New Jersey Can’t Afford Government, Booker Says
By Terrence Dopp and Henry Goldman
May 5 (Bloomberg) -- New Jersey’s tax-strapped residents can’t afford their government and the state needs to rein in the mounting costs of public worker benefits, said the mayor of Newark, the state’s largest city.
Cory Booker, 40, said rising expenses for health care, pensions and salaries are impinging on government finances. Operations need to be streamlined in a state with 566 towns and cities, 617 school districts and 21 counties, Booker said during a meeting with Bloomberg editors and on Bloomberg Radio today.
“New Jersey will go bankrupt in 10 to 20 years because we cannot afford our employees as a state,” Booker said. “I’m talking about every worker from the cities and counties to the state government. Eventually, we’re going to price ourselves out as a government or tax ourselves to death.”
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The mayor blamed the city’s deficit on past mismanagement, not the U.S. recession...
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