[INSPRATIONAL MUSIC STING] - We're now joined by State Senator Declan O'Scanlon, the Republican Budget Officer in the State Senate.

Good to see you, Senator.

- Good to see you, Steve.

How are you?

- I'm great.

Well, listen, we're taping on the 17th of June.

It'll be seen after the budget in New Jersey will officially be in place by the end of the month hopefully.

What's your biggest concern about this budget?

Be specific, please.

- My specific, my most specific concern is the $4 billion structural deficit that this budget leaves us with.

It is really terrifying and it sets us up for failure very quickly once this governor leaves office.

The Murphy administration's gonna go down as the administration of the most tragically missed opportunities.

We could have substantially fixed our budget over this past five or six years with all the billions of dollars of federal money we had, the billions of dollars of unnecessarily borrowed money that we borrowed.

We could be and we could have reworked the school funding formula.

It is tragic that we didn't, and we are really set up for failure here.

It's very easy to illustrate this $4 billion structural deficit that we have.

We're spending down $2 billion and this is a time of decent revenues, $2 billion of our surplus, it's going from eight to $6 billion.

We have a billion dollars of additional taxes with the CBT that the transit fee.

- Hold on, hold on.

You said the CTT?

- CBT, Corporate Business Tax, sorry.

- Corporate Business Tax, okay.

And what's your issue with that?

- My issue with that is that that money isn't going to transit as the governor has said he wants to do.

- New Jersey Transit?

The governor said it was going to New Jersey Transit.

- It's not.

None of it is going, this year.

- It's going to the general fund and then to New Jersey Transit.

- No, it's not even going to New Jersey Transit at all this year.

It's going to the general fund.

That is a billion extra dollars of structural deficit, right there, gets you to three.

Then they're stealing over almost $600 million of debt.

- Senator, do you wanna use the word stealing?

Do you wanna use the word?

- I do, I do.

When you say you're going to use money to defease debt and avoid other taxes, yet you're taking it and putting it in the general fund.

Yeah, I can use the word stealing.

Same thing with the transit fee by the way.

It sets us up to, again, we're taking our surplus from 8 billion to 6 billion this year and we're leaving ourselves with a $4 billion structural deficit.

That means in a year and a half that the surplus is gone.

If we have a, and that's with decent revenue figures.

If we have a downturn, it's a disaster.

What's the next governor gonna be facing in January, 2026 where he or she takes office?

- He will probably be faced with almost no surplus.

And runaway spending that we've put into place that it'll be very hard to claw back.

We had a historic opportunity to remake our school funding formula.

This governor put 3.5 billion extra dollars into school funding during his tenure.

Had we nearly put 2.5 billion in, we could have reduced our structural deficit by a billion.

Been more responsible with that spending, given plenty of money to the districts that deserve more, and avoided the cuts to the ones that are really tragically being cut to the point where they're losing quality education.

We could have avoided all of that.

- So, hold on.

You're saying state funding to local public school districts.

The school funding formula, if you will, which has not been changed in a long time.

In your district in particular, Senator, are there specific school districts that are getting less state aid, therefore are cutting teachers, program, services?

- My district did okay this year.

Last year was devastating.

Next year maybe, but my concern for the school children of New Jersey doesn't end at my district.

In Monmouth County, with devastating cuts to these districts it is a disaster and totally, totally unavoidable and should have been.

The school funding formula could- - Why do you think the governor would do that?

But is it the formula that does it, Senator, or the governor's discretion?

Like how does that happen?

- The formula is the governor.

The formula is at the discretion of the governor every time he does a budget.

The formula is at the discretion of the governor to lead and realize that the formula was unattainable and pie in the sky and would put way too much money into education, 'cause that can happen.

We already, even before he put this extra money in, spent more money on education than almost any other state in the nation.

And they were putting out as good or better a product, many of them.

So the formula isn't separate from the governor.

He is not handcuffed by it.

If he were to lead four or five years ago, start an effort to redo the school funding formula, we would be in a dramatic better place today.

Instead, he just blindly followed the existing formula, 'cause we had so much money in our laps that was non-recurring and now we're stuck with it.

It is a missed opportunity of colossal proportions.

- The standard bearer of the party that you're a member of, the Republican Party, former president Donald Trump talks about what his administration would be like if he were elected again.

And by any reasonable standard, it's hard to hear a lot of policy discussion.

A lot of it is about a two-tiered system of justice and that the Biden corruption, the Biden crime family, and that he, former president Trump, was railroaded in his trial.

To what degree do you believe that President Trump?

Well, lemme ask it this way.

How comfortable are you with President Trump being the standard bearer, the leader of the party, Republican party that you're a part of?

- Look, I made it clear, Donald Trump was not my first choice to be the nominee.

I made that clear.

But he is the nom, and we have to choose between a Trump administration and a Biden administration.

And in that choice, that binary choice, it's not hard to decide.

- It's not hard?

- Ultimately, it's not, the Biden administration- - Even after January 6th and the president, former president saying that he would, pardon, first day, he would immediately pardon those who were involved in this insurrection January 6th.

Easy choice?

- I look, I disagree with that.

I disagree with many things that President Trump has said he will do.

But I don't have a choice other than two of these choices.

And the Biden administration has been a disaster for this country.

So those are our choices, Steve.

I made an argument to make other choices.

I did not win that battle.

Now we are faced with the choices that we have and to go through another four years of a Biden administration scares the hell outta me.

Am I concerned with some of the things that President Trump has said he will do?

I am.

And I will be a voice within the party to moderate some of those actions.

And I think there'll be other voices, too, that I think will inform the Trump presidency and certainly filter out some of the things that we, paths we shouldn't go down, but make it a better administration from policy perspective than a Biden administration could hope to be.

- State Senator Declan O'Scanlon, the Republican Budget Officer, an important voice in the state of New Jersey.

Thank you so much, Senator.

Appreciate it as always.

- Thanks Steve.

- Stay with us, we'll be right back.

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