Governor Focuses on Fiscal Health of N.J.
Making Steep and Unpopular Budget Cuts, Corzine Knows He Risks Losing Reelection

By Keith B. Richburg
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, June 22, 2008

ATLANTIC CITY -- As he grapples with one of the country's worst fiscal crises, Gov. Jon S. Corzine crosses New Jersey sounding a bit like a budgetary Grim Reaper, darkly warning audiences of the pain already inflicted and the suffering still to come.

"Our finances in this state are out of kilter," he said at one stop, a meeting of county officials in the ballroom of a resort hotel. "We can no longer go on spending more than we take in."

He continued: "I'd like to be a government activist. But if we don't have the resources, we're actually kidding ourselves about the direction we're taking."

At another stop here, at the state's AFL-CIO convention, Corzine struck an equally somber note. "I know you're frustrated -- I'm frustrated," he told the assembled union members. "It's heartbreaking to make some of the choices we're making.

"We've borrowed until we're blue in the face," he added. "We've got to change. Change does not come easily."

The Democrat's bleak message is not one that politicians normally like to deliver -- and his popularity has plummeted as a result. But the governor, who ran Goldman Sachs investment bank before entering politics, has seized it as his mission to bring a dose of Wall Street reality to a state crushed by $32 billion in debt and a revenue shortfall forecast at close to $3 billion, the third worst in the nation after California and New York.

As Corzine and the legislature navigate toward a new budget, he is promising to hold it to $32.8 billion, freeze spending and begin paying down the huge debt. He has frozen government hiring and reduced the state's workforce, now down by about 2,000 people. He is cutting property tax rebates to some homeowners. He is proposing deep cuts in funding for hospitals' charity care for the uninsured.

He is planning to add $600 million for education, but to do that, he says, "I just have to cut something else."

None of this comes naturally to a self-described progressive, and he repeatedly uses the word "heartbreaking" when describing some of his cuts.

"He's not backed away from the notion that he's got to get this right," said Tim Vercellotti, a professor at Rutgers University's Eagleton Institute of Politics. "Here's a guy coming out of Wall Street and high finance who's looked at the books and said 'We've got to do things differently.' " He added, "Like him or hate him, you have to admire him for putting his cards on the table."

Sometimes, however, other politicians and the public have not liked those cards, forcing Corzine to withdraw some of his proposals under fierce opposition.

His major plan for paying down the debt and raising money for infrastructure improvements was to lease New Jersey's toll roads and raise toll rates about 50 percent annually beginning in 2010. He traveled around the state, carting charts and graphs to town meetings. But the criticism was ferocious, as his plan came to be seen simply as a toll increase, and he dropped the idea.

"I don't think the public was willing to join me in paying down the debt," Corzine said in an interview between appointments. "I was probably too aggressive in what I was trying to accomplish."

Similarly, his idea to cut state aid to the smallest New Jersey towns, as an incentive to get them to merge, was shelved after an uproar from local officials. The experience left him chastened. "Home rule is another one of those things, like taxes," that is difficult to touch, he said.

The effort prompted one former small-town mayor, Carl Bergmanson of Glen Ridge, to begin collecting signatures for a referendum to have Corzine recalled. Bergmanson said he has collected "boxes and boxes" of signatures but is still probably a long way from the 1.2 million names he needs to force the issue in November. "He'd better pray his name's not on there," said Bergmanson, who runs the Web site RecallCorzineNow.com. "He'd lose in a landslide."

The budget battles have taken a toll on Corzine's public image. He was elected in 2005 with 54 percent of the vote. But a poll taken this month by Quinnipiac University showed that 52 percent of New Jersey voters disapprove of the job Corzine is doing, with 38 percent approving.

In that poll, 66 percent of New Jersey residents said the state's budget problem is "very serious." But Corzine does not seem to be getting any credit for trying to tackle the issue; 57 percent of voters said they disapprove of the way he is handling the budget issue.

"His problems are very much tied to the budget," said Clay Richards, Quinnipiac's assistant director of polling. "They know it's a big problem, and they don't like what the governor is doing."

Corzine deals with his freefall in the opinion polls with black humor. At the AFL-CIO convention, he began his remarks by saying, "It's great to be with friends -- I've been looking for a few."

Commenting on the union president's unanimous reelection, Corzine quipped, "I read the papers, and I don't think unanimous is in the offing for my reelection." The gubernatorial election will be held next year.

In the interview, Corzine was accepting of his low approval rating and was resigned to the fact that doing what he considers right may make him a one-term governor.

"I might not get reelected," he said. "It might not make you popular. But if we're ever going to get out from this conundrum of heavy debt load and overspending, then somebody has to take this on.

"I would have failed the public if I didn't take this issue on," Corzine added. Declining to blame his predecessors, he called the state's fiscal mess "a systemic issue" that grew over time because of a reluctance to raise taxes, a failure to adequately invest and past reliance on financial "gimmicks," such as using one-time surpluses like revenue.

"If I change how we do business in the state, and at least set us on a track to fiscal responsibility, then I'll feel I've made a lot of inroads," he said, adding: "Two terms would help me do that."

Also, Corzine, 61, a multimillionaire who spent $100 million on his campaigns for the Senate and for governor, has a different perspective than most politicians: He said that he does not want to make politics a career, and that he sees himself as one of the "citizen politicians" of old. He said he is looking forward to spending more time with his three grandchildren when he is no longer governor. And surviving a serious traffic accident last year has given him a new outlook on life.

"I want to get reelected. But it shouldn't be the defining element," he said, sounding almost reflective. "I'm not looking for a job when I get done with this."