Excerpts - As Prepared for delivery
February 25, 2014
A 5th Balanced
Budget Without Raising Taxes That Makes The Largest Pension Payment
Ever
"Today, I present to you a budget
that is balanced, and, for the fifth year in a row, that requires no new taxes
on the people of New Jersey.
"Here is more important news. This
budget, when you take out pension and health care costs and debt service, is
$2.2 billion smaller than Fiscal Year 2008. Over the last five years, we have
cut discretionary spending by $2.2 billion. This has been an era of fiscal
restraint.
“The budget proposes making the
largest pension payment ever at $2.25 billion.
“How groundbreaking is a $2.25
billion payment in one budget? That payment is nearly the equivalent of the
total payments made in the ten years before we arrived by five different
governors. We’ve kept faith with our pensioners.
The Looming Crisis Is Clear
"Due to our pension, health benefit
and debt obligations, only 6 percent of new spending can be focused on the areas
where we really want to dedicate our resources – education, tax relief, public
safety, higher education, drug rehabilitation, health care and critical services
for the most in need.
The Need To Go Further With Bipartisan Pension
Reform
“We chose to do what was hard and
politically unsafe by putting the future of our state and the prosperity of our
people first. Together, we worked to achieve a sweeping, bipartisan plan to deal
with our state’s pension and benefit system.
“The reforms we enacted together
are going to save New Jersey’s state and local governments $122 billion in the
30 years from 2011 to 2041. Together, we are cleaning up the mess of the past.
But this simply isn’t enough.
Tax Increases Are Not A Solution
“Now there will be some that would
advocate that the answer is to raise taxes. Not only is this an unfair solution,
it isn’t a solution at all. We just can’t raise taxes enough to pay for the
exploding costs of public employee pensions and benefits. Not to mention the
burden it would place on our already overburdened taxpayers.“Though the historic 2011 reforms we enacted together immediately reduced New Jersey’s state and local unfunded pension liabilities by 32 percent, it just doesn’t go far enough.
“Without additional reforms, New
Jersey taxpayers still owe $52 billion to fully fund the pension system.
“With our long-term obligations
only set to increase in the coming years, the problem isn’t going away by
itself. We must do what we were sent here to do by the people – lead and act
decisively once again.
Sacrificing What Matters Most On The Altar Of
Entitlements
“Across the country, we are
sacrificing university research, support for K-12 education, funding for the
environment and energy and infrastructure of all kinds on the altar of these
three things: pensions, health costs and debt.“Due to these exploding entitlement costs, we are failing our taxpayers when we refuse to honestly address these problems and try to fool them into believing that choices do not need to be made. We are better than that. New Jersey is clearly better than that.”
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