The legislation, which was passed into law in May 2008, has made it possible for tens of thousands of New Jerseyans to take time off from work to be with newborn or newly adopted children and family members in need of medical care — without worrying about how to pay their monthly bills.

NJPP budget analyst David Rousseau sat down with Mike Schneider of NJTV’s NJ Today Wednesday to discuss the coming year’s state budget as well as the broader economic picture in New Jersey.

NJPP board member Dr. Roland Anglin has been named the new director of the Joseph C. Cornwall Center for Metropolitan Studies at Rutgers University’s School of Public Affairs and Administration, the school announced yesterday.

In case it remained a mystery to anyone, the administration’s plan for economic growth was made clear by Treasurer Andrew Sidamon-Eristoff at a New Jersey Business and Industry Association breakfast last Tuesday. To paraphrase the treasurer, the state’s job is to protect its approximately 15,000 millionaires by cutting their taxes.

While we can have a real debate about the size and scope of government in New Jersey, treating taxes as something to obtain “freedom” from is silly, and plays into false narratives about the role taxes play in our lives. Our taxes pay for good schools, safe communities and bright futures for our families. If people want “freedom” from that, that’s news to us.

What is usually ignored in the periodic dust-up over a commuter tax into New York City is the negative impact the tax would have on New Jersey’s budget.

In 2010, 619,000 New Jersey children were living in low-income households. That’s nearly one-third of all the state’s children, and an increase of nearly 30,000 from 2009.

Gov. Christie asserted in his budget speech for FY 2013 that “direct aid to our senior colleges and universities” would grow by 6 percent. “Direct aid” means “here’s the money, you decide how to spend it.” When one gets to the fine print and analyzes the actual numbers, this claim does not hold up.

In a budget with total revenues of nearly $30 billion, the potential gaps in revenue this year don’t appear statistically significant. But considering that the governor’s proposed budget for FY2013 projects a surplus of only $300 million by its end in June 2013, the potential shortfalls assume real significance.

New Jersey lost 8,600 jobs in March and the state’s stubbornly high unemployment rate held steady at 9.0 percent. It was one of 20 states in the country to lose jobs, and the drop of 8,600 was the second-largest decline next to Ohio, which lost 9,500 jobs.