DORIA - 'TOUGH WORK ON BUDGET CAN NOW BEGIN'

TRENTON - Senator Joseph V. Doria, Jr., D-Hudson, a member of the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee, issued the following statement today regarding Governor Corzine's proposed budget, which was presented to the joint Legislature today in the chambers of the General Assembly:

"Today, Governor Corzine presented the Legislature with a vision for the State's budget, that will be scrubbed and rescrubbed by the Legislature before being adopted in June. He has made difficult decisions on the State's priorities and finances. Now, the really tough work on the budget can begin.
"The Governor should be commended for reducing New Jersey's reliance on one-shot revenues. One-shots, while they have helped us avoid pain in the past, have become a crutch that we can no longer accept to provide a truly balanced budget. The time is now to make the difficult decisions needed to begin to close the cycle of continual budget deficits we've faced in recent years.

"Over the next several months, the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee and the Assembly Budget Committee will look at every cent spent by the State in this Budget. Where we can, we will do everything in our power to protect working families in the Garden State, but there will have to be some fiscal pain to go around. At the end of the day though, I am confident that we will have a well-crafted and responsible fiscal document that will begin putting New Jersey on the right economic track for the future."

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FOR MORE INFORMATION, PLEASE CONTACT:

Jason Butkowski
New Jersey Senate Democrats
Tel: (609) 292-5215
E-Mail: jbutkowski@njleg.org
Web: www.njsendems.com