WISDOM FROM NEW JERSEY'S JUNIOR STATESMEN

They were 120 strong and some of the strongest secondary school students in the Garden State. This summer's participants in the Junior Statesman of America New Jersey Symposium on Leadership and Politics program crammed into Room 4 of the State House Annex, also know as the senate budget hearing room. Once again I had the pleasure to kick off this four day event which would feature presentations by congressmen, state legislators and commissioners, political activists and advocates, and reporters.

These students may be young, but they're make for a tough audience. They combine a generic American idealism about what the political system should be like with the critical thinking skills they learn in school and the skepticism about politics that dominates the media. What most of these teenagers don't have is a reflexive attachment to a political party or ideology. Oh, they have values, priority policy goals, and political favorites, sure. But from I could tell, no blind loyalties. 
After all, having the latter would seem to deny the importance of empirical analysis and the possibility that the opposition contribute to understanding issues, much less that they should be respected as fellow citizens in a democracy.  These young people hunger for information, respect evidence, revel in discussing their findings and debating what they mean, and want to obtain the right answers, not the right Democratic or Republican ones. On their terms, knee-jerk partisanship is anti-intellectual and one reason why faith in government, along with the registration roles in the two major political parties, have declined so much.

So what does one say to these kids?  Well, it may be appropriate for high ranking public officials to talk "at" them, since it's not every day that a high schooler gets to hear first hand what an experienced politician with some real power has to say. I can't make that claim on an audience.  However, I do know that it's the active, engaged students who learn - the ones who are presented with situations and problems and prodded to think about the former and to try to solve the latter. Yes, and who feel comfortable asking their own questions and challenging, politely so, the views of others, be they their fellow students, teachers or political leaders.

As such, I decided to start my own 90-minute presentation with a question. Not the kind you'd be asked on the SAT's or a quiz show, but one that evokes responses that reflect knowledge and opinion, the very stuff that often starts a good political discussion. I asked the group, "When you think of New Jersey politics, what comes to mind?"  If you guessed that the first respondent said "political corruption," you win!  Then came the delude -  gang violence and crumbling bridges and roads, high housing costs, pollution, congestion, the lack of open space, the need for good jobs, illegal immigration, better public schools, health insurance for all, racial tension, and high property taxes.

No one mentioned high auto insurance costs or high college tuition, so I did to a room full of nods. However, two students surprised me by citing government workers pensions and health benefits as state-wide concerns.  I also added the state debt to the list. You may be surprised how many New Jerseyans don't know the state budget must be balanced or, if they do, how the state can have a debt.  With this impressive list of issues in hand, I asked the students two other questions. How did you hear about all these issues? And, is it fair to call each of these issues a "crisis?"

Now as one of the program directors put it, these high achievers come as close to being "political insiders" as teenagers can and have many sources of information. They rattled off newspapers, television, radio, the Internet in general and this web-site in particular, campaign ads and party newsletters. No doubt their social studies teachers and their parents have also helped them learn about state politics. I deadpanned that I heard about these issues from Governor Jon Corzine. He has publicly discussed all the issues on our list. And, to cut to the chase, the Governor seems to regard each of them as a "crisis." Or, at least a high priority matter that requires government attention to improve some aspect of the quality of life in the Garden State.

Corzine is certainly not alone in talking about the crises that beset the state. It's a legislative election year, so it should not be surprise that a surprise that lots of candidates are doing the same thing to try to capture the attention and support of voters. This is tricky business for the state's Democrats who, after all, are the party in power and who voters would expect to be boasting about accomplishments rather than bemoaning problems. But by discussing problems, Democratic legislative candidates are admitting that they can't ignore the obvious and need to reconnect with important constituent groups who want some reassurance that their needs are understood and taken seriously, even if they have not been acted on yet. Speaking of the obvious, Republicans can cite these crises as examples of the Democrats' failure to keep their own promises and help their own supporters, much less do anything for the rest of the state's residents.

However, one thing about these crises that Democrats and Republicans alike agree on is that addressing them will cost a fortune.  And, as Governor has told New Jerseyans, the state is broke.  So, I asked the "junior statesmen and stateswomen" from New Jersey, what does this tell us we should do as thoughtful citizens when candidates for the state senate and general assembly from either party promise that they will deal with one or more of these crises - high tuition, property taxes, health care, whatever - in the next legislature?  You got it, and so did the students.  Ask those candidates how they plan to pay for the initiatives they are recommending and insist that they give a straight answer.

What are those answers likely to be? Republicans are still harping about "waste, fraud and abuse."  No one can argue against the need to prevent taxpayer dollars from being squandered.  But the really big bucks are spent on state aid and in school districts and municipalities. Many Republicans say they want to take money from the Abbott districts and use it for state aid to suburban districts or for direct property tax relief.  But to do this, a constitutional amendment is required. Wonder if any GOP candidates will highlight that fact in their campaign ads and literature?

How do the Democratic legislative candidates plan to get money to deal with the state's many problems? Well, they hope that the new comptroller find lots of wasteful spending and that those property tax relief measures - remember the new caps on municipal, school and county spending, incentives to consolidate and regionalize - kick in. And, hope that the big investment in stem cell research and biotechnology will result in economic growth, thousands of good paying jobs, and more tax revenues for state and local governments.

Will all of the above provide enough revenue, and soon enough, for the state to balance its budget and begin working on its various crises?  No. Not according to Governor Corzine, anyway. That's why he's developing an asset monetization plan, a concept as mysterious to these honor students as it is to the general public. But in fairness to asset monetization, it took no more than five minutes to explain the basic principles of the plan. Every newspaper in the state has published a clear, concise explanation of what a plan would entail. Why can't or doesn't Governor Corzine just let New Jerseyans know what he has in mind?  A few students cited the unpopularity of the idea. One mentioned that he read  that the Governor may be waiting until after the election to announce a plan to avoid having his party's candidates have to go on record about his proposal. 

But after hearing about the numbers - how monetizing the toll roads would probably enable cutting the state debt in half and free up $1.5 billion in annual debt service payments - and thinking about that long list of issues the group generated, one student made a particularly astute observation.  Asset monetization will simply not free up enough money for the state to do very much about all of its many problems. What do you call that?, I asked. He smiled and said, "A real crisis." Yes, and one that needs some senior statesman in the State House to step up and start thinking and acting like the junior statesmen and stateswomen who were visiting the Capitol this week.

David P. Rebovich, Ph.D., is Managing Director of the Rider University Institute for New Jersey Politics (www.rider.edu/institute). He also writes a regular column, "On Politics," for NEW JERSEY LAWYER and is on the editorial advisory board of CAMPAIGNS AND ELECTIONS Magazine.