Christie's Budget: Repeal Blue Laws?

I want to begin this post by praising Governor Chris Christie for putting his budget proposals on-line and seeming to welcome the public's eyes into what is sure to be a difficult process. This sort of transparency is needed more not less.

I'm going to use the resources to really look at what he's planning and do a number of posts, some positive and some negative.

This first one is more of a "And exactly how is this going to work?"

From Christie's budget proposal:

Sales Tax - Repeal of Bergen County Blue Laws 65,000

That's $65 million, actually.

The governor's staff seem to believe the people of Bergen County will simply repeal the Blue Laws that are repeatedly upheld by voters. Or is he going to force that down everyone's throats? Pinning $65 million of new revenue on something that, as far as I know, is completely out of his hands is a little dicey to say the least. He has to know that, because it wasn't highlighted in his budget address.

Christie's said many times he doesn't want to resort to one time gimmicks, but realistically speaking, relying on something completely out of your hands to raise $65 million is a gimmick. If/when it doesn't happen, the budget goes out of balance and we have to go back to borrowing.

To make matters worse, even if it was approved by voters, when would it go into effect and how much money would it raise from that point?

Questions that need to be answered.

My next post will be on the film and high tech tax credits. More to come...