Corzine, Like Clinton, Only With More Time to Turn It Around

by: mikeshapiro

Tue Feb 26, 2008 at 12:01:22 AM EST

With fewer than two weeks before the Texas and Ohio primaries, Hillary Clinton does not have much time to turn around her sagging campaign. With polls showing that her unfavorable ratings are continuing to climb and her approval ratings are in a slow but steady decline, the Senator from New York has to mastermind a miracle, and quickly. Across the Hudson, Governor Corzine faces similar polling numbers, but time is on his side. Unfortunately, the Governor must also transform himself but has not shown adeptness at doing so.

mikeshapiro :: Corzine, Like Clinton, Only With More Time to Turn It Around

This past week, the Quinnipiac poll showed the Governor with a 37% job approval rating and a whopping 52% disapproval. In addition, 51% of the voters polled said he did not deserve re-election and his approval among members of his own party is only at 53%. With continued wrangling over an unpopular toll hike still ahead, the Governor will see his support continue to dwindle in the weeks ahead. However, all is not lost and the Governor does have time to regroup.

First, he needs to make steep cuts to help balance the State budget without raising taxes. State workers' jobs, however, are not the place to start. Governor Corzine should begin to trim the fat regarding political appointees in his Administration and throughout the State government. These jobs, awarded to cronies and contributors, bring with them huge (for the public sector) salaries with commensurate benefits and little accountability. Boards and commissions in the State are replete with such appointees, some of whom are paid handsomely. In addition, the Governor must become more stringent with unions and insist on concessions including reasonable but mandatory contributions to medical care and pensions for all future State workers and all current New Jersey employees who have worked fewer than ten years for the State government. Without dealing with these large entitlements, the State budget will continue to rise as health care and pension costs drain our economic strength. Rather than terminate workers, early retirement plans should first be explored. The toll hike plan should be seriously revamped so that it targets only roads on New Jersey's borders with other states and only for modest increases, with all monies raised dedicated to reducing the State's debt.

In addition to budget issues, it may be suggested that the Governor take the lead in reforming government ethics by acting upon the Party Democracy Act, "Pay to Play" reform, closing lobbying loopholes, and campaign finance reform. These actions would help to make government more transparent and accountable while taking away a potent issue from the Republicans in the gubernatorial election.

Should the Governor not step up to the plate and deliver regarding fiscal and ethics reform, his political life may come to an end sooner than he would like it to.

Tags: Jon Corzine, Hillary Clinton, budget, cuts, spending, taxes, ethics reform, fiscal reform, (All Tags)

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Corzine, Like Clinton, Only With More Time to Turn It Around | 1 comments

Facts (4.00 / 1)

"Cronyism" and "rewarding your friends" are not the problems in this budget. You could cut every example you could come up with and still wind up with a rather token effect on the entire budget.

"Early retirement" is a short-term feel-good "solution" that results in long-term costs for the pension and retiree health systems and in the positions getting "backfilled" anyway. In 2006, 45,000 state employees were designated "non-essential." Are we really saying that even 5% of those positions couldn't be eliminated even through attrition?

I agree with you about benefits. The first thing that should be done is the rollback of the pension giveaway (n/55) from 2001. The Governor chose to allow state workers to get out of even the 1.5% health care co-pay by saying that there would be "wellness programs" that apparently have never been implemented.

Regarding the toll roads, there is work that needs to be done. Toll hikes are inevitable. 800% toll hikes were never going to be approved. But, any toll hikes should be used for the roads and maybe for some fare reductions for NJ Transit. There does need to be a real review of how many workers does the Turnpike Authority really need.

According to the Governor's plan, the savings for debt service were going to be $960 million for the first ten years and then decline to $560 million for ten years and then down to $56 million. We really need to get true information about State debt and what the pay-off schedule is. Most State debt has already been refinanced recently. It just needs to get paid off. This is why it was a major mistake to go ahead with the increased rebate program with the penny. I don't believe that anyone would have supported an increase in the sales tax to provide for "property tax relief."

The last two years have been a wasted opportunity to make the hard choices to change our fiscal condition. It is a little scary that even a Governor with a completely independent power base and resources was unable to do very much. The one solace I take is that the problem seemed to be the ultimate will to act rather than an inability to achieve.

While I believe that many of the reforms in the "Party Democracy Act" are good ideas, some are more problematic. But, I sincerely doubt that there will be many Republicans (beyond the few that already have) getting behind S930/A1904. A lot of the push for campaign finance reform from the GOP came after they were knocked out of power and are desperate for a way to even the playing field. If they took full control of state government tomorrow, they wouldn't do a thing.

by: Creed Pogue @ Tue Feb 26, 2008 at 13:41:57 PM UTC