As we head into the early summer months talk on Governor Christie’s proposed FY2013 budget will get louder and louder.
You will hear Republicans talk about the path back to fiscal sanity that New Jersey has been on under this administration and tout the coming tax increases for everyone that just three years ago would have been unimaginable.
That will, of course, all be true…
In turn, you will hear Democrats refer to the budget as irresponsible and draconian, two words that I am sure if they knew what they meant, they would not use quite so freely. They are going to insist that Christie’s budget does nothing for New Jersey and is putting us on the wrong track, despite all evidence to the contrary. You will also hear that any decrease in thing that people like, such as, oh I don’t know, cleaning up oil spills, came from the Governor himself. And that of course will be a lie.
The AP is reporting that Governor Christie’s budget cuts spending on “water, pollution, and oil spill programs.” In a sense they are correct. Spending for the Department of Environmental Protection is going to drop by $16 million with the cuts spread throughout the department and its programs. However, as with most things, the devil is in the details:
State funding would increase about $30 million or 9 percent under the proposal. But due to a drop in federal funding, the DEP’s budget would see an overall cut of about $16 million or 2 percent.
So Governor Christie actually increases spending from the state to DEP by $30 million, but Obama decided to cut $46 million from the budget that was never passed by the Democrat Senate. Somehow, just as the AP headline failed to mention it, I feel as though Obama’s cuts to enviro-funding in New Jersey will be lost on the Democrat caucus as well.
