"How transparent was their budget for 10 years? Hello?"

A day after Democrats announced proposed changes to the state budget, including at least $100 million added for lawmakers' pet projects and other grants, Republicans said Trenton's ruling party did not live up to promises of transparency while crafting the new spending plan. Sen. Anthony Bucco, R-Morris, pointed to closed-door meetings between Gov. Corzine and Democratic legislative leaders that led to a deal on the $33.5 billion budget even before lawmakers' requests for targeted "Christmas tree" spending became public.

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"I am amazed after all of the public posturing on how this was to be an open and transparent budget process the final agreement was finished behind closed doors at Drumthwacket," said Bucco, referring to the governor's mansion. "There is no difference between a budget crafted behind closed doors or a budget finalized in the dead of night." Democrats, who control the governor's office and both houses of the Legislature, promised a more open budget process after facing intense criticism last year for a late-night spending spree that added more than $300 million to the budget with little public review.

On Wednesday they publicized, for the first time, lawmakers' requests for budget earmarks and unveiled planned revisions more than a week before an expected final vote on the budget, a sharp contrast from recent years, when lawmakers sometimes had only hours to review the proposals. "How transparent was their budget for 10 years? Hello?" asked Senate President Richard J. Codey, D-Essex, alluding to GOP control of the Statehouse in the 1990s. "Did they do this? No."