Allow me to begin with a word about our new governor’s rhetorical skills.

Last year, when then primary candiate Christie locked horns with Steve Lonegan in their frst debate, I remember being impressed with his speaking ability. Today was no different. For his first speech in front of a Joint Session (outside of his Inaugural speech), Christie was in command, spoke forthrightly about the state’s problems and generally came across as a strong leader. His style is in clear contrast to our ex-Governor’s which smacked of being at a boring college lecture. If nothing else, Mr. Christie is more compelling to listen to.

At times, I wondered if some of his remarks and his presentation would be perceived to be too forceful to those on the “other side”, but that did not appear to be the case. So, kudos to Mr. Christie for a well-delivered address.

Throughout the course of the address, for the first time Mr. Christie began to give us the specifics that were missing from his campaign. With the state facing a current $2B budget gap, delivering some specifics was, of course, a necessity.

Many of the governor’s proposal are good ones. First, there was a spending freeze on various programs including “InvestNJ” and the “main street” program, to save some $550M. Christie also pointed to “over a billion dollars in reductions and reforms” via reductions to other programs like the NJ Transit subsidy.

So far, so good.

Next, Christie took on the critical issue of pension reform – a reform that is an absolute must in my view. In fact, one of the highlights of today’s speech was when Governor Christie used the example of two government workers, explained how much they paid into the system and how much they received in benefits.

One state retiree, 49 years old, paid, over the course of his entire career, a total of $124,000 towards his retirement pension and health benefits. What will we pay him? $3.3 million in pension payments over his life and nearly $500,000 for health care benefits — a total of $3.8m on a $120,000 investment. Is that fair?

A retired teacher paid $62,000 towards her pension and nothing, yes nothing, for full family medical, dental and vision coverage over her entire career. What will we pay her? $1.4 million in pension benefits and another $215,000 in health care benefit premiums over her lifetime. Is it “fair” for all of us and our children to have to pay for this excess?

Hard to argue against reforming the system when presented with these two compelling examples.

Mr. Christie was very firm about reforming the pension system, urged the legislature to further strengthen their reform bills and promised he would sign such a bill if it reached his desk.  

It should be noted, however, that during the campaign, Mr. Christie proposed moving away from a defined benefit to a defined contribution retirement program for government workers. As they say, the devil is in the details and it remains to be seen if pensions are replaced with 401k’s.

Now the bad part.

The governor is planning to help plug the budget hole by using the surpluses of various school districts across the state – to the tune of $475M.

Many school districts in New Jersey have surpluses that were not a part of their fiscal year 2010 budgets. This is because they were either not anticipated – so called excess surpluses – or were placed in a reserve account – so called reserve surpluses.

I am reducing school aid in a way that ensures that no district will have aid withheld in an amount that is greater than its surpluses.

To some, an across the board reduction of a fixed percentage of school aid may seem more fair. But because some districts rely so heavily on state aid, this may affect their ability to provide the required thorough and efficient education to their students. And this approach would likely throw some districts into a deficit situation. We have not reduced school aid with an axe—we have done it with a scalpel and with great care.

The total amount of aid to be withheld is $475 million. I know this solution will not be popular. More than 500 school districts will be affected, and more than 100 districts will lose all state aid for the remainder of the year.

Now, the governor couched this proposal with rhetoric of no tax increases, no pain for students and shared sacrifice. But the fact of the matter is this raid on the surpluses of well-run districts is nothing less than wealth redistribution and punishment for those districts being more fiscally responsible.

The only sacrifice that is going on when these surpluses are used is by suburban and rural taxpayers who are being asked to continue propping up the failing schools in places like Camden.

The governor’s proposal on state aid is essentially a one-shot gimmick that would make Jon Corzine envious. Keep in mind, these surpluses are used by these school districts for, among other things, replacing boilers and repairing roofs. Where will the money come from when they need to address such things?

Raiding these surpluses is not real change – it is more of the same – avoiding the tough choices at the expense of taxpayers. And it also sends a terrible message that these well-run districts should spend their surpluses, or risk the state pilfering them.

For what was otherwise a good speech with commendable steps for tackling the budget deficit, the state aid proposal puts a real damper on it and I hope the governor reconsiders while he still can.

See the text of Christie’s speech here.

The opinions in this post are my own and in no way reflect the views of Americans for Prosperity.