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Here is Gov. Chris Christie's budget address Tuesday to a joint session of the state Senate and General Assembly in which he unveiled his proposed $29.3 billion 2010-11 state budget:

I am required by statute to report to you today on my plan for the state's budget for fiscal year 2011.

I am required by our state's constitution to submit a plan in which revenues and expenditures are in balance.

And I am required by the duty I have to the People of this state ‐‐ and by the moral obligation we all have to the generations who will follow us ‐‐ to take bold action now to reverse the direction we have taken for many years.

This is my first full budget to be presented to this legislature. And, to be frank, it represents a completely new course:

• A new course that will stop our fiscal hemorrhaging;

• A new course that will fulfill our joint responsibility to leave this state better than we found it; and

• A new course that will make possible a brighter future of growth and opportunity. My friends, this new course is long overdue.

Today, we are fulfilling the promise of a smaller government that lives within its means.

Today, we begin doing what we promised we would do. The defenders of the status quo have already begun to yell and scream. They will try to demonize me. They will seek to divide us rather than unite us. But even they know in their hearts, if not yet in their minds - it is time for a change.

Never forget, some of those shouting the loudest are the architects of the disaster we are now suffering. Do we really want another decade of economic failure? No, this spring it is time to clear away the underbrush to make room for growth.

So, today, we stop sweeping problems under the rug. We will not hide our problems until another day. And we are certainly not increasing the tax burden we place upon our people.

Today, we are taking necessary and decisive action to reduce state spending and reform state government. The problems we have hidden for twenty years are evident for all to see. The day of reckoning has arrived.

Some are saying, by their choice of policies, that we should descend further into debt and deficit, and risk driving more people out of the state with "temporary" tax increases that always turn out to be permanent.

I say we must face up to our responsibility:

• Cut government spending and end public union excesses that we can no longer afford;

• Reform government to cost less and operate better;

• And restore some sense of balance to the obligations we take on ‐‐ so that in the future they are both sensible and sustainable.

In short, we can forge a new course. One that brings spending in line with revenues. One that attacks our problems directly so they are shrinking, not growing. And most importantly, one that lays the groundwork for a better tomorrow.

Today, I ask you to join me in setting out on this new course.

We did not dig the hole in which we find ourselves in a day or a year. The massive gap between our resources and our appetite has built up over twenty years. It has been dug by a lack of discipline and unwillingness to say no; made deeper by poor policy choices along the way and quick fixes to avoid tough decisions.

And now that hole is a grand canyon. The distance between New Jersey's projected revenues for next year and the state's spending obligations under current law, if nothing is changed, is $10.7 billion. As a percentage of the prior fiscal year's $29 billion budget, it is a massive deficit - the largest deficit of any state in America, and the largest in our own history ‐‐ by far. No fiscal crisis we have had in New Jersey's history compares to this one.

Therefore, our solutions must set a historic new course - directly away from the failed tax and spend policies of the past.

In recent years, we have allowed the problem to become bigger through a series of one‐time gimmicks that have worsened our situation.

* This year, for example, some state employees will be given an 11% salary increase, at a cost of $300 million to the taxpayers, while many New Jerseyans are lucky to even have a job. Incredible.

* $700 million in one‐time revenues came in from granting amnesty to tax cheats in another gimmick that was used to paper over problems. As usual, our government spent it all in one year, and built that much more spending into the budget for this coming year, with no way to pay for it now or in the future.

So too were federal stimulus funds for education irresponsibly spent all in one year ‐‐ and then simply added into the budget, with no way to pay for it this year. The attitude has always been the same - continue to spend, continue to borrow, and drop the catastrophic sum of all of these poor choices into the lap of the next guy. Well, time has run out. The bill has come due.

Over fifteen years, $4.7 billion was stolen by both parties from the trust fund set up for unemployment insurance benefits and spent for other purposes. The result, without action, is a crippling tax increase that will kill more jobs in a state that already has the worst unemployment in the region.

As you know, on that matter, I have proposed action to cut the punitive payroll tax increase on jobs, make benefits more reasonable, restore health to the trust fund, and prevent future raids. I ask you to pass it now.

Our unemployed fellow citizens need the bridge of compassion provided by unemployment benefits. Playing politics on what is a moderate and needed proposal to fix this system will only threaten to blow up that bridge and hurt families already in crisis. For those who stole the money in the first place, you now have the responsibility to help permanently fix the fund you bankrupted.

Over the course of two decades, time and again the State has borrowed to pay its every day bills. You wouldn't do that in your own home, and we shouldn't do that with your tax dollars.

The result is overwhelming. Outstanding direct debt has ballooned from $3.9 billion in 1989 to $33.9 billion last year. And total debt, including all obligations, has tripled from $17 billion to over $51 billion, just since 2002.

Our debt is equal to an obligation of $4,100 for each and every man, woman, and child in this state - 130% higher than in 2002.

These gimmicks were used; this borrowing was done, for one simple reason: government spent too much money - not only at the state level, but also at the local level.

State spending grew 59% from 2001 to 2008, before the current recession forced us to make do with less.

That is bad enough, but as you know, more than half of what the State spends every year is sent to local governments, in the form of aid for municipal government and school districts. And local government has exercised even less control. Spending at the local government level has risen 69% since 2001.