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 Jan. 25, 2010
So it turns out Gov. Chris Christie was wrong when he said the state was facing a $1.3 billion deficit in this fiscal year.
No, David Rosen -- the budget and finance officer at OLS -- said the deficit was actually $2 billion, according to newjerseynewsroom.com.
And the budget for next year? $8.9 billion.
Which means that Christie has to solve a $10.9 billion deficit.
That's one-third of the state budget.
Which means that $500 million surplus that Gov. Corzine and his spokesman insisted were there?
Well, we guess that's just one more place that we learned we couldn't "hold him accountable."
Here's the bad news from newjerseynewsroom:
David J. Rosen, budget and finance officer for the non-partisan state Office of Legislative Services, told legislators that 2009 was the worst in modern state government history for tax collections with overall revenue down 12 percent. He said it was also the worst year for income tax collections with revenue down 18 percent, and the worst year for sales collections with revenue down 14.8 percent.
Continuing with the grim statistics, Rosen said reality tax revenues was down 40 percent, the corporate business tax revenue down 25 percent, insurance taxes revenue down 16 percent, casino revenue down 14 percent, inheritance tax revenues down down 9 percent, and motor fuel tax revenue down 5 percent. He said tax revenue could go even lower this year.
"In 2011, let's say we have a real recovery,'' Rosen told the committee, "it will take until 2014 to get back to where the state was in 2008. It is going to be very hard for us to simply grow out of this problem. We have taken such a revenue hit in the last two years that it is going to take up to multiple years to get back to where we were in terms of a state revenue base. It is going to have a profound impact in the years going forward.''
Rosen said possible solutions to solving the nearly $2 billion 2009-10 budget deficit could include raising $1.8 billion by using reserve funds, federal aid and a tax amnesty program that could bring in more revenue. He also said an additional $2.5 billion could be found by budget cuts, and delaying pension contributions and school aid.
Rosen said the Republican Chistie administration and the Democratic-controlled Legislature face an $8.9 billion 2010-11 budget deficit caused, in part, by the end of temporary tax increases that raised $1.1 billion, a $1 billion decline in tax revenue, the lose of $2.2 billion in federal aid, a state pension contribution obligation of $3 billion, a $600 million increase in school aid, and a $1 billion cost of funding mandated Homestead Rebate programs.
Question: Are we really supposed to believe that Corzine didn't know these numbers as he was walking out the door? That he really thought he was leaving a surplus?
Or was he just coming up with plausible deniability, to justify why he kept spending money, and making appointments, like he lived in Neverland?
Only he's not Tinkerbell. And there's no Peter Pan to lead us out of the mess that Corzine left.
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