Things just keep getting worse. According to the Star-Ledger, New Jersey taxpayers have promised health insurance packages worth almost $69 billion to current and future public retirees. This includes $11 billion in municipal costs and $58 billion to be paid by the state.
And considering that the monetization is fast becoming a dead issue, what is Corzine going to do about this budget? Even if monetization were on the table, and the state were able to raise $30 billion (as proposed to Nancy Feldman, the Director of the Office of Public Finance), it would still leave us woefully short of closing the gap.
Chapter 11, here we come! Ready to make history?
Report: Insurance costs $58B for state, $11B for municipalities
Star-Ledger
Corzine received $30 billion proposal for "monetization" of NJ Turnpike with management contract
Toll Road News
2 comments:
The state will have to say 'uncle'. It could happen very very soon. We knew in the early 70's that these pensions (and soc. sec)were going to run into a big problem. Get ready state employees..You may want to ask a few folks that worked for corporations that had to shed their pensions in order to stay in business how they deal with it. Aint NO guarantees!
if selling off the turnpike system would eliminate ALL of the state's debt, I could suppport the idea. Bite one big bullet to completely clear the ledger could make sense.
The problem with NJ's plan is that they plan to sell off not just an asset, but a source of income, and it will barely make a dent in the state's debt. What makes it only worse is that while selling off the rights to the income, the last plan I read keeps some of the expenses, like labor.
Can the governor explain to us how you sell one of your businesses, lose its revenue, retain the expenses, remain in massive debt, but this is a good idea?
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