The state of New Jersey is in bad fiscal health. That’s one of the reasons why the Garden State’s voters elected Chris Christie as their governor last November and kicked Jon Corzine out of office. However, the new governor’s task is daunting. As Mercatus Center’s Eileen Norcross explains in her recent piece at Reason Online:

Last year’s $7 billion budgetary shortfall now stands at $8 billion and growing. The fiscal patches of 2009 — stimulus money, tax hikes, and program cuts — spent their magic six months into FY 2010. With the nation’s highest property taxes (an average of $7000 per capita), an eight-bracket, progressive income tax, a $45 billion debt load, and the net loss of more than half a million residents since 2000, New Jersey is suffering the painful fallout of its long-running policy of fleecing residents to benefit politically-connected special interests.

Can Christie fix New Jersey? Can he overcome the corruption, the unions, the bad Supreme Court rulings, and the billions in pension unfunded liabilities?

Norcross explains what it will take, but also shows that Christie is off to a good start. We will be watching his progress with interest.

Read her article here. And for an in-depth analysis of the fiscal situation is New Jersey, read this fascinating study by Frederic Sautet and Norcross called “Institutions Matter: Can New Jersey Reverse Course?“