Corzine is in a fight with his Democratic legislature of the State budget, and the employees of the casinos are paying for it.
Atlantic City’s casinos are lucrative for New Jersey. They have a $1.1 billion payroll, and the state takes an 8 percent cut – an estimated $1.3 million a day. But as a stalemate over the state budget entered its fifth day Wednesday with no deal in sight, even they had to shut down.
With no state budget, New Jersey can’t pay its state employees, meaning the casino inspectors who keep tabs on the money and whose presence is required at casinos are off the job.
Why in the world would you allow the crisis to get to the level that it becomes necessary to shut down an operation that brings in $1.3 million a day? According to this Fox News Story dated July 1:
The dispute centers on Corzine’s determination to raise the state sales tax from 6 percent to 7 percent to help close a $4.5 billion budget deficit.
Corzine sees the increase as a vital step toward providing reliable annual revenue, but most Democrats in the Assembly ” the lower house of the state Legislature ” and several Senate Democrats say the plan is unnecessary.
Opponents have questioned the need for a sales tax increase, predicting voter backlash and demanding that any increase be reserved for property tax reform.
The state Constitution requires a balanced budget by July 1, but the deadline has been missed four times in five years. Nothing happened when deadlines were missed before, but the state never went past the morning of July 2 without an adopted budget. Without one, the state has no authority to spend money.
I will remind you of this post,
As he was on the campaign trail he said
Mr. Corzine won the Trenton statehouse last year by running as a tax cutter who’d raise property tax rebates by 40% over four years. “I’m not considering raising taxes. It’s not on my agenda. We have a very high-rate tax structure. I’m not considering it,” the then-U.S. Senator had vowed in October.
Now that he sits in the house
Well, last week Governor Corzine removed the Steve Forbes mask and submitted a record $30.9 billion budget that increases state spending by 9% and includes $1.5 billion in new levies. He wants to raise the already high state sales tax by 16% and extend it to services; hike taxes on cigarettes, alcohol and expensive cars; and create a new state water tax. And just so Garden State entrepreneurs don’t feel left out, his budget would impose a corporate tax surcharge and a commercial property transfer tax.
At least the Democrats are fighting him on this! They have no choice. There is only so much a taxpayer will accept..
Another lying politician, a Democrite, now has to face up to reality. Hopefully the voters of New Jersey will learn something from this.
Robert, don’t be too hopeful. I’ve lived in New Jersey. As long as the Dems keep the corrupt unions in there back pockets, they’ll keep control of the state. Corzine is exactly what nearly every other Democratic chief executive has been in NJ. Willing to sell his soul to the devil for a new tax increase. He’s talking about raising property taxes in a state with some of the highest property taxes in the US. In the late 80s, property taxes in New Jersey were approximately as much monthly as they were annually across the river in Delaware on a comparably valued property. BTW Delaware has no sales tax. They do have a general revenues tax and a slightly higher income tax than New Jersey, but the property taxes far outweigh the difference. The real problem with New Jersey is that so many of the voters live in the northern most portion of the state in the Newark area. A large portion of these are the do nothing welfare class who have made it their mission to live on the taxpayer’s dime. There’s also the crowd who have made living in taxpayer subsidized housing a way of life for generations of the same family. The “Projects” are so nice in some of these smaller New Jersey cities (Phillipsburg for one) that people never want to move out. They get their rent for a fraction of the actual market value including their utilities. I would hate to tell you how many big screen TVs and surround sound systems I used to deliver and install in the “Projects” in Phillipsburg. Half of these people were furnishing their townhouses from the rent to own store around the corner. I know because I worked at it for over a year.