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McGreevey betting the house on economic upturn

A wise man once said, "Every gambler knows that the secret to surviving is knowing what to throw away, and knowing what to keep."

Today, Gov. James McGreevey is the gambler, the proposed budget is his hand, and the stakes are his very job.

By basically freezing state aid to local school boards for two years, he has made few friends in education.

By urging state residents — in coffee shops and radio spots — to do all they can to hold local governments accountable for any tax increases (i.e., blaming them), he could be burning many of those bridges.

By eliminating 109 state programs and cutting another 19 in half — some of which are very well-liked — he is pleasing virtually no one.

It’s a huge gamble, and one that will leave him as the hero or the goat come 2004. There’s just no in between.

In this poker game, McGreevey has a point when he claims he was dealt a lousy hand by the outgoing Whitman administration.

The dealer didn’t help by hitting him with cards like the ongoing bear market and 9/11-related expenses.

To top it off, he has faced sporadic wild cards like the Presidents Day storm cleanup costs and the dire need to overhaul the Division of Youth and Family Services (DYFS).

So in his budget, he did what any smart gambler with a terrible hand does: he folded.

No more raises to programs that aren’t absolutely essential.

Now he can only hope some economic upturns are in the cards for the next two years.

For his sake, there had better be.

If the market bounces back while his gutsy, calculated and controversial cuts are in effect, the economy could stabilize.

He may not be wildly popular now, but now is not the time that counts.

Election time does.

If the situation doesn’t improve, McGreevey will have angered all of these cross-sections of influential voters for nothing, becoming a true-life suicide king, at least politically.

But if somewhere in 2004 the gambler breaks even, or somehow comes out ahead, he may just find himself a new term.