As was recently stated: it is one thing to use an axe another to use a scalpel. We can only hope that Gov. Christie and his budget advisers did a better job that his transition team in researching items to be cut or eliminated specifically looking at the impact both programmatically and financially.
For example, His transition team called for closing of the state's regional poison center. This is irresponsible both from a public health standpoint, since it saves lives and forms part of the surveillance for disease occurrence and terrorism as well as saving tens of millions of health care costs. Further, it attracts $733,000 in federal funding which requires "maintenance of local effort."
We applaud Gov. Christie's effort to reduce costs, but we hope that the administration does not turn out to be "penny safe and pound sorry."