New Jersey Gov. John Corzine hoped for a medical revolution; social con servatives feared a bio-ethical nightmare.

But what long-suffering Garden State taxpayers saw was yet another publicly financed boondoggle – of the kind that’s sent the state’s debt load soaring to $30 billion. And so on Tuesday they rejected a $450 million bond issue to fund stem-cell research.

The vote came as something of a surprise. Corzine spent $150,000 of his own money to promote the measure, which most recent polls suggested would pass easily.

“I think [voters] were sending us a message,” said state Senate President Richard Codey, one of the measure’s biggest proponents. “The message is, ‘Get your fiscal house in order first.’ ”

That’s an encouraging admission, but Corzine & Co. have talked the talk on fiscal responsibility before, only to come back with gimmicky proposals – like selling state highways – that do nothing to address runaway spending.

Fortunately, Garden Staters seem to be seeing beyond the gimmicks. Voters Tuesday also rejected a plan that would’ve set aside all the proceeds from last year’s state sales-tax hike to offset local property taxes.

Corzine, to his credit, opposed that measure – but that didn’t stop him from employing equally dubious arguments in favor of the stem-cell debt.

New Jersey, he promised, would become the center of a new biotech revolution – with the tax receipts to show for it. But when it comes to the next big thing in scientific research, politicians are notoriously bad at picking winners.

Hard choices, not get-rich-quick schemes, are the ticket to prosperity.

That was Tuesday’s lesson.