Local Political Expert Weighs In On New Jersey's Pension Funding Crisis
By David Madden
TRENTON, N.J. (CBS) -- New Jersey's highest court handed the state's growing pension funding problem to politicians to solve. The question now is...how quickly will they take on the issue?
Pension funding has been a political football for the last couple decades. John Weingart, Associate Director at the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University, suggests there are a couple things everyone can agree on here.
"One is that there are many people to blame for this, both Democrats and Republicans historically," Weingart says. "And it's an enormous problem that somehow has to be dealt with."
Do that successfully, and he believes there could be a bump for both parties. Governor Chris Christie in his all-but-announced Presidential run...and Democrats, like State Senate President Steve Sweeney, who's eyeballing a run for Governor. That said, Weingart does not expect any real progress so long as Christie is in the White House hunt.
Weingart also dismisses the effectiveness of a constitutional amendment on pension funding, insisting that might prove too constrictive on future state leadership.
