Bob Hennelly

Across the country, states' and local governments have been getting to the difficult work of balancing their bottom lines. In New Jersey, Republican Governor Chris Christie proposed a $29.4 billion budget which, he argues, reduces state spening by 2.6 percent for the 2012 fiscal year. The governor went on to describe a "new normal" of practical taxing and thrifty spending for his state, which is currently burdened by an $11 billion deficit. The governor's new normal includes a 15 percent cut to the Dept. of Health and Senior Services, state-wide benefit reform that would increase the amount state employees pay for their health insurance and increase retirement contributions from 8 percent to 30 percent, and a $2.5 billion tax cut to businesses. It wasn't all about cuts though; Gov. Christie increased school aid by $250 million, and gave $50 million to charter schools.

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie presented a stark choice in his budget address yesterday: either cut state worker benefits or abandon hopes for property tax relief. Bob Hennelly, WNYC reporter, looks at the latest budget proposals and the fiscal crunch in the Garden State.

→ Read Bob's Budget Analysis and Add Your Thoughts at It's A Free Country

This year in New Jersey the State Assembly and the State Senate have to face the voters in November. 

And in his budget address, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie told Democrats they had a clear choice. Either cut state worker benefits by shifting more of the costs to them or forget property tax relief for New Jersey's beleaguered homeowners.

"This is the new normal," Christie pronounced in Trenton on Tuesday.

Thoroughly optimistic about the state of New Jersey, Gov. Chris Christie introduced a $29.4 billion 2012 budget, with spending projected to be 2.6 percent less than the current year. He reaffirmed his commitment to not fund commitments made by prior governors if he doesn't believe they're good investments (possibly a reference to pulling a plug on the ARC Tunnel project connecting New York and New Jersey). 

As he proposes his second budget, Gov. Christie is still faced with a weak national recovery that helped boost state tax revenues a little but is not generating the jobs the state needs.

When President Obama released his 2012 budget proposal, he spoke of hard choices and investments. What he left out were the real jaw-dropping numbers contained in an obscure Department of the Treasury Report from the Office of Debt Management that was released two weeks earlier.

The 24-page document in charts and graphs dispassionately lays out the explosion in costs associated with just servicing the nation's rolling multi-trillion dollar deficit.

It was a tough week for folks at the Community Service Society of New York, which has been serving New York City's poor since 1848. President Obama rolled out his budget proposal, which included significant cuts to Community Block grants and other poverty fighting programs. That was on top of bleak news from Albany. Then, Mayor Bloomberg released his budget. It included the elimination of 17,000 child care slots that the working poor and near poor rely on and cut a voucher program that helps the homeless get into housing.  

David Jones is the CEO of the Community Service Society of New York that has been serving the city for 160 years. He worries that President Obama's budget is the best it might get this year, since Republicans control the House of Representatives in Washington.

WNYC reporter Bob Hennelly looks at Bloomberg's proposed city budget, Governor Christie's latest approach to entitlements in New Jersey, and the Governor's comments about the national budget.

→Read a Recap and Join the Conversation at It's A Free Country

New Jersey Governor Chris Christie blasted both President Barack Obama and incoming Republican House members for what he said was failing to lead the country courageously when its fiscal future remains mired in debt during a speech before the American Enterprise Institute on Wednesday.

During Governor Chris Christie's State of the State last month it was his rhetorical flourish calling for the abolition of teacher tenure that made news. Without the details, it sounded like just an escalation in Christie's running battle with the New Jersey Education Association.

On Wednesday, New Jersey Governor Chris Christie goes to Washington to give a high profile speech to the conservative American Enterprise Institute.

No doubt the national audience will hear some version of the stump speech that Governor Chris Christie has honed in more than 20 animated town halls that have become YouTube sensations.

The crowds have been building and they come for his bluntness and maybe for his form of roller derby rhetorical slam down.

President Barack Obama's plans for cuts to domestic spending, as part of his $3.73 trillion budget for 2012, would directly impact local nonprofits that provide an array of social services. There would be less federal money to go around, and stiffer competition for a smaller pot of funds.

911 Emergency call systems across the country are in dire need upgrading to be compatible with satellite and cell phone technology. But for years, New York, along with nine other states, has been diverting hundreds of millions of dollars intended for improving 911 Emergency call systems to its general fund in an attemt to help balance the budget.

Almost a decade after the attacks of September 11th the nation's most essential emergency local lifeline -- 911 -- remains a local patchwork of antiquated technology vulnerable to failure when people need it most.

In 2010 the Congressional Research Service reported the nation's underlying 911 local call systems "operate exclusively on an analog technology using an architecture of circuits and switches" that date back to when ATT was the "regulated monopoly providing most of the nation's phone service."

New Jersey's bi-partisan legislative redistricting panel must redraw the state's legislative boundaries to reflect the latest 2010 census data all in the next two months.

The trouble many people had reaching 911 during the blizzard in December is now a federal issue. WNYC has learned the Federal Communications Commission is investigating problems wi...

The Bloomberg Administration is giving Verizon and its sub-contractor a second chance to get the software right for the city's makeover of its antiquated 911 call system.

President Obama and House Republicans are working hard to find ways to cut America's discretionary spending. They both want to take the high ground over the looming debate over raising the federal debt ceiling.

Yet prospects for the states, counties and local governments where America lives have never been grimmer. The continuing foreclosure crisis and jobless recovery bites down harder and harder, driving more and more people to local officials for help who have less and less to work with.

In Trenton, legislation that would relieve local governments of requirements to publish legal notices in newspapers is building momentum as officials look for anyway to cut costs. This could mean the loss of millions of dollars of reliable revenue to an industry already fighting to stay afloat.

This week, the city's labor unions got their first official glimpse at what Mayor Michael Bloomberg thinks future union hires should expect in the 21st century. The comprehensive proposal was presented to the Muncipal Labor Council not by Mayor Bloomberg himself, but by his Commissioner for Labor Relations James Hanley.