Why do we call it "aid"?

It always bothers me when I hear the money that Trenton sends to New Jersey municipalities referred to as state "aid." "Aid" sounds like charity, as if it was not our money to begin with. Of course, in the case of Abbott districts and big Democratic cities, it never was their money. But even for them, "aid" is a misnomer because the true givers are compelled to give it. It should be called state "loot" in those cases.

Today Jon Corzine told New Jersey's mayors that they would be getting less loot from Trenton in the fiscal year that starts on July 1. In yesterday's State of the State regress he announced that he was going to instruct the Local Finance Board to strictly enforce the 4% cap on property taxes. He's telling the mayors that they won't have to make their pension payments to help make up the short falls, even though the legislature rejected his plea to allow municipalities to kick their obligations down the road a few years.

Corzine is forcing the mayors, councils and committees of New Jersey to make the tough choices he is unwilling to make. Already municipalities and counties are planning for layoffs and the reduction of services. Consolidations and mergers are going to be forced, rather than planned for.

Corzine has no courage. He is using the national economic turmoil as political cover, rather than using it as an opportunity to bring the fiscal sanity to New Jersey's various governments that he promised when he ran for Governor. Rather than "staking his job" on bring fiscal discipline to New Jersey, as he said he would do, he is using the gimmickry of his predecessors to attempt to keep his job.

November can't get here fast enough.