But we're coming down to the election wire now and with the infrastructure of the state collapsing all around us and hordes of residents pulling up stakes for economic reasons, I figure this is as good a time as any to go for it.

That Neil Cohen, Dick Codey and Jon S. Corzine and company want voters to approve a plan to borrow $450 million for stem cell research at a time when countless folks are struggling to keep a roof over their heads, food on their tables and medicine in their cabinets strikes a lot of people as unmitigated gall.

It isn't as though the majority of the money would be going for adult stem cell research which has resulted in successful therapies for more than 70 diseases. Only $50 million of the referendum would be earmarked for this research which, if properly funded, might cure people who are actually suffering now.

No, the vast majority of the money would be funneled into embryonic research which has, as experts point out time and again, been underway for more than 20 years without yielding any successful therapies.

As the Asbury Park Press pointed out in two recent editorials, New Jersey, with the third largest debt load in the country, is ill-equipped financially for such a speculative venture.

Spend an hour or two on the Internet researching New Jersey's finances and you see why.

A survey of the state's bridges this fall, for instance, showed taxpayers will have to pony up billions for much needed improvement.

Then there's the housing bubble. It hasn't just burst, it's exploded as we east/west commuters can well attest. Every day, we drive past countless houses that have had for sale signs in their yards for months and may never fetch their asking price. Half-built McMansions that may never be completed are another familiar sight.

Municipal, state and county officials have raised taxes more per capita than any other state in the union. The average property tax bill humped 29 percent in the last couple of years to $6,170, a national high.

On top of that, there's a perilous scarcity of affordable housing for our young families and, according to Gov. Corzine, no money to remedy the situation.

Why not, one might ask.

Well here's one possibility: in 2005, the state awarded $5 million in grants from the state budget for stem cell research; in 2006, another $10 million went into the stem cell pipeline not to mention the $270 million our legislators approved to build the stem cell research centers. Now they want to borrow $450 million more for research and we wonder why there's no money for bridges and housing.

Is it any wonder a new Rutgers University report showed residents leaving New Jersey at three times the rate they were five years ago in an ongoing trend that is already doing real damage to the state's economy and budget coffers?

The Star Ledger reported that the exodus is so bad it could lead to an overall drop in the state's population as soon as next year. When one considers that last year alone, the loss of people cost the state economy about $10 billion in income and about $680 million in state budget revenue, the idea of asking us to speculate with $450 million of our tax dollars strikes me as just plain weird.

Lois Rogers is the feature editor of The Monitor