By Tom Moran | Star-Ledger Editorial Board
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on April 26, 2015 at 8:00 AM, updated April 26, 2015 at 10:05 AM
If Gov. Chris Christie didn't lie so much, I might be tempted to feel sorry for him these days.
But he tells such whoppers.
In his latest swing through New Hampshire, he repeated his claim that New Jersey has the highest taxes in the country. We rank No. 7 in combined state and local taxes per person, and No. 10 as a share of income.
And he was only clearing his throat with that one. On Thursday, he told voters at a town hall meeting in Cedar Grove that Democrats are the ones who shorted the pension fund.
"The Legislature passed it, and I signed it, with that number in it," he said.
Scary. Because this is not a small point; it is at the core of the pension case now before the state Supreme Court.
The truth is that Democrats passed a budget with the full pension payment, to prove it could be done. Christie removed that money with his line-item veto. Did he really forget that?
Here's why we should all care: New Jersey's budget crisis is the second worst in the nation, behind Illinois'. But instead of looking for common ground with Democrats, the governor is taking reckless pot shots and refusing to budge.
Senate President Stephen Sweeney, the governor's lead Democratic partner in his first term, says the bromance that made the 2011 reform possible is now dead.
"It's night and day," says Sweeney (D-Gloucester). "In 2011 we did things face to face, a lot of discussion. Now he attacks me on Twitter."
If you want to dig for the roots of this standoff, start with Christie's presidential campaign.
That ties his hands. He can't do anything to offend Republican base voters, like sign a small tax hike on incomes over $1 million.
Democratic leaders vow they will not cut a deal that puts the entire burden on public workers, as Christie has proposed.
A bump in the "millionaires tax" would not come close to solving the fiscal problem, but it would soften the need for cuts a bit, and help party leaders sell the deal to fellow Democrats.
"At the end of the day everyone has to be realistic," says Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto (D-Hudson).
This is where the poison left by Christie's broken promise does such damage. The 2011 reform was a bargain: Public workers had to pay more into the system and take less out. They did their part.
The governor agreed to ramp up pension payments in return. But his "Jersey Comeback" never materialized, so he broke that promise and shorted the funds.
This time around, Democrats and their union allies are in a sour mood. They feel burned.
Sweeney and Prieto both joined the union lawsuit that seeks to force full pension payments on the 2011 schedule. But they both know that would be almost impossible. It would require $3.1 billion next year, and as much as $5 billion two years later.
In interviews, both Sweeney and Prieto say they will present a budget this year that includes full payments, but would settle for less if a fair political deal could be reached.
"We may need to spread the payments out over a longer period of time," Prieto says. "But we should be making a good-faith effort to honor what we are supposed to be doing."
The wild card is the Supreme Court, which hears the case in two weeks. The key question is whether the 2011 law amounts to a contract that must be honored, and the smart money says the unions are likely to win again, as they did in lower courts.
But what then? The court has no means to enforce its ruling. And Christie will be sorely tempted to go rogue and defy the ruling if he loses. Attacking a liberal court and public worker unions could work magic among the GOP base.
"It's conceivable they would hold the governor in contempt," says professor Robert Williams, an expert on the state constitution at the Rutgers-Camden School of Law. "We could face a constitutional crisis."
Courts try to avoid that by giving the players political wiggle room, as the lower court did. If that happens, the search for political compromise will resume.
And that's where Christie's political campaign is such a curse to this state.
Democrats seem ready to cut that deal if it includes a millionaires tax. And two-thirds of New Jersey voters think it should be included.
But Christie doesn't need our votes anymore. He's competing for the crazy GOP base vote now. And that could be toxic for New Jersey's future.
Tom Moran may be reached at tmoran@starledger.com o
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