Chris Christie: Partisan Budget Analyst Is The Dr. Kevorkian Of Numbers [VIDEO]

Today, the top budget analyst for the non-partisan research arm of the legislature is telling the Assembly Budget Committee that New Jersey has raked in only half of the $1 billion in revenue growth Governor Chris Christie is anticipating for this fiscal year. Dr. David Rosen with the Office of Legislative Services (OLS) says revenue is rising too slowly to hit the projected targets. Meanwhile, Christie was across the street from the State House where Rosen was testifying and he wasted no time in blasting the budget expert calling him, “The Dr. Kevorkian of the numbers.”

Rosen estimates that over the next 14 months state revenues will lag $1.3 billion behind Christie’s projections. State Treasurer Andrew Eristoff expects the budget gap to be about $676 million.

The news isn’t entirely bad according to Rosen. He says, “New Jersey is not witnessing a fiscal meltdown. This is not 2002. This is not 2009.”

Christie says OLS is partisan and always has been. He says it caters to the majority party in Trenton which now happens to be the Democrats. It would be a vast understatement to say the Governor is not buying Rosen’s projections. Christie says, “Nobody in New Jersey believes David Rosen anymore, nobody, and nobody should.”

Rosen freely admitted during his testimony that projecting revenues is not an exact science and nobody can guarantee his or her numbers are going to be 100% correct.