NJ spending is fixed by courts? So fix the courts.

In this article in the CourierPostOnline, Sharon Schulman discusses the budget options available to New Jersey legislators. Her point is that there are not too many options available to cut:

There is no magic bullet that allows a governor or legislature to give us property-tax relief without creating pain elsewhere. They are constrained by the nearly 75 percent of the state budget that is fixed and cannot be touched. So in a $30 billion budget, $21.5 billion is fixed and cannot be cut. The idea of cutting the state budget 10 percent really only means cutting 10 percent of $8.5 billion -- not from $30 billion. A brief look at the 75 percent of the state budget that is fixed shows us that 60 percent is mandated programs and results of court decisions. They include:

Medicaid

State labor contracts, including contractual commitments to provide health care and other benefits

Court-supervised child welfare reform

Court-ordered spending in Abbott districts

Debt service payments

Great points all. So here we go with suggestions.

1. Our supreme court in New Jersey is frankly a political patronage mill. These people are not exceptional jurists. They are partisan appointees. So what to do?

-Fight the Abbott ruling and have the legislature refuse to follow the courts. New York did and and was successful in getting the payments down and under control.

2. Medicaid rules do not specify all of what should be covered and by what amount. Re-evaluate the New Jersey exposure and cut it to the median of the 50 states expenditure per person.

3. Revisit state labor contracts. Situations change and with a state that is closing in on bankruptcy, everything should be on the table. If the unions won't meet halfway, maybe the citizens will see that only those of us in the private sector are expected to take a hit in bad times. And the result of that will be a taxpayer revolt.

4. Stop borrowing. While the current administration bemoans debt service, they decided to borrow another 3.9 BILLION dollars. Stop it.

These changes would immediatelry have an impact on the budget and the care and feeding of corrupt patronage feeder systems in New Jersey. If EVERYTHING is on the table, then changes can happen.

---