What’s in the ‘Democrat budget’ Christie signed and why they’re mad anyway – New Jersey 101.5 FM Radio
(Tim Larsen/Governors Office)
The budget battle fought over changes to Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield could have been resolved another way by erasing some $325 million in spending added to the budget by Democratic lawmakers, roughly half of it for increased school aid.
Democrats, particularly Senate President Stephen Sweeney, wouldnt entertain the idea even when state services were partially shut down, including state parks over much of the holiday weekend.
Im sorry for the inconvenience that everyone went through, but at the end of the day we have one hell of a budget that we can be proud of, said Sweeney, D-Gloucester.
For me, and I know the speaker also, we cared a great deal about the finances that are in this budget, Sweeney said. Its the best budget weve seen in 10 years. It provides for a lot of people. And thats what we cared about.
Gov. Chris Christie made clear, in public and privately to lawmakers, that hed use his line-item veto authority to erase those 73 items, and perhaps others, if bills were also approved making changes to Horizon and transferring lottery profits to the state pension funds for the next 30 years.
In order to get them to agree to those smart fiscal and governance reforms, I needed to give them more spending than Ive ever given them before. Thats the nature of compromise. Thats why I did it, said Christie, who said the budget is a more Democrat budget than hed want.
Listen, its not the spending that I would have chosen. But thats the nature of compromise, he said.
Will Horizon changes that held up budget have much impact?
Christie didnt totally put down his line-item veto pen.
While he didnt reduce or delete line items, he did remove language from the budget that Democrats had added in consequential ways.
For instance, he took language that would have restored whats known as Heat and Eat benefits, connecting nutritional benefits to home-heating assistance. Rule changes in 2014 reduced nutritional benefits to around 159,000 New Jersey households by $90 a month.
The provision would cost the state $3.2 million to put into the budget, said Adele LaTourette, director of the New Jersey Anti-Hunger Coalition.
Its critical, particularly when were looking at whats happening at the federal level, that the state do as much as it can to reinforce the importance of SNAP and make sure that benefits go to people who are elderly and disabled who are, by far, the most needy, LaTourette said.
Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto, D-Hudson, said the vetoes also eliminate a requirement that $25 million Democrats added for preschool expansion goes to districts with high concentrations of at-risk students and keep in place a family cap that denies welfare assistance for children born to a mother already getting Work First NJ benefits.
Prieto, who fought with Christie over the budget, said the vetoes at another glimpse at Gov. Christies bad character and why he should never have been trusted.
Gov. Christie has broken his word yet again, and no one should be surprised, Prieto said in a prepared statement. Anyone who contends Gov. Christie is an honest man has spent too much time sitting in the sun with him or in traffic on the George Washington Bridge.
Christie spokesman Brian Murray said the governor agreed to enact 73 specific budget requests, not every language provision.
The governor kept his word, Murray said. The governor never agreed to sign an unbalanced budget by preserving every additional spending request sneakily tucked into the budget and not paid for by revenue. Speaker Prietos statement is false and all the honest parties to our agreement know it.
In addition to the preschool funding, The Democratic additions to the budget increase education aid by $100 million and redistribute $31 million in previously awarded aid toward more underfunded districts. At Christies request, it budget also adds $25 million for extraordinary special education aid.
Democrats additions to the education budget also included $23.8 million for aid to nonpublic schools for security, transportation, nursing and technology.
Among the other additions:
In the end, the budget passed mostly but not entirely along party lines.
The vote was closest in the Senate, where it passed 21-14. Three of the 24 Democrats were absent from the hastily called midnight session, and Sen. Jeff Van Drew, D-Cape May, voted against it meaning it would have been one vote short of passage, except that Sen. Michael Doherty, R-Warren, voted for it.
In the Assembly, where the vote was 55-21, six of the 28 Republicans voted for the budget: Chris Brown, Robert Clifton, Ronald Dancer, Sean Kean, Kevin Rooney and David Russo.
I will admit that there is much not to like in this budget. But more importantly and as an overview there is much to be pleased with, said Assemblyman Gary Schaer, D-Passaic.
Priorities paid for with money that we dont have is not a real commitment to those priorities, said Assemblyman Declan OScanlon, R-Monmouth. While this budget is not as bad as some previous budgets that weve passed, where we spent billions of dollars that we didnt have, this one still spends hundreds of millions of dollars of essentially fabricated money.
OScanlon said he shares Democrats concerns for the good causes the extra money funds. But ultimately our highest priority needs to be to fiscal sanity and reality and the understanding that our constituents pockets are not made out of inexhaustible fountains of cash, he said.
New Jersey: Decoded cuts through the cruft and gets to what matters in New Jersey news and politics. Follow on Facebook and Twitter.
Michael Symons is State House bureau chief for New Jersey 101.5 and the editor of New Jersey: Decoded. Follow @NJDecoded on Twitter and Facebook. Contact him at michael.symons@townsquaremedia.com
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What's in the 'Democrat budget' Christie signed and why they're mad anyway - New Jersey 101.5 FM Radio