New Jersey's Robin Hood

By Joelle Attinger

"The issue isn't more or less government," New Jersey Governor James Florio says tersely. "It's dumb vs. smart government." Barely into his sixth month in office, Democrat Florio has been giving lessons to politicians across the country -- and in Washington -- not only about smart government but also about leadership. Using populist rhetoric and unconventional straight talk and tireless stumping for his programs, Florio, 52, has launched the largest barrage of government initiatives in the Garden State since Woodrow Wilson sat in Trenton from 1911 to 1913. More important, he has set out to demonstrate that voters' "common sense" can provide the antidote to the political poison of a tax increase.

Faced with a projected 1991 deficit of $3 billion when he took office in January, Florio rejected the back-door approach of relying on increased "user fees" and "sin taxes" (on liquor and cigarettes) so popular among his peers. Instead he became the only Governor of this read-my-lips era to embrace the discarded notion of a progressive tax, which hits New Jersey's wealthiest residents hardest by doubling the bite on their income to 7%.

Last week he persuaded the state legislature to follow his lead and vote for $2.8 billion in income and sales taxes. Coupled with an almost equal amount in spending cuts, the money will not only allow New Jersey to dig itself out of debt but should also provide additional state education aid to relieve homeowners of one of the most onerous property-tax rates in the U.S. Here too Florio soaked the rich: the legislature approved a plan to shift the bulk of its education assistance from the wealthiest to the poorest districts by 1995, leaving the affluent to make up the difference on their own.

Opponents have dubbed Florio "Robin Hood" for his overt redistribution of the tax burden, but the Governor is unapologetic. "Something historically significant is happening here," he boasted after his legislative victories. "This is a day we bring fairness to the children of New Jersey and to the beleaguered and besieged middle class." "Hardly," countered Assembly * minority leader Garabed Haytaian, who assails the new budget as a "farce, a tragedy of tax increases that will give us a Florio recession."

Moaning is about the best Republicans and other critics have managed since Florio, a former amateur boxer, beat G.O.P. candidate Jim Courter last fall in a campaign that got nasty on both sides. In his inaugural speech, the new Governor whacked at the state's auto-insurance premiums, the nation's highest; within weeks he had signed a 20% reduction into law. He quickly followed with a blow to the powerful gun lobby: in May, New Jersey enacted the stiffest law in the U.S. on owning or selling semiautomatic firearms. In March he launched his attack on the state's tax structure, unveiling his $12.4 billion tax-and- slash budget. Anticipating that the state's liberal Supreme Court would soon order that aid to school districts be equalized, Florio beat the jurists to the punch by proposing his own plan. "Everyone is a bit shell-shocked," says former Democratic assemblyman Alan Karcher. "He had made a career out of being associated with safe issues."

During eight terms in Congress, Florio had a reputation as a somewhat sanctimonious loner, better known for tending to constituent needs than for innovative leadership. Even as a candidate, he skirted specifics, going so far as to proclaim that he did not see the need for new taxes. But budget realities and the assumption of command revealed a very different Jim Florio. "Legislatures react," he says crisply. "Executives initiate." With 67% of New Jerseyites grudgingly agreeing that new taxes were inevitable, Florio worked them relentlessly for support of his proposals. In diners, gyms, boardrooms and convention halls, he explained his position again and again. "A lot of politicians are just plain lazy," he says in the midst of another chaotic day. "They just don't want to make the case, and so they end up pandering to special interests. To underestimate the people is extremely dumb."

It hasn't hurt Florio to remind voters that his popular Republican predecessor, Thomas Kean, left the state with a $592 million deficit this year and a shaky economic future. "Florio didn't create the fiscal crisis, and he's made a strong case for solving it," says Richard Roper, director of the program for New Jersey affairs at Princeton's Woodrow Wilson School. "As a result, New Jersey is willing to meet him halfway."

It is the other half of the bargain that concerns voters. "I understand that money is needed," says television producer Thomas C. Guy Jr. of Newark. "But I'm reluctant without a guarantee that those taxes will translate into something tangible." The Governor has given himself a year to prove the doubters wrong. He has already begun efforts to trim the state payroll and bring spending further under control. Almost 1,500 government jobs (of a total 71,000) have been eliminated in all areas except corrections and human services. Floriocrats are also cutting back such perks as state cars and credit cards. Improvement in New Jersey's poorest school districts will take longer to accomplish, but Florio is considering such concrete standards as postgraduate employment and college acceptance rates to supplement test scores as indicators of the system's effectiveness.

Few expect Florio to wait for results before launching other initiatives. An assault on the state's medical-insurance costs is already on the drawing boards, and other targets are being defined. New Jersey's Governor knows he cannot stand still: as every boxer learns, success comes from quick footwork.