Campaign News

Tuesday, July 01, 2008
BY JOE DONOHUE AND DUNSTAN McNICHOL
Star-Ledger Staff

Acknowledging that "change is hard," Gov. Jon Corzine yesterday signed a $32.9 billion state budget that features dramatic cuts -- and then issued an executive order to curb future spending.

The governor said he takes no delight in enacting a budget that reduces spending $600 million below the budget adopted last year, a level he termed "historic."

"Make no mistake, the spending cuts are painful and bring no pleasure or applause. ... The cuts do, however, make clear that fiscal and tax stability for New Jersey citizens is possible," he said. "Change is hard. It's unpopular. Getting healthy will take time, even years."

Corzine also signed an executive order requiring future budgets to match spending to recurring revenues. In February, Corzine called for lawmakers to enact legislation setting that requirement, saying it would make sure the state only spends within its means, but no such law was passed.

NEWARK, NJ – The Better Choices Budget Coalition responded today to Governor Corzine’s anticipated signing of a state budget that makes deep cuts in vital services and shifts the state tax burden to local government with this statement by campaign coordinator Eva Bonime:

“Governor Corzine and the state legislature have done the state a disservice by enacting a ‘wrong choices’ budget.  The failure to make needed investments in vital services like higher education, roads and health care will reduce the quality of life for all New Jersey residents.  Cuts to municipal aid will drive up local property taxes. 

“However, our campaign will continue the fight – later this year and next – for better choices that take New Jersey in the right direction – with fair taxes and opportunity for all.”

6/30/2008, 3:02 p.m. ET
By TOM HESTER Jr.
The Associated Press   

TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — New Jersey Gov. Jon S. Corzine Monday signed a nearly $33 billion state budget that slashes funding for key services, though Republicans noted it leaves an impending transportation funding crisis unresolved.

Corzine signed the budget less 10 hours before the state's July 1 constitutional budget deadline.

...

Liberal-leaning groups also decried the budget. Eva Bonime, coordinator of the Better Choices Budget Campaign, which includes community, labor, housing, health and environmental groups, said the budget is a disservice. The coalition proposed avoiding cuts by increasing corporate taxes and income taxes on the wealthy.

"The failure to make needed investments in vital services like higher education, roads and health care will reduce the quality of life for all New Jersey residents," Bonime said. "Cuts to municipal aid will drive up local property taxes."
 

By Jon Shure
Board of Contributors
6/23/2008

If you quit your job and can’t pay your bills, that’s not a spending problem. It’s an income problem.

If you stop paying your mortgage because you just don’t feel like it and now you’re in danger of losing your house, that’s not a spending problem either; it’s a failure to live up to your obligations.

It’s not hard to figure out the difference between overspending and financial mismanagement—which made this year’s state budget and the rhetoric enveloping it so disappointing.

Eva Bonime, executive director of New Jersey Working Families Alliance, with Ed Lynch (yellow shirt) and John Robbins (reds hirt) both of United Food and Commercial Workers International Union, talks about effects of the budget cut on families. Labor and community groups joined the Better Choices Budget Campaign at the Workers Memorial at Kennedy Plaza in Atlantic City on Tuesday to protest the impact of proposed state budget cuts on working families.

Danny Drake

Originally published here: http://www.pressofatlanticcity.com/186/story/185469.html

Cleve Bryan ( cbryan@nbc40.net ) - 6/17/08 05:41 pm
Last Updated - 6/18/08 05:25 pm

TRENTON - Leaders of the state Senate and Assembly announce they reached an agreement with the governor on a nearly 33 billiondollar budget that would cut spending by about $600 million.

"It's hitting the state and it's hitting our members hard, really hard," says Joe Williams of Local 152.

He and a coalition of community and labor groups called "Better Choices for New Jersey" are the latest group to oppose the governor through a protest on the Atlantic City Boardwalk today.

<SNIP>

Opponents of the proposed budget say it hits tax payers on two fronts: first by upping property taxes through reducing municipal aid and second by cutting back on property tax rebates.

"We see this as a very shortsighted budget that fails to invest in the future," says Eva Bonime of Better Choices.

But legislators who will review and possibly pass the budget say there are no easy solutions.

by Joe Donohue/The Star-Ledger
Tuesday June 17, 2008

Gov. Jon Corzine and legislative leaders Monday agreed on a $32.8 billion state budget that the governor said will include "unprecedented" spending cuts and a new way to help New Jersey pay down its debt.

The deal, which came four months after Corzine called on lawmakers to reject "the patterns of overspending and tortured borrowing that burden our taxpayers," resulted in a spending plan that is actually $100 million less than the governor proposed in February.

It was produced amid weeks of protests from teachers, farmers, mayors, nursing home operators and other groups seeking to stave off the cuts.

<snip>

"Though the details are scarce, New Jerseyans should be dismayed by the short-sighted budget cuts apparently included in today's budget deal," said Eva Bonime, spokeswoman for the Better Choices Budget Campaign, a coalition of community, housing, environmental, labor and student groups that oppose Corzine's cuts.

by Carly
Wednesday June 11, 2008, 2:21 PM

Carly/Hoboken Now
"If Hoboken's hospital closes, we will have no medical facility that will provide services to the people of Hoboken," says Ora Welch, president and CEO of H.O.P.E.S., Inc.

Hey, Gov, you might not be welcome back to the Mile Square City any time soon! Non-profit groups from across the state met in Hoboken today to protest Gov. Jon Corzine's proposed state budget cuts. (Corzine lived in Hoboken before he became governor and recently bought a condo at Maxwell Place.)

June 5, 2008

By LALITA ALOOR AMUTHAN • STAFF WRITER