Corzine Epiphany Eight Months and $400 Million Too Late

It should not have taken grand jury subpoenas for Governor Corzine to realize that last July's pork barrel feeding frenzy violated the public trust and should never be repeated.  After an eight day shutdown of state government, behind closed doors in the dead of night, Democratic legislators and the governor's aides negotiated $400 million worth of Christmas tree appropriations. The shutdown was triggered by Governor Corzine’s insistence that $1.4 billion increase in the sales tax was needed to balance the budget and reduce the gap between the state’s recurring revenues and recurring expenses. The governor won the showdown, our sales taxes were raised. However, in the process of winning he forfeited the principles he claimed to be defending. He agreed to move half the additional revenue off budget, meaning it would not be used to balance the budget or solve the structural deficit. He also allowed nearly $400 million worth of Christmas tree items to be added to the budget. The phony lockbox and the pork barrel ate up more than $1 billion and the Christmas tree bartering extended the shut down of state government for 36 hours.  Still the governor had a chance to redeem himself. He could have vetoed the Christmas tree appropriations, which would have shrunk the hole in the state budget. I and several other leading Republicans called on him to do just that. I sent the governor a letter urging him to use his line item veto power to remove all of these special interest grants from the budget. Instead the governor chose to cancel only a token amount of the Christmas tree appropriations. Some argue last July’s pork fest was in keeping with a Trenton tradition. They are misinformed. The budget process of the last three years, since Democrats gained total control of the legislature and the governor’s office, has been without precedent. The last three Democrat budgets have been adopted by the legislature as soon as they came off the presses and without meaningful public review by the budget committees. When Republicans were in similar positions in the 1990s, legislative appropriations were not negotiated in secret and then hidden in the budget. The budget committees never approved a budget that had not yet been printed, and they were always discussed in public. Under Republican control the budget bill was made public between June 14th and 25th and it was publicly available for days before it was adopted. There were public committee hearings that permitted discussion and debate regarding all appropriations. I believe the budget should be publicly available for at least one week before it is voted on by the full legislature and I was the first to introduce legislation to accomplish that in 2004. Yes, those Republican budgets did include legislative grants. But the process was open and bipartisan and the grants represented one-tenth the amount now being squandered. Those grants were vetted by partisan staff, the Office of Legislative Services, and the Governor’s office. These initiatives were spelled out in the budget bill. Worthy proposals, including those requested by Democrat lawmakers, were considered and included. The Governor has defended his action saying much of the money went to worthy causes and that he had to sign the budget to reopen government. If the money was being spent wisely, then why wasn’t it part of the budget process? Even after signing the budget why didn’t he freeze all the Legislative add-ons until each was carefully reviewed and found worthy? After Federal agents served subpoenas on his office, the governor announced “never again� would he approve Christmas tree appropriations. People of faith are familiar with 11th hour conversions. Unfortunately, the governor's moment of clarity has come after dawn, after daylight has exposed the impropriety of last July’s midnight madness. It’s eight months and $400 million too late.