Wikipedia defines “trial balloon” as “..information sent out in order to observe the reaction of an audience . . . it can be used by politicians who deliberately leak information on a policy change under consideration.”

Well, it’s trial balloon time for Jon Corzine with respect to the New Jersey budget. Today’s headline is certainly no shock to me : Corzine considering routes to raise taxes. Amongst the routes considered are raising the sales tax from 6 to 7 percent, extending the sales tax to goods and services now exempt from the tax, or maybe both “..according to two of the people, who spoke to Gannett New Jersey on the condition of anonymity.” Hmm….

They’re looking to raise $1.5 billion through new sales taxes. It’s all unofficial, of course, since nothing has been decided yet.

Hopefully the NJ GOP will not roll over for the Corzine tax grab the way they did on the transportation trust fund. Otherwise you have to wonder what the republican party stands for in New Jersey, other than protecting the perks and spoils of government.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 14th, 2006 at 7:55 am and is filed under New Jersey. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.