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Gannett State Bureau article – many state newspapers runs Gannett articles, here is this week’s on Governor Corzine’s forthcoming budget message. Here are the newspapers that are Gannett-owned:
Gannett NJ Newspapers
Asbury Park Press
Gannett State Bureau
Courier News
Courier-Post
The Daily Journal
Daily Record
Home News Tribune
Ocean County Observer
Times Beacon Newspapers
Examples of a few headlines covering the article are below:
1. Courier News:
Corzine has warned that budget choices will be painful.
2. DAILY RECORD:
Tax hikes, loss of aid envelop N.J. budget
Corzine plan aims to repair state's chronic deficit crisis
By
Although Corzine the candidate pledged to fight for more affordable housing and college scholarships, Corzine the governor has focused on tax hikes and budget cuts and apparently plans to break a campaign promise about increasing property tax rebates.
The dire choices, Corzine has said, are aimed at solving
"The problem is simple, the answer is going to be painful," Corzine said Thursday. "I want to put us on a pathway that will end this cycle."
Corzine and his aides believe a stable budget and healthy economy go hand-in-hand, each helping the other. A sound spending plan could help
"We can grow the economy to allow us to have some ability to invest back in our future and we really look forward to doing that," Corzine said in a recent speech. "That will be a lot more fun."
But Corzine's plan to reach that goal will call for tax increases sure to invite criticism from all angles, including those who say this budget will boost government spending.
"There's going to be pain in the budget for just about every interest group," said Sen. Joseph Vitale, D-Middlesex.
Including Corzine. In deciding to save the state hundreds of millions of dollars by backing off a campaign pledge to increase property tax rebates above their 2004 peak levels, Corzine has created an easy target for critics.
Instead of giving average homeowners a $400 rebate boost to offset
A widely discussed 1 percent sales tax increase that would cost consumers $1.1 billion has also drawn criticism.
Tax hikes on alcohol and cigarettes are expected to be included in the budget, and aid to colleges reportedly will be cut by $100 million.
People enrolled in Medicaid, a health-care program for the poor, may be asked to pay more, and schools and municipalities will be forced to go with largely flat state aid this year, putting pressure on towns to raise property taxes.
Lawmakers will lose $190 million for pet projects, though such spending is often excluded from the governor's budget plan, then reinserted later by lawmakers.
"None of the choices are going to be easy," said Sen. Barbara Buono, D-Middlesex. "We need to take our medicine."
Critics, however, angrily point to an expected $2 billion spending increase that would bring the state budget to more than $30 billion.
"
Even members of Corzine's own party have grumbled about potential tax increases.
Sen. Stephen Sweeney, D-Gloucester, said Corzine should have started with a budget that has no spending increases, even for inflation, and let taxpayers decide if they can live with the results.
"The public needs to understand what they're looking at and if they want more, they should decide to support more," Sweeney said.
Corzine's administration has emphasized that cost cutbacks over projected growth will be larger than the budget's proposed tax increases.
Assembly Democrats have been quiet as the plans have leaked into news reports, saying they prefer to give Corzine a chance to lay out his budget. But their caucus rebelled against proposed rebate cuts last year, leading to an intra-party feud. Assemblyman Louis Greenwald, D-Camden, said he does not want to see rebates reduced.
"The rebate program, to me, is something that needs to be protected," Greenwald said Thursday.
Lawmakers will have months to alter the budget before it must be finalized July 1, and it is likely to change. Last year, after then-Gov. Richard J. Codey touted budget austerity, lawmakers added millions of dollars of spending back in and wiped out some of his most painful proposals.
Senate Minority Leader Leonard Lance, R-Hunterdon, said Corzine can look to his Democratic colleagues for how the budget problems grew so dire.
"We are in a horrendous situation due to the terrible fiscal mismanagement of the last four years, and that is not of Jon Corzine's making," Lance said.
If the solution requires a sales tax increase, Lance estimated it will cost the average family $500 to $600 a year.
"That will be borne by middle-class working
But Democrats said Codey began to turn the tide with his budget last year.
"Our fiscal '06 budget ended the Enron-like practice of grossly exaggerating revenue estimates to mask unsustainable spending," Buono said.
Back in his role as Senate president, Codey, D-Essex, said he hopes this year's final budget continues "chipping away" at the state's structural deficit.
And even the ranking Republican on the Assembly Budget Committee, Assemblyman Joseph Malone III, R-Burlington, praised Corzine after earlier expressing skepticism about his plans.
"He may just be facing the reality of the situation and the reality of the politics that he has to live with," Malone said.
Malone said he will likely oppose most of Corzine's proposals but was "extremely impressed" with the governor's hands-on approach.
"I may not agree with all of those things (in the budget), but you know something, I'm going to enjoy disagreeing with the governor," Malone said.
One plan likely to draw agreement from liberal groups is a proposal to give tax breaks to people earning less than $30,000 a year, which may give hope to some advocates for the poor who believe they will have a strong ally in Corzine, if he can get the budget under control.
Earlier this month one of those advocates, the Rev. Bruce Davidson, said a Corzine aide asked him to be patient through the tough budget years because the administration stands with them.
"We have to give them some time," said Davidson, director of the Lutheran Office of Governmental Ministry in
from the Courier News website www.c-n.com
STAR LEDGER: Budget puts focus on kids, families
Aides: Cabinet office part of Corzine plan
Sunday, March 19, 2006
BY JOSH MARGOLIN
Star-Ledger Staff
Amid the tax increases and spending cuts in the budget he unveils Tuesday, Gov. Jon Corzine will include a change he hopes will improve the state's child-welfare system without costing extra money.
The governor will announce a plan to establish a Cabinet-level department built around the beleaguered Division of Youth and Family Services, three senior administration officials confirmed. The officials spoke on the condition they not be identified because the administration restricts anyone other than Corzine from speaking publicly about his budget before Tuesday.
The new Department of Children and Families would not increase overall state spending, the officials said. The new department's work force would be 6,600 and it would have a budget of $1.4 billion. It simply would be removed from the Department of Human Services and put under a commissioner who reports directly to the governor.
"The child welfare system hasn't adequately met its obligations," said one administration official who requested anonymity. "The governor is making a commitment here."
Kevin Ryan, the Human Services commissioner who previously was
Corzine wants to see the new office approved by the Legislature and open for business by July 1.
Assembly Speaker Joseph Roberts said he hasn't seen the fine print, but sees the wisdom in the governor's plan.
"It's easy to conclude that the Department of Human Services, which has a larger budget than many states, is in many ways unmanageable," said Roberts (D-Camden). "If we are really going to do right by the children, we need to be able to focus on their needs in a clearer way. In concept, this makes an enormous amount of sense."
Senate President Richard Codey (D-Essex) declined to comment on the proposal.
Corzine also plans to establish a task force to review the remaining DHS bureaucracy and determine whether functions should be added, removed or reorganized. The deadline for that panel's report will be Aug. 1.
Early this year, a group of advisers to Corzine's transition reported that creating a new Cabinet-level agency would make child welfare "a stronger, more focused state priority."
"The child welfare system competes with several other important services systems" in DHS, the transition report said. "There was a consensus that child and family services needed a stronger presence when policy and fiscal decisions are made."
Though his two predecessors -- Codey and James E. McGreevey -- resisted such a plan, Corzine has been leaning toward it from the day he was sworn in this January.
Critics have argued that altering the bureaucracy would be too costly and would not guarantee child-protection services would improve. But the move has long been favored by Children's Rights Inc., the national advocacy group whose lawsuit against DYFS resulted in an agreement by the state to overhaul the agency.
"We had come to the conclusion, after the last year and a half of failed reform, things would not get better for children without this step," said Children's Rights executive director Marcia Robinson Lowry.
DHS "is a huge bureaucracy. You need a senior-level person to run it with access to the governor. We thought all along you'd need a separate agency. Time has proven us correct," Lowry said.
Cecilia Zalkind, executive director of the advocacy group Association for Children of New Jersey, said, "it's very positive that, in (Corzine's) first two months in office, in his first budget address, this is at the top of his list. This is significant priority for him. That's very helpful."
But she said she worries the restructuring could create new problems that "could fracture the system even further."
The Department of Human Services serves more than 1 million people with disabilities like mental illness and developmental problems; people in poverty who rely on welfare, food stamps and Medicaid; as well as mistreated children and their families. DYFS accounts for more than a quarter of the DHS work force and more than 10 percent of its budget.
Josh Margolin covers politics and government. He may be reached at jmargolin@starledger.com or (609) 989-0267.
The RECORD
Most in N.J. prefer service cuts to tax increases, poll finds
Friday, March 17, 2006
But if taxes have to be raised, about 60 percent of the voters said they would prefer an increased sales tax, while 30 percent favored a higher income tax, the
The results come as Governor Corzine is preparing his first budget since taking office in January. The Democrat has said he is unlikely to be able to close an estimated $3.5 billion budget deficit with spending cuts alone. He has not been specific, however, about any tax increases that are being considered to produce revenue for a budget that hit about $28 billion this year. Corzine is scheduled to release his budget proposal next week.
Voters of all persuasions preferred a sales tax increase, if needed, for a balanced budget, but Democrats were nearly twice as likely as Republicans to support a higher income tax.
The poll indicates that Corzine has succeeded in convincing voters that
At the same time, hopes have dwindled that Corzine can reduce property taxes, a major theme of his election campaign.
Only one-fourth of voters still think the governor will be able to keep his pledge. Nearly half of those surveyed shortly after his election held that view, but that slid to 35 percent soon after his inauguration.
"One thing the budget crisis has brought out in the state -- voters are getting less and less confident that Governor Corzine is going to do anything about property taxes," said Clay F. Richards, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. "Now, nearly two-thirds say he will not be able to cut what voters have said all along is the most hated tax in
Despite that, Corzine's favorable job approval rating has inched up, although only slightly, with more than 40 percent of those surveyed saying they approve of his performance so far.
One-fifth said they disapproved, and about one-third did not know. In January, one in seven voters disapproved, but about half had no opinion, the poll found.
The Quinnipiac telephone survey of 1,147 randomly selected registered voters was conducted from March 8-14 and has a sampling error margin of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
STAR LEDGER: Fiscal reality takes chunk of Corzine's budget plan
Sunday, March 19, 2006
BY JOE DONOHUE
Star-Ledger Staff
Gov. Jon Corzine yesterday said he will try to balance the state's pressing needs with stark financial realities on Tuesday when he presents a proposed $30.8 billion budget that will include several tax increases and more than $2 billion in cuts and spending freezes.
"We have a constitutional mandate to balance our budget, we have a moral mandate to try to do those things that protect the people, homeland security, to make sure that we educate our children, to provide health care to those left behind, and to grow an economy," he said during an appearance in
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Corzine declined to discuss de tails but personally told lawmakers Thursday and Friday he plans to raise the sales tax from 6 percent to 7 percent and extend it to several services currently not taxed.
The governor also is expected to recommend a cigarette tax increase of up to 60 cents per pack, impose an unspecified wholesale tax on alcohol and raise the realty transfer tax on commercial property sales.
Administration officials have confirmed Corzine plans to scale back a proposal to more than double the $350 rebate doled out to nonsenior homeowners last year and instead will seek only a 10 percent increase for all rebate recipients, including elderly and disabled.
Corzine, speaking after the dedication of the Donald K. Tucker Complex, would not discuss his $30.8 billion spending plan, saying: "I'd rather people focus on the whole issue as opposed to any one specific part."
While several taxes will rise, some residents would see tax breaks. Legislative sources have confirmed Corzine plans to spare more residents from having to pay any state income tax, extending the threshold from $20,000 to $25,000.
Corzine also has rejected any notion of slapping a temporary sur tax on the income tax. He plans to slash aid to higher education by more than $100 million, keep aid to school districts and municipalities essentially flat, and reap $200 million in savings by laying off 400 non- unionized workers and making the 15,000 nonunionized workers share more of their benefit costs.
Joe Donohue covers state government and politics. He may be reached at jdonohue@starledger.com or (609) 989-0208.
