[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 33 (Tuesday, March 22, 1994)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page E]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: March 22, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
      GOVERNOR WHITMAN'S BUDGET ADDRESS TO THE STATE OF NEW JERSEY

                                 ______


                            HON. JIM SAXTON

                             of new jersey

                    in the house of representatives

                        Tuesday, March 22, 1994

  Mr. SAXTON. Mr. Speaker, I commend to my colleagues' attention the 
following address by Governor Christine Whitman to the State of New 
Jersey, given on March 15, 1994.

       Good evening.
       Two months ago, I took office promising a new beginning: A 
     government that is committed to fundamental change. A 
     government that is fiscally responsible. A government that 
     uses common sense. And a governor who keeps her promises.
       Budgets are more than just numbers. They are the balance 
     sheet of our principles, the ultimate statement of our 
     priorities. This is where government puts it money where its 
     mouth is. Only it's not the government's money. It's your 
     money. That's why I'm here tonight.
       This is the first time in memory that a governor has 
     delivered a budget message to a joint session of the 
     Legislature in the evening--during ``prime time'' when it can 
     be broadcast across the state to families in their homes.
       Traditionally, this speech is given at 2 p.m., when few of 
     you have an opportunity to listen. What you get are a few 
     sound bites on the evening news and an article in your local 
     paper. I asked to give this speech at this time because you 
     deserve to hear directly how your tax dollars are being spent 
     and why. I would like to thank the Legislature for agreeing 
     to this change.
       This is the beginning of three-and-a-half months of 
     dialogue, debate and discussion between members of my 
     administration, the Legislature, and the various interest 
     groups that have traditionally driven the policy agenda in 
     Trenton. And this time, you--as citizens--must be involved, 
     too.
       Fifty years ago, the first computer was built. It was a 
     mammoth machine: One hundred feet long. Ten feet high. Three 
     feet deep. Today, the computer world has changed.
       Computers the size of that PC right there have the same 
     capacity as the Supercomputer installed eight years ago that 
     took up two rooms at Princeton's Forrestal Center. Microchips 
     are in--main-frames are out. But not in government.
       Government in New Jersey is an expensive-to-run, slow-to-
     respond, antiquated main-frame. It fills two rooms when it 
     needs to take up a single desk.
       With this budget, we begin the process of remaking 
     government. Of making the machinery of government smaller. 
     Smarter. Faster. More responsive to you. And less costly. We 
     have no other choice.
       Taxes in New Jersey--the cost of running the machinery of 
     government--are too high. High taxes drive jobs out of New 
     Jersey and discourage new businesses from coming in. They 
     make it hard for young families to buy homes and for senior 
     citizens to keep them. They force our children to look for 
     jobs and opportunities far away from their home.
       If we were to follow the pattern set by governors and 
     legislatures over the past quarter-century, state spending 
     would double over the next eight years. The state budget 
     would be 32 billion dollars. Four thousand, one hundred 
     dollars for every man, woman and child in the state.
       Income, sales or business taxes would have to go up $3 
     billion every 30 months just to keep up. That cannot happen. 
     You cannot afford it. Our children cannot afford it. You 
     elected me--to prevent this. I will not let it happen. This 
     budget is going to go down! Not up.
       There is only one way to cut government spending, and that 
     is to cut the amount of tax dollars that we take out of your 
     pocket. The more money you have to spend, the more the 
     economy will grow. You elected me to cut taxes and government 
     spending in order to create jobs and stimulate economic 
     growth. And that's exactly what my tax cuts will do.
       Your Legislature under Senate President Don DiFrancesco and 
     Assembly Speaker Chuck Haytalan launched New Jersey on the 
     road to economy recovery by rolling back the sales tax in 
     1992 and cutting business taxes last summer.
       I am grateful to the Legislature for so quickly approving 
     the 5 percent income tax cut and the corporate tax rollback I 
     called for in my Inaugural Address.
       The Senate finished the job today by approving the 
     elimination of all income taxes for the 380,000 New Jerseyans 
     earning less than $7,500 a year--mostly senior citizens, 
     students and people working their way off welfare.
       Those tax cuts are just the first step. I promised you an 
     income tax cut ranging from 30 percent for low- and middle-
     income families to 20 percent for high-income families by 
     1997. With this budget, I am asking the Legislature to take 
     the second step. I am calling for a second income tax cut 
     effective January 1, 1995.
       This tax cut would give more to the low-and middle-income 
     taxpayers who need tax relief the most. My plan would triple 
     the current income tax cut to 15 percent for families earning 
     less than $80,000 and individuals making less than $40,000. 
     The cut would be 7\1/2\ percent for families earning between 
     $80,000 and $150,000 and individuals between $40,000 and 
     $75,000. Those in the highest tax bracket would get a 6 
     percent cut.
       And make no mistake: I will call for a third tax cut next 
     year. For democracy to work, those who ask for your vote must 
     keep their promises. I will keep mine.
       Not everyone will be happy with this budget. You will hear 
     complaints about particular cuts, questions about why I kept 
     my promise to cut taxes. But tax cut or no tax cut, we would 
     have had to cut spending this year.
       We must cut spending to close a $2 billion structural 
     deficit caused by a past overreliance on one-shot revenues 
     and by a past failure to limit growth in government spending 
     to the growth in tax revenues. With this budget, we stop 
     spending more money than we take in. With this budget, we 
     reduce our reliance on one-shot revenues by nearly one half.
       We are changing the way we fund pensions and health 
     benefits for retirees in a way that will save you more than 
     $600 million this year and more than 3\1/2\ billion dollars 
     over the next four years without affecting benefits for a 
     single retired worker. We are not taking a penny out of the 
     pension system. We will continue to pay for health benefits 
     on an annual basis. We also address a fundamental inequity in 
     our retiree benefits system by requiring teachers and state 
     workers to pay the same amount toward their pensions that 
     police and firefighters and non-government workers already 
     pay.
       I know that property taxes concern you. When I urged the 
     Legislature to enact a retroactive income tax cut, I promised 
     that we would not play the shell game of cutting one tax by 
     raising another. I kept that promise.
       This budget provides a net increase of more than $100 
     million in the resources available to local governments, 
     which I urge them to use to hold down property taxes.
       I am recommending the elimination of desegregation aid and 
     a partial phaseout of density aid to municipalities.
       I am also proposing a 33 percent reduction in the 
     ``transition aid'' to 265 school districts that was supposed 
     to expire completely this year under the 1990 law. This will 
     enable us to shift $28 million more into the 30 poorest 
     school districts. This is a good-faith effort toward 
     complying with the Supreme Court order to close the funding 
     gap between the richest and poorest school districts.
       We will write a new school aid law over the next year that 
     defines what a ``thorough and efficient education'' should 
     mean for every child, no matter where he or she lives.
       But you know--and I know--that more money is not the answer 
     for a school system that already spends more per child than 
     any other state. The answer--is accountability.
       We must teach children to read in the early grades, so we 
     do not have to spend tens of millions of dollars more on 
     remedial education in high school and college. We need to 
     inject competition into our schools by developing 
     alternatives like magnet schools, charter schools and voucher 
     systems. And we need to understand that salaries and benefits 
     for school personnel are growing so rapidly that they eat up 
     any increase in state aid long before the dollars reach the 
     classroom.
       School districts, like municipalities and counties, must 
     find ways to cut costs. If I can find ways to balance my 
     budget while cutting taxes by $589 million, your schools, 
     counties and municipalities can find ways to balance their 
     budgets without raising taxes!
       In fact, I challenge those who are putting so much energy 
     into criticizing my spending cuts to use that energy to find 
     the cost savings in their own budgets that we all know are 
     there. It is not impossible.
       I said I would cut spending in the governor's office by 20 
     percent. And I did it.
       Union Township, which I visited last month, spends 15 
     percent less than the statewide average to educate its 
     children. That's because it pays teachers extra to handle 
     administrative duties than other districts pay vice-
     principals higher salaries to perform. We all know that 
     municipalities and schools can save money by regionalizing 
     services.
       My treasurer is willing to provide efficiency audit teams 
     to help your local governments identify cost savings. But the 
     best way to find savings is to do what we are doing: Set up 
     broad-based citizens groups within your own town and school 
     district to come up with creative ideas to save money that 
     challenge the old ways of doing things.
       Participatory democracy works. This budget proves it. 
     Before my administration even took office, a citizens' budget 
     committee co-chaired by Candy Straight and Andrew Chapman 
     identified hundreds of millions of dollars in potential 
     budget savings.
       Valuable ideas come in from you--through town meetings, 
     call-in shows and the thousands of letters you sent to the 
     ``Our Tax Dollars'' program. Nicholas Gordon of Fort Lee, who 
     is with us tonight, wrote in to ask why the state is spending 
     money for a Basic Skills Assessment test for college freshmen 
     that duplicates the test we give to 11th graders. Nicholas, 
     you're right. That test is gone. You just saved the State 
     $1.2 million a year.
       Nancy Burwell of Belleville, who is also in the gallery, 
     called 101.5 while I was on the air to suggest that we bring 
     in a company to audit the state government's phone bills. 
     Good idea, Nancy. We expect to save $1.5 million, maybe more.
       Paul Porreca Jr. of Millville, who is also here, asked why 
     the State of New Jersey was running marinas in competition 
     with private enterprise. Good question. We're going to 
     privatize those marinas in Leonardo and Forked River. 
     Expected sale price? Seven million dollars.
       Nobody wrote in to suggest that we can save money by 
     continuing the ``Our Tax Dollars'' program. But I've managed 
     to figure that one out for myself.
       Write me with your ideas. The address is ``Our Tax 
     Dollars,'' CN096, Trenton, New Jersey 08625.
       One of the most intriguing letters to come into ``Our Tax 
     Dollars'' arrived in December from Frank P. Merlo, a graduate 
     professor of education at Montclair State College. Professor 
     Merlo can't be with us tonight because he's teaching a school 
     finance course, but this is what he wrote: ``The present 
     autonomy of the state's public higher education institutions 
     makes the Department (of Higher Education) somewhat obsolete 
     and relegates it to a make-work function to justify its 
     existence.'' Professor Merlo--you're right! As of July 1 the 
     state Department of Higher Education will no longer exist.
       I am proposing the creation of a Council of College 
     Presidents to replace the needlessly duplicative oversight 
     now provided by the chancellor's office and the Board of 
     Higher Education. Taxpayers will save millions of dollars by 
     cutting this excessive bureaucracy. But more important, we 
     will put responsibility and accountability for our colleges 
     where it belongs--with the individual college presidents and 
     their boards of trustees.
       The 1986 state college autonomy law gave colleges 
     responsibility for greater self-governance and for developing 
     their own unique missions. They have succeeded admirably. 
     Rutgers, NJIT and UMDNY are stronger than ever. Montclair is 
     about to become the first state college to earn university 
     status. Trenton State is no longer one of the best kept 
     secrets in higher education. Our community colleges are 
     thriving. Our commitment to higher education is stronger than 
     ever.
       In fact, tuition increases will be limited to 3\1/2\ 
     percent this year--the lowest increase in at least 10 years--
     because we recognize that education is the cornerstone of our 
     future. We must provide quality education from preschool to 
     graduate school if New Jersey is to compete in the 21st 
     Century.
       The Department of Higher Education isn't the only Cabinet 
     agency that should be eliminated. The Department of the 
     Public Advocate also has outlived its usefulness. We must 
     continue to meet fully this state's constitutional 
     responsibility to provide legal counsel to the poor and to 
     patients involuntarily committed to mental hospitals. We can 
     do so by transferring the Office of the Public Defender and 
     all mental health screening services to the Department of 
     State.
       Federally funded programs for the legal protection of 
     persons with disabilities would be privatized and would 
     continue stronger than ever. But the Division of Rate Counsel 
     would be abolished because it duplicates the role of the 
     Board of Regulatory Commissioners.
       And we would no longer use your tax dollars to finance 
     lawsuits by one government agency against another government 
     agency, which then has to use more tax dollars to defend 
     itself in a court system also financed by you. We can find 
     better ways to spend our money.
       It is also time to get government out of businesses it 
     should not be running and to give private companies and non-
     profits the opportunity to compete to provide services at 
     lower cost.
       Speaking of better ways to spend our money, public 
     television cannot truly be independent as long as it is 
     funded by government dollars. With this budget, we begin a 
     two-year transition to making New Jersey Network financially 
     and politically independent, like its sister stations in New 
     York and Philadelphia. Government ownership of the media went 
     out with Pravda. I am cutting state aid to New Jersey Network 
     by $2 million to start the transition from tax dollars to 
     private contributions. I will lend my personal support to New 
     Jersey Network's fund-raising drive.
       Privatization makes sense in other areas too. In addition 
     to the two marinas, I plan to turn over six state day care 
     centers to non-profit agencies. I plan to close seven of the 
     state's 39 armories. The Russians are not coming--except, 
     hopefully, as tourists.
       Perhaps the most exciting privatization initiative is a 
     plan to establish a community-based drug treatment facility 
     adjacent to the Hudson County Jail 400 medium-security state 
     prisoners. Two-thirds of the 25,000 inmates in our state 
     prison system have drug or alcohol problems, yet the 
     Department of Corrections has just 250 substance-abuse 
     treatment. If we keep releasing prisoners with drug or 
     alcohol problems, we know they'll go right back to crime.
       This new medium-security facility, coupled with an 
     expansion of available beds in halfway houses, will give us 
     the opportunity to sent prisoners with drug and alcohol 
     problems to treatment program before they came up for parole. 
     The message will be clear: If you don't get clean and sober, 
     they have no chance of parole. It's as simple as that.
       This is just one example of how government needs to get 
     smart about spending a few dollars more now to avoid spending 
     a fistful of dollars later.
       Corrections spending has quadrupled since 1980, yet we have 
     been doing very little to prevent youngsters from entering 
     the criminal justice system in the first place and even less 
     to prevent inmates for going back to a life of crime after 
     they are paroled.
       My Attorney General and Human Services Commissioner are 
     heading an Advisory Council on Juvenile Justice that will 
     develop boot camps and other alternatives to put first-time 
     offenders back on the right track. I also want to require 
     inmates to get their high school equivalency diploma or 
     improve their reading by three grade levels as a condition 
     for their parole. You can't get a very good job with a 
     seventh-grade reading level, which is the average in our 
     prisons. Those who already have high school diplomas can 
     tutor those who need help.
       We need to be smart about funding health care, too. We will 
     save money by moving our Medicaid population to managed care. 
     But more importantly, we can give our poorest families the 
     opportunity to take their children to doctors for regular 
     checkups, instead of having to wait for their children to get 
     sick enough to take them to hospital emergency rooms.
       Similarly, advocates for the mentally ill and the 
     developmentally disabled have been pushing for years to 
     expand community-based services, rather than continuing to 
     pour hundreds of millions of tax dollars into expensive, 
     outmoded institutions. It is time to consider closing some 
     institutions and putting more money into the community to 
     establish a continuum of care.
       Throughout this budget, I have tried to invest money now in 
     programs that will pay dividends in the future--money that 
     will multiply and create opportunities in the private and 
     non-profit sectors.
       That's why I increased advertising for tourism by $1 
     million, knowing that every dollar spent promoting our 
     second-largest industry generates 70 new dollars for New 
     Jersey businesses.
       That's why I put an extra half-million dollars into 
     promoting our agricultural industry.
       That's why I am devoting $250,000 to empower the business 
     ombudsman to cut through red tape and prove that New Jersey 
     is a business-friendly state.
       That's why I doubled the State Planning Commission's budget 
     to $1.4 million. And that's why I refused to cut our billion-
     dollar capital spending program, including the $565 million 
     we will spend on transportation programs. Oh, yes--and 
     there's $30 million for counties and municipalities.
       I am proud of the work we have done in putting together a 
     smart, forward-looking budget in just two months. I want to 
     particularly thank my treasurer, Brian Clymer, my cabinet and 
     their staffs.
       In many ways, this is a transition budget--one put together 
     to close the structural deficit we inherited with the least 
     possible pain.
       We did limit the pain: School and municipal aid levels 
     remain virtually unchanged. Homestead rebates are preserved. 
     State worker layoffs caused by program cuts are projected at 
     600, and the final number could be less.
       But just as important, we are starting the process of 
     bringing sanity to government spending here in the State 
     House--and hopefully in your county courthouses, your town 
     halls and in your schools.
       Yes, we will have to make tough choices about our spending 
     priorities. But that's what a budget is.
       You make those choices every month when you pay your 
     mortgage or rent, buy food, and pay your utility bills 
     first--Then you see if you have enough money left over to go 
     on vacation or out to the movies. I'm talking about common 
     sense--a sense all too uncommon in government. You don't 
     spend more money than you are taking in, Government shouldn't 
     either.
       I'm going to keep asking you for your ideas on what you 
     want your government to do. My cabinet members will be 
     reaching out to all New Jerseyans to ask fundamental 
     questions about the programs and services they provide.
       Together--working with the Legislature--we can turn this 
     expensive-to-run, slow-to-respond, antiquated main-frame of a 
     government into a smaller, smarter, faster, more responsive 
     and less costly modern machine.
       That's how I want us to remake government. Together. In 
     public. In open debate with everyone at the table. That's 
     what democracy is. That's how government should work. We're 
     going to prove it here in New Jersey.
       Thank you for listening. Thank you for participating.
       God bless you. And good night.

                          ____________________