I work in software marketing, so a substantial chunk of my paycheck comes from commissions. Can you imagine if I went to my boss and said, "Gee, Gerry, our commissions are down. So instead of X% per million dollars, you need to give me X+3% per million so I can stay revenue-neutral." He'd laugh in my face.

But that's exactly what Governor Corzine is doing. Tax revenues are down, so he's going to raise taxes: by a billion dollars or so!

Meanwhile, he's cutting less than 10% of spending (about 3 billion from a budget of, what, about 33 billion last year). And by the way, some of that so-called cut is rebates and deductions -- in other words, he's cutting back on letting us keep our own money.

Even when he's cutting spending, he's raising taxes.

And you'd be able to see that clearly if we had a budget to look at. But we don't.

For that matter, we can't see anything clearly. What are your priorities, Jon? You gave us some ideas in your budget address, but I can't tell how sincere you are. I can't tell whether my dollars are going to, say, Planned Parenthood (even though they had a surplus) or stem-cell research (even though the voters have given that idea a resounding "no").

So should he now get to hide behind an opaque wall until people actually have to vote on his budget? Should there be no debate?

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When he ran for governor, people talked about his financial savvy. If we had known then where the Wall Street Warriors would get us, maybe we wouldn't have been surprised that he's less than he's cracked up to be.

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I keep thinking about the budget as if it were weight. Putting on 60 pounds is a lot easier than taking it off, and you're better off not putting on the pounds; but if your weight is a problem then you have to figure out what habits made you heavy, fix those habits, overcompensate until you're down to a normal weight, and then start maintenance.

As a state, we've gotten fat on taxes. We shouldn't have increased spending as much as we did, but since we have, we should find out where the increases have gone to, how many are mandatory vs. discretionary, and what the real benefit is: how our quality of life has improved.

Then we should start remedial efforts. We'll have to strip out unnecessary stuff, even stuff we really like. We'll argue among ourselves about what's discretionary vs. what's mandatory. It won't be fun.

And then we'll have to keep off the weight.

Much easier said than done, of course.

Comment from Dennis: Jake, I think we miss the fact that Corzine is following the same script that Obama has followed at the Federal level. Gin up the crisis, use urgency to eliminate debate and pass a poor bill without appropriate review. We all know the stimulus went through under the "urgency" banner yet Obama waited 5 days to sign it into law. That was a scame pure and simple. Corzine has never had any new ideas so it is not surprising that he will do the same with NJ's budget. Message to the voters: Suckers!

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