Coda If it looks like a tax hike, and smells like a hike … GREG BEAN So, it looks like Gov. Jon Corzine has started shooting the cocker spaniel. As longtime readers might remember from the last time I used the term, shooting the cocker spaniel is an old technique used by administrators facing budget cuts they really don't want to make. In this case, the bosses (taxpayers) tell them (elected officials) that they have to cut government expenses by reducing the size of government. The officials don't want to do that because they like big government and have other plans for raising money (increased taxes, charging a lot more for toll roads). They appear to be going along by saying, "Fine, we'll cut the budget, but you're not going to like the results." Then, they start cutting programs and services that the bosses (taxpayers) really need and want (shooting their cocker spaniels), hoping that we'll eventually say "To heck with it. Do whatever you want." Corzine, who's completely bought in to the notion that we need a huge, bloated, expensive bureaucracy in Trenton, really, really, wanted to reduce the state's debt by placing the unbearable burden on the backs of people driving the Garden State Parkway and the New Jersey Turnpike. Then, he got slapped so silly at the public forums he scheduled to tout the horrible plan that he didn't even finish the number of meetings he'd promised. A guy can only take so much punishment after all, and Corzine, who was a big shot onWall Street (a slapper, not a slappee) before he went into politics, wasn't used to being on the receiving end. He obviously didn't like it. He unveiled Plan B Feb. 26, a plan he says will cut the budget by $500 million over last year by, in part: • Basically doing away with the homestead property tax rebates for people who make more than $150,000 a year, and reducing it for everybody else. I've said before that the property tax rebates were a dumb idea to start with. Instead ofmaking a big deal of giving us some of our own money back, why didn't they just lower our taxes so we didn't have to pay it in the first place? Nope, that would make too much sense. Now, they aren't going to be giving us much of our property taxes back, so in reality this is a back-door tax increase. Corzine can spin it any way he wants, but if the government keeps more of our money, that's a tax increase. • Cutting 3,000 state jobs by attrition, early-retirement incentives and some layoffs. This sounds like a lot, until you remember that the number of people on the state payroll increased from79,298 in 2004 to 84,401 in 2006 (figures from the New Jersey Department of Personnel), an increase of 5,103 workers. I don't have figures for how many state workers were added in 2007, but I do know the number didn't stay flat. Using those numbers, that means Corzine is proposing to cut threefifths of the new government positions added between 2004 and 2006. Big deal. If Corzine really wanted to make a difference, he would have proposed cutting the number of state workers by 10 percent. That would be about 8,440 jobs, and at the average annual salary of a state employee at $54,742 a year, that would be a huge savings. The savings would be even greater once benefit and pension savings are factored in. • Cut the amount of money hospitals receive for treating the uninsured by $108 million. Great idea, Jon. Does that mean hospitals are just going to leave uninsured patients in the emergency room to die? Probably not. They'll make up the difference by raising their rates, which those of us with insurance will have to pay. That means dramatically increased premium rates for health insurance. Let me ask you this. Can you afford that kind of hike in your health insurance premium? Me neither. This is nothing but another back-door tax increase, if you ask me. I'm sure Corzine will say it's not, but if it looks like a duck, and quacks like a duck… • Cutting state aid to towns by $190 million. If you live in a New Jersey community with high property taxes (and who doesn't?), you know that the money those communities get back in state aid directly impacts the size of the annual tax hike in the community. If the state aid is reduced, local taxes go up. It's a law of nature. So no matter how you slice it, this is another tax hike. It's just a question of who'll be taking the money from your pocket, the state or your town. • Cutting three state departments, Agriculture, the Commerce Commission and Personnel. There aren't that many active farms left in New Jersey for the Department of Agriculture to oversee, but judging from the tone of the press releases I've received from the New Jersey Farm Bureau wailing about the proposed elimination of the department, they don't intend to go down without a fight. Granted, this department oversees things most of us appreciate, like farmland preservation, but you have to shake your head when the president of the Farm Bureau, Richard Nieuwenhuis, says that eliminating the department "could mean a savings of as little as $300,000 or $400,000." OK, that's not a huge savings, and I personally like agriculture, but at least it's not another tax increase. I don't know enough about the Commerce Commission to know what it does, how many people it employs, or why it should continue its existence. I'll leave that one for somebody else. What I do know is that eliminating Personnel would have one major benefit for politicians like Corzine. Without Personnel, who's gonna tell us how many people actually work for the state, or how much the number of state workers has grown? The work of Personnel will have to be picked up by other departments, which likely means that every agency or department will be responsible for its own hiring. Do you think the leaders of those departments will require applicants to conform to even the most basic qualifications, or will the departments devolve into even worse political patronage havens filled with more hacks than there already are? Knowing New Jersey, what do you think will happen? Hack-a-rama! Thanks, Jon. This is way better than raising tolls 800 percent. Now you can take a break and put some Bactine on the cuts and scrapes you got at those public meetings. I'll bet they still sting. Gregory Bean is executive editor of GreaterMedia Newspapers. You can reach him at gbean@gmnews.com.