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The New York Times
In the Region
POLITICAL MEMO
Corzine Leans Closer
and Gets an Earful
By DAVID W. CHEN,
nytimes.com on the Web, March 2, 2008
TRENTON, NJ -- AFTER spending
the weekend in Washington for a meeting of the National Governors Association
and a White House dinner, Gov. Jon S. Corzine traveled to Ohio Wednesday to
stump for Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton.
In between, he stuck around Trenton long enough to unload a grim $33 billion
budget proposal that would close three state agencies, trim the state’s work
force by 3,000 and weigh $500 million less than last year’s budget.
But before departing Wednesday to stump for Mrs. Clinton, Mr. Corzine took his
budget plan on the road, the day after he presented it to lawmakers in Trenton,
visiting with customers at the Tick Tock Diner on Route 3 in Clifton.
At the diner, he seemed to receive support from customers for trimming back
state spending — and for not including tax increases in his proposed budget —
but several customers voiced concern over his plans to raise tolls by 800
percent over 15 years. Mr. Corzine has been trying to keep the discussion
about his toll increase plan separate from his state budget cuts.
One of the tables he visited was occupied by a group of retired teachers from
Public School 25 in Jersey City, who meet every Wednesday morning at the diner.
After Mr. Corzine left, Trudi Mockert, who used to teach children from
kindergarten to second grade, said that she didn’t like Mr. Corzine’s toll plan,
but she commended his efforts to cut the budget.
“It’s austere, but we don’t really have a choice,” she said. “There are
very few people that will escape unscathed from this budget. But we have
no choice. Otherwise, we’ll be spending our way into oblivion. He’s
going to be the most unpopular person. But he’s willing to risk it.
That says something: he has courage.”
Another diner, Jerry Sullivan, 67, of Clifton, who used to work as a branch
manager for Chase Manhattan Bank in Lower Manhattan — near where Mr. Corzine
used to work while at Goldman Sachs — told Mr. Corzine he was happy that he was
cutting expenses, noting that he is retired, and “everything helped.”
After Mr. Corzine stepped away from the counter, Mr. Sullivan gave the governor
credit for trying to fix a problem that he did not inherit.
“It isn’t anything he did,” Mr. Sullivan said. “At least he’s trying to
get things under control. Somebody’s got to make a stand, somewhere.”
In the last two months, Mr. Corzine did not meet with similarly positive
responses as he bounced around the state, touting his toll plan to reduce state
debt and provide steady financing for transportation projects.
He has conducted 13 town hall meetings in 13 counties so far, including five
within one six-day stretch, and he found himself speaking before often-hostile
crowds that have swelled to as many as 1,300 people.
With his budget proposal ready to be dissected, Mr. Corzine is preparing for (or
is he dreading?) even more town hall meetings than the eight he had already
promised, to meet his goal of holding one in each of the state’s 21 counties.
He said he also planned to do more meet-and-greets like the appearance Wednesday
morning at the diner.
“I’m going to stay very much in a conversation with the public,” Mr. Corzine
said. “We will go into places where people deserve a chance to raise their
issues that maybe aren’t coming out. I think we’ll have a broader
discussion than what we’ve had before.”
Certainly there is no shortage of topics to discuss.
With his proposed spending plan for the new fiscal year beginning on July 1,
Governor Corzine signaled that he is prepared to make deep cuts to bring the
state’s lagging revenues in line with expenditures, and make even deeper cuts if
revenues continue to decline.
Mr. Corzine can count on hearing loud complaints about the budget cuts.
He is likely to hear from advocates for higher education who are upset about a
proposed $97 million cut to four-year colleges, including $38 million alone, or
12 percent, for Rutgers.
He is likely to hear, too, from mayors representing many of New Jersey’s 566
municipalities who are unhappy with his proposed $190 million cut to local aid,
with the sharpest reductions aimed at towns with fewer than 10,000 people, an
effort to get some municipalities to consider consolidation.
Then there are the farmers, upset about the elimination of the Department of
Agriculture, and hospitals, concerned about state cuts in charity care that
hospital officials say could lead to more closings of community hospitals and
the shuttering of emergency rooms that serve some of the state’s poorest
communities. Other cuts could close state parks, limit property tax
rebates to some residents and lead to shorter hours at motor vehicle offices.
And you can bet that organized labor will get on his case for proposing to
reduce the state work force; already, Carla Katz, president of Communications
Workers of America Local 1034, which represents 10,000 workers, is comparing Mr.
Corzine’s actions with the movie “There Will Be Blood.”
One thing that Mr. Corzine must ultimately do to succeed, said Patrick Murray,
director of the Monmouth University Polling Institute, is make a connection with
ordinary residents so that he can be like former President Clinton, and feel
their pocketbook pain. Yet so far, Mr. Murray feels that Mr. Corzine has
not been particularly effective.
“There’s been a sense all along that his heart wasn’t in New Jersey,” Mr. Murray
said. “I think there really is a problem with someone who has not spent
his political career pressing the flesh, and understanding the public. He
has these events, but at the root he doesn’t truly connect with the voters.”
So maybe that is why Mr. Corzine is so determined to spend as much time outside
his office in Trenton as possible.
Perhaps this is Mr. Corzine’s version of Mrs. Clinton’s “listening tour” across
New York State when she first announced that she was running for the Senate to
represent a state she had never lived in before.
Or maybe this is Mr. Corzine’s unwitting attempt to live by a song performed by
a native of that other March 4 battleground state: Willie Nelson, and “On
the Road Again.”
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