Shocking Even By NJ's Standards

It's not exactly surprising to open the Star-Ledger and find a story about a politician in New Jersey breaking the law. Rarely, though, do they go about it as openly as Jon Corzine did in putting together his budget.

Several years ago, the Legislature decided the arts, history and good beaches were so essential to New Jersey that it passed laws setting a guaranteed level of funding for those entities and others.

As it looks for ways to save money in a recession budget, the Corzine administration has formulated a new approach to those laws: ignore them.

Since taking office, Corzine has never fully funded the cultural offices, but this week he proposed cutting their budgets below the minimum limits required by law. He also cut the Shore Protection Fund below legal prescribed limits.

State treasurer David Rousseau made it clear how the administration feels about those laws. They just don't apply anymore.

"We will be setting aside those laws," said Rousseau. "We didn't want to be bound by laws that were created that say shore protection has to be this amount.

At least they're being transparent...