By Matt Rooney
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Governor Phil Murphy’s Saturday afternoon presser included a dire warning which had nothing to do with hand washing or sheltering in place, Save Jerseyans. “We will have layoffs that will be historic,” Murphy declared, referring to the prospect of large-scale state worker payroll cuts and adding that he doesn’t “know how many, but it is big, big numbers.”
Is that a threat, Phil? Or a promise?
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Seriously… don’t tease us!
As I’m sure you could guess without having suffered through his press conference, Murphy is threatening that big time public sector employee layoffs are inevitable unless (1) the federal government provides direct state aid and/or (2) the voters/legislature/courts let him unconstitutionally balance the state budget with billions in borrowed dollars. He wants a bailout to avoid making hard, long-overdue decisions.
Most of the state’s 64,000-strong state workforce is currently drawing pay checks while working at home or on reduced hours designed to promote social-distancing. No one has been laid off.
“Right now, folks need government more than ever before,” Murphy explained to Bloomberg TV. They didn’t ask him if there was ever a time or a circumstance when he felt government wasn’t needed “more than ever before.”
Meanwhile, out in the private sector where things like “pensions” and “contracts” are few and far between, new Garden State unemployment claims crossed the 718,000 threshhold on April 11th; that staggeringly grim number is almost assuredly now over 800,000 (and still climbing). So we have hundreds of thousands of non-government New Jersey jobs lost – some forever – yet not a single public employee is on the unemployment line.
Why shouldn’t the public sector contract and shrink when the private sector – which pays for the public sector – is collapsing?
It’s unseemly for state government to immunize itself from pain when the private sector is bleeding out as a direct result of Governor Murphy’s ‘stay at home’ executive order. Keep in mind: there’s no indication that Murphy is even considering logical first steps like putting off pre-scheduled raises or pausing new hiring for non-essential positions. Murphy’s philosophy – and his CWA public sector allies – won’t settle for anything less than FULL public sector employment while you and your neighbors are losing their shirts.
New Jersey’s per capita debt load is now approximately $65,100 according to one 2019 estimate. The excesses of the public sector in good and bad times are like are the proximate cause.
Here’s hoping D.C. calls Murphy’s bluff. Public employees need to join the club. This is their governor; they should need to live with the real world economic consequences just the same as everyone else. If nothing else? COVID-19 could be the only opportunity for Trenton to be forced maybe, just maybe, to live within its means.
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Save Jersey’s Founder and Blogger-in-Chief, MATT ROONEY is a nationally-noted and respected New Jersey political commentator. When he’s not on-line, radio or television advocating for conservative reform and challenging N.J. power-brokers, Matt is a practicing attorney at the law firm of DeMichele & DeMichele in Haddon Heights (Camden County).
