"We Can't Afford Government"

TW: Cory Booker is a hotshot Democratic politico with ambition. He is laying paper for higher office with quotes like these, but they are true. As I have posted previously, our governments in particular state and local governments have vastly over-promised on wages and benefits to government employees. At some point these increases have to be reined in and eventually pulled back.

I keep pounding on the need for fiscal conservatism at the right time. Once this worldwide recession eases, efforts must be made to either increase taxes or cut spending. At the state and local level taxes generally are already very high if not through the income tax but through various fees, levies, sales taxes etc. Booker knows taxes are not the answer but jabbering about "efficient spending or the occasional earmark" is not the answer either. Government payrolls either through headcount reductions or benefit cuts or both need to be addressed. Of course good luck to any politician trying to implement the obviously needed changes. The solutions are not always complex getting a democratically based populace to acquiesce is a challenge.

From Bloomberg:
"New Jersey’s tax-strapped residents can’t afford their government and the state needs to rein in the mounting costs of public worker benefits, said the mayor of Newark, the state’s largest city. Cory Booker, 40, said rising expenses for health care, pensions and salaries are impinging on government finances.

“New Jersey will go bankrupt in 10 to 20 years because we cannot afford our employees as a state,” Booker said. “I’m talking about every worker from the cities and counties to the state government. Eventually, we’re going to price ourselves out as a government or tax ourselves to death.”

Governor Jon Corzine in March proposed a $29.8 billion spending plan for next fiscal year that includes $4.3 billion to operate state government. Seventy percent of that, $3 billion, is for salaries and wages. Corzine, a first-term Democrat facing re-election in November, is seeking unpaid leaves and an 18- month wage freeze to save $400 million.

In Newark, Booker said he is looking to cut “hundreds” of jobs from the city’s 4,000-person workforce as he seeks to create a long-term balance in the municipality’s budget, which is currently $659 million. The mayor also wants to force city employees to take 18 unpaid days off to help reduce expenses and close an $180 million deficit by 2012.

Personnel accounts for 70 percent of the budget of Newark, Booker said. The first-term Democrat said the employment reduction was among “very difficult decisions” he faces.
“There should be a tax revolt in the state of New Jersey,” Booker said. “We’re the most inefficient state in the country. We have more government per person than we need. You would never manage a business the way we manage our government - - we have overlapping provision of services and in my opinion, it’s insane...”
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=a6g6isp6ZlCI&refer=us