the poll would be to freeze state workers salaries, have furloughs or layoffs, and -- if it were necessary to raise taxes -- raise tolls and sales taxes. Voters want to protect education spending. But can you believe the voters? Those positions are also, of course, a pretty good summary of Governor Corzine's policies and he is getting hammered with only 31% approval. The public even says "tax rebates" should be kept the same -- though whether they mean the same as after Corzine's cuts could be questioned, I suppose.

You might point to the layoff result that Quinnipiac boasted about, but for the reporters who only read the headlines, the statement "Voters Back Layoffs Alomist 2-1" is false, because the question getting 2-1 support was actually "To help balance the state budget do you support or oppose - layoffs or furloughs for state employees?" So sadly they only asked about existing policy rather than a new, controversial one. Still, there's no doubt that state workers find themselves in a very weak position in negotiations, with little support from the public and a real budget crisis. I've heard that Christie has already asked the unions to take 24 furlough days next year.

Hopeful :: Quinnipiac poll on how to balance the budget

Overall in looking at the poll, I think the whole conceit of choosing between new taxes and cutting services is not very useful. Wage freezes, furloughs, layoffs, whatever would not balance the budget -- Chris Daggett reminded us we could eliminate every state government worker and still not balance the budget. Nor could anyone possibly raise taxes enough either--from the comments, I am sure you could not get a majority even at Blue Jersey to support raising taxes with no cuts in spending. So while it's nice to have a poll showing the public chooses this or that, but anyone trying to follow these choices would not get very far. In fact every policy the public supports was actually tried already, and then the ones they don't support were tried too. I bet the public knows that. Maybe that's why the legislature enjoys a 21% approval rating even though everyone in the Assembly just got re-elected.

It's interesting that "state aid to local governments and school districts" is heavily supported: 60% want it kept the same, and 20% actually want it increased. Support is about the same if made into "your" district and doesn't even drop that much asked for "urban" districts. There majorities for keeping spending the same, and more people support "increases" than "decreases" in every permutation of the question.

It's striking to me that 41% choose reducing state spending on "economic development." Other polls have told us that the public thinks the government is corrupt, so maybe reducing spending on business development boondoggles (from Xanadu down to local developments) would help kill two birds with one stone.

51% of voters would support an expansion of "state funded early childhood education in New Jersey."

73% say they support mergers of local school districts or governments. That's a nice sanity check since such measures fail in real life.

In any case, I wish the best of luck to Governor Christie and the state legislature as they grapple with these problems. We are all in this together.

Tags: poll, budget, (All Tags)

Print Friendly View

Send As Email

Quinnipiac poll on how to balance the budget | 2 comments

Layoffs and wage freezes (0.00 / 0)

Anyone who thinks that there isn't waste to cut in state government is fooling themselves. And public services would actually improve through a heavy-duty purge of the bureaucratic cement.

Over the decades I worked for the state, I witnessed the rise of the mediocracy. Political appointees created positions for their cronies. A closed supervisory class, unqualified for leadership by their temperament or experience, routinely hired friends and relatives, whom they could confidently control, deliberately undermining whatever was done in the public interest that might threaten their petty despotism. These clueless managers collect big salaries without any accountability whatsoever, while the burden on low-paid hard workers steadily increases as their numbers decease through attrition. The inner circle long ago abandoned civil service tests in favor of hiring and promotions by "E&E", i. e., education and experience, which usually produces lackeys who can always find the right tit when they need nourishment. Sadly, it will take a generation to undo the damage, if ever, because all the good people leave as soon as they can out of frustration and disgust, while the incompetent hacks go on and on and on.

by: Teedyuscung @ Tue Nov 24, 2009 at 18:18:13 PM UTC

24 furlough days =10%pay cut (4.00 / 1)

Roughly one day a pay period would be eliminated .

Using the average salary of $50,000 as a base and using the number 60,000 as the most quoted state employee number, a 10% salary cut would save the State $300 million. That only reduces the $8 billion deficit by 4%.

If you layoff 10% of the workforce(6,000) you get the same savings.

Bottom line ? There is no way any state worker cuts below a 50% total reduction will have any real effect on the $8 billion and that is still to small.

Layoff 30,000 workers and you still only save $1.5 billion which is 20% of the $8 billion deficit.

MAYBE IT IS TIME FOR THE TAXPAYERS TO LOOK ELSEWHERE AND STOP BLAMING THE POINT OF SERVICE STATE WORKERS ALL THE TIME.

By the way you will never see the CWA release these types of figures. The ydo all their calculatiosn based on DUES MONEY RECEIVED .They could care less about anything else.

by: firstamend07 @ Tue Nov 24, 2009 at 20:00:46 PM UTC