Last Chance Gas

State Senator Barbara Buono needs a vocabulary lesson.

She was quoted yesterday as saying that the proposed NJ budget has “$4.8 billion in cuts”.

It has no such thing. A much smaller amount is actually cuts in spending. But Buono is also counting “reductions in growth”, e.g. increases in spending that are merely smaller increases than originally planned. They are still increases, not cuts. She is also counting a one-time Federal hand-out as a “cut” because the Feds are funding projects (primarily in education) rather than the state. Finally, she is counting revenue transfers from places like the state pension fund as “cuts”. Those transfers will have to be made up for in future budgets… with interest.

Meanwhile, Corzine has removed the ability of the government to make real savings in major items like salaries and benefits by signing a binding agreement with the state unions, essentially exempting them over time from pay cuts, benefit cuts or even headcount cuts. Whoever is governor next year will find himself chained to an anvil.