Capitol Fax.com - Your Illinois News Radar » A familiar story
SUBSCRIBE to Capitol Fax      Advertise Here      About     Exclusive Subscriber Content     Updated Posts    Contact Rich Miller
CapitolFax.com
To subscribe to Capitol Fax, click here.
A familiar story

Tuesday, Jul 11, 2006 - Posted by Rich Miller

Governing Magazine’s blog has two great posts about why New Jersey’s finances have tanked. It’s eerily familiar. I’m probably excerpting way too much, so I hope they’ll forgive me.

From Part One, we pick up the story after Democratic Gov. Jim Florio is drummed out of office for raising taxes and Republican Christy Todd Whitman is elected on a promise to cut income taxes by 30 percent.

Cut taxes she did, becoming a national star for her party in the process. To pay for the cuts, she took up the bad fiscal habits of prior governors (including Florio). For one thing, she emptied out a retirement health trust fund, taking some $300 million out of the kitty and turning it into a pay as you go program. She also eliminated the state’s annual billion-dollar appropriation to pay for pensions.

During her second election year, in 1997, the pension fund needed money, but rather than reverting to the habit of making contributions from the state budget, Whitman sold some big pension bonds — and also got legislation allowing surpluses from pension investments to be used to cover the state’s ongoing obligations.

More tax cuts were in store, notably property tax cuts. All the cutting left the state without the funding necessary to comply with a state Supreme Court decision on school finance. New Jersey eventually floated a $12 billion school construction bond. As with the pension bonds, though, legislators and the governor failed to set aside enough cash even to make payments on the debt they incurred.

That meant that Jim McGreevey, the Democrat who opposed Whitman in 1997 and succeeded her in 2001, inherited a deficit of $6 billion. During that latter election year, the legislature gave a 9 percent pension increase to retired and current workers — shades of a pension bonus Kean doled out on his way out of office.

McGreevey raised some taxes and made some spending cuts, but for the most part resorted to a variety of new gimmicks to fill the gap. For instance, he twice borrowed money against tobacco settlement dollars. The state was still neglecting its required payments to the pension system, so it continued its neat trick of taking money out of the system to make payments back into it. Eventually, the state Supreme Court ruled that the state had to stop borrowing money to pay for operating costs.

Read the whole thing. Part Two can be found here.

       

9 Comments
  1. - vole - Tuesday, Jul 11, 06 @ 5:58 am:

    Rich,
    Amazing how these politicians all read from the same, failing, playbooks.

    Amazing how politicians will hollow out essential government programs and indebt future generations for the sake of a tax cut (or a refusal to consider tax increase).

    Amazing how politicians will totally ignore or reject potential revenue sources like taxing internet sales or even a token tax on ag equipment and ag production input purchases (got to admit, Blago tried the ag tax angle and got his butt handed to him).

    Amazing how politicians cannot reduce the size of government via performance and effectiveness audits to weed out unproductive programs or employees.

    Amazing how politicians jack up the salaries of state employees or provide short term promotions to higher positions shortly before their retirements, greatly impacting the burden on the pension system.

    Why do I feel that we are living in a house of cards and that the card sharks are running the show? How can we continue to accept such a losing hand?


  2. - Leroy - Tuesday, Jul 11, 06 @ 6:26 am:

    ‘All the [tax] cutting left the state without the funding necessary’

    We certainly don’t have to worry about that problemb here in Illinois…


  3. - DOWNSTATE - Tuesday, Jul 11, 06 @ 7:12 am:

    Tighten your belt it’s coming to Illinois.Within 3 to 5 years doing what we are doing this state will be shut down.The only redeeming thing is the Democrats get the blame.


  4. - Ravenswood Right Winger - Tuesday, Jul 11, 06 @ 8:11 am:

    excellent read, lots of parallels to what’s going on here. Funny how one-party leadership can be as much a taffy pull as split control.


  5. - Bluefish - Tuesday, Jul 11, 06 @ 9:32 am:

    The similarities were eerily familiar (Dems in charge fighting amongst themselves) except for one major detail - Gov. Corzine was pushing for a responsible budget that included a tax increase to help close the structural deficit in NJ while the legislative leaders preferred more slight-of-hand budget tricks. Blago is the one who keeps pushing for the slight-of-hand here.


  6. - Anonymous - Tuesday, Jul 11, 06 @ 1:36 pm:

    The scary thing is look what happens - the “leader” who irresponsibly pushes the problem into the future comes out with their reputation intact (Whitman), and the successors who try to clean up the mess are the ones who incur the voters wrath. Not much incentive for being responsible, is it? (or disincentive for punting problems into the future)


  7. - Downstater - Tuesday, Jul 11, 06 @ 1:41 pm:

    I commented in an earlier post about the similarities of the New Jersey/Illinois situations. Illinois is headed down the same road as NJ as all this expanded health care will not come cheap and will have to be paid for somehow either with a tax increase or a reduction in spending, but don’t look for that to happen as long as the Dems control the show. Brace yourselves folks, with the huge increase in healthcare spending and the huge and ever growing pension debt the taxpayers of Illinois will soon be in for a rough time as well as the forseeable future.


  8. - Anonymous - Tuesday, Jul 11, 06 @ 2:35 pm:

    Downstater - I’m not sure there’s a partisan difference here. After all, Judy Barr is pretty much in the Christie Todd Whitman school of Republican - social liberal, fiscal moderate. I wouldn’t be surprised to see a Topinka administration continue the same financial path.


  9. - NumbersGuy - Tuesday, Jul 11, 06 @ 3:20 pm:

    Folks, I can’t speak intelligently to some of the other aspects of the IL/NJ comparison, but I can add a couple points on the pension matters that may be of interest:

    -NJ sold around $3 billion of pension bonds in around 1997. At that time, it was the largest POB sale ever. Things started out fine. Then the stock market crashed in 2000 and the NJ investment office lost the entire $3 billion. Some of the “funding raids” which took place thereafter basically had to be done in order to deal with the simple fact that NJ had most of that $3 billion to service and the entire asset base on which they planned to service it was gone.

    -NJ was handicapped for decades by its archaic investment laws which required all state pension funds be managed in-house; of course, civil servants are cheaper than Merrill Lynch, goes the argument. They were also foridden from investing in alternative investments, even real estate. They also had some interesting policies in their investment office; my personal favorite was the “we only trade on Tuesday” rule. That made bookkeeping a lot easier, but when WorldCom cratered in 2002 on Wednesday, NJ lost millions by next Tuesday when it was time to sell.
    Cumulative investment underperformance has been a billion dollar plus additive to NJ’s pension woes.
    (We have this problem a couple places in Illinois, too. but nobody likes to talk about it..)
    Recent legislation has undone some, but not all, of the restictions.


Sorry, comments for this post are now closed.


* Isabel’s afternoon briefing
* When RETAIL Succeeds, Illinois Succeeds
* From the national legal front
* New GDP numbers could signal trouble for Illinois' more optimistic budget forecast
* Public Pressure Mounts For Nursing Home Accountability On Care And Safe Staffing
* Mayor's 87 percent transit ridership remarks turned back on him when it comes to funding (Updated)
* It’s just a bill
* Healing Communities: Endeavor Health Is Helping Train The Next Generation Of Caregivers
* Open thread
* Isabel’s morning briefing
* SUBSCRIBERS ONLY - Supplement to today’s edition
* SUBSCRIBERS ONLY - Today's edition of Capitol Fax (use all CAPS in password)
* Selected press releases (Live updates)
* Live coverage
* Yesterday's stories

Support CapitolFax.com
Visit our advertisers...

...............

...............

...............

...............

...............

...............

...............

...............


Loading


Main Menu
Home
Illinois
YouTube
Pundit rankings
Obama
Subscriber Content
Durbin
Burris
Blagojevich Trial
Advertising
Updated Posts
Polls

Archives
April 2025
March 2025
February 2025
January 2025
December 2024
November 2024
October 2024
September 2024
August 2024
July 2024
June 2024
May 2024
April 2024
March 2024
February 2024
January 2024
December 2023
November 2023
October 2023
September 2023
August 2023
July 2023
June 2023
May 2023
April 2023
March 2023
February 2023
January 2023
December 2022
November 2022
October 2022
September 2022
August 2022
July 2022
June 2022
May 2022
April 2022
March 2022
February 2022
January 2022
December 2021
November 2021
October 2021
September 2021
August 2021
July 2021
June 2021
May 2021
April 2021
March 2021
February 2021
January 2021
December 2020
November 2020
October 2020
September 2020
August 2020
July 2020
June 2020
May 2020
April 2020
March 2020
February 2020
January 2020
December 2019
November 2019
October 2019
September 2019
August 2019
July 2019
June 2019
May 2019
April 2019
March 2019
February 2019
January 2019
December 2018
November 2018
October 2018
September 2018
August 2018
July 2018
June 2018
May 2018
April 2018
March 2018
February 2018
January 2018
December 2017
November 2017
October 2017
September 2017
August 2017
July 2017
June 2017
May 2017
April 2017
March 2017
February 2017
January 2017
December 2016
November 2016
October 2016
September 2016
August 2016
July 2016
June 2016
May 2016
April 2016
March 2016
February 2016
January 2016
December 2015
November 2015
October 2015
September 2015
August 2015
July 2015
June 2015
May 2015
April 2015
March 2015
February 2015
January 2015
December 2014
November 2014
October 2014
September 2014
August 2014
July 2014
June 2014
May 2014
April 2014
March 2014
February 2014
January 2014
December 2013
November 2013
October 2013
September 2013
August 2013
July 2013
June 2013
May 2013
April 2013
March 2013
February 2013
January 2013
December 2012
November 2012
October 2012
September 2012
August 2012
July 2012
June 2012
May 2012
April 2012
March 2012
February 2012
January 2012
December 2011
November 2011
October 2011
September 2011
August 2011
July 2011
June 2011
May 2011
April 2011
March 2011
February 2011
January 2011
December 2010
November 2010
October 2010
September 2010
August 2010
July 2010
June 2010
May 2010
April 2010
March 2010
February 2010
January 2010
December 2009
November 2009
October 2009
September 2009
August 2009
July 2009
June 2009
May 2009
April 2009
March 2009
February 2009
January 2009
December 2008
November 2008
October 2008
September 2008
August 2008
July 2008
June 2008
May 2008
April 2008
March 2008
February 2008
January 2008
December 2007
November 2007
October 2007
September 2007
August 2007
July 2007
June 2007
May 2007
April 2007
March 2007
February 2007
January 2007
December 2006
November 2006
October 2006
September 2006
August 2006
July 2006
June 2006
May 2006
April 2006
March 2006
February 2006
January 2006
December 2005
April 2005
March 2005
February 2005
January 2005
December 2004
November 2004
October 2004

Blog*Spot Archives
November 2005
October 2005
September 2005
August 2005
July 2005
June 2005
May 2005

Syndication

RSS Feed 2.0
Comments RSS 2.0




Hosted by MCS SUBSCRIBE to Capitol Fax Advertise Here Mobile Version Contact Rich Miller