You may have read a thing or two about Wall Street's immediate outlook being more than a little uncertain, and that the ripple will have an impact on New Jersey's budget. Now, Governor Corzine is ordering his department heads to cut costs by 5% in anticipation of a future downturn. This follows a week of bi-partisan prodding by the legislature. The Governor also wisely insisted that the legislature pass no bills that would increase spending, unless the law is related to economic stimulus.
The moves are worthy of support and the legislature would be wise to interpret "economic stimulus" narrowly and not have it become the latest buzz word to justify increased spending. So far, there have been no signals of that intent.
"There are a lot of moving parts at the same time, and one thing is absolutely certain -- we are identifying hundreds of millions of dollars in additional cuts that may be necessary." [snip]
Senate Majority Leader Stephen Sweeney (D-Gloucester), a member of the Budget and Appropriations Committee, said the Legislature "absolutely" should heed Corzine's call to cork spending until more is known about the revenue projections.
"We gotta get a new set of numbers," Sweeney said.
Those new numbers will be available next month and will likely spark a new round of legislative action.
