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4. By any chance, did the governor have a couple of years of good tax receipts, after which he raised spending to the skies? That's what California's governor did--he raised spending by 35% on the basis of one or two good years, which is why they're in such a mess.
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He's been in office a whole 7 months....
He can't even blame this all on a 'previous partisan governorship' since his predecessor was of the same party-Democrat, albeit he was busy chasing appointees with no experience in their respective offices while trying to appear hetero.....time-consuming activities, I'm sure.
Corzine is making a point of saying that if the sales tax isn't raised, EVERYTHING will suffer and NJ will implode, yada, yada. But I'll give just one example of how this state works, one that I'm personally familiar with:
Under the guidance of the NJEA, laws were put into effect that no longer, mere educated laypeople could be teacher assistants. They now had to be either teachers themselves or have gone through the certification, meaning a few classes then testing.
Laypeople made less than $15k as a rule; teachers just out of college with a Bachelor's start at approx. $25k, give or take. Two things happened as a result; one, the NJEA reaped more dues, based on the increased salaries of these new assistant requirements and two; district educational spending, which is backed by the state, went up. A lot. So, people like me, who were shown the door, both lost income AND had their property tax increase.
And that is NJ in a nutshell.