Just keep the waste management folks out of this, yaknowhatimean?
Posted on 11/10/2009 4:01:52 PM PST by NewJerseyJoe
In his election-night acceptance speech, New Jersey Gov.-elect Chris Christie aimed straight at the Garden State's entrenched political class, vowing to "turn Trenton on its head." As his victory suggests, many residents would welcome such dramatic reform. He has the opportunity to harness popular anger with the previous administration and make real reforms.
Christie inherits a state that's in arguably the worst financial condition in its 233- year history. Last year's $7 billion shortfall, closed with stimulus dollars and tax hikes, has resurfaced at an even larger $8 billion for 2010. Residents face crippling property taxes (an average of $7,000 per capita), high income and sales taxes, $45 billion in debt and the net loss of 400,000 people since 2000.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
(I maintain an unofficial ping list for New Jersey-related news. If you want on or off the list, send me FReepmail.)
Too bad. When you get past the NYC metro area, NJ is one pretty place.
“Christie inherits a state that’s in arguably the worst financial condition in its 233- year history. Last year’s $7 billion shortfall, closed with stimulus dollars and tax hikes, has resurfaced at an even larger $8 billion for 2010. Residents face crippling property taxes (an average of $7,000 per capita), high income and sales taxes, $45 billion in debt and the net loss of 400,000 people since 2000.”
Geeeeez Eileen, what a complainer you are.
I don’t see anything wrong with the insanity spelled out above.
Neither did NJ’s former governor.
Now history.
Good.
Just out of curiosity, do you know what his stand on guns rights is?
“One thing that PTRF aid did produce is an enormous and costly bureaucracy that has failed New Jersey’s schoolchildren and enriched union officials. Camden, for example, has received $2.5 billion in PTRF funding since 1998 — yet only 28 percent of Camden HS students passed the state’s High School Proficiency exam in 2007, compared to a state average of 89 percent.”
!!!!!!!
Unfortunately, I do. He believes in "commonsense gun control" (his words).
We'll be working on him. Time will tell if we have any success.
This article advocates giving NJ municipalities “a greater role in charting their own fiscal course.”
There are 566 of them. Maybe Trenton would be better off figuring out ways to consolidate services on a county level, rather than asking each municipality, no matter how small, to fund all of these mandates by themselves. No wonder property taxes are so high!
If New Jerseyans love their independence so much that they demand home rule even when it makes no economic sense, then they have to expect that they will pay an economic cost. It’s the precious “Home Rule” concept that lets municipalities as crappy as Camden (excuse my French) to manage things on their own, and blow off all that PTRF money with no graduation rates to show for! And the people that truly suffer are the kids, who can’t get decent jobs with their rotten educations and are stuck there.\
Throwing towns back on their own devices may work for large municipalities of well-educated and prosperous citizens. They can look out for themselves. But small communities, or the ones at the bottom of the education and income barrel won’t be able to handle the burden. Consolidating some services is going to be the only way for towns to reduce property taxes.
“Eileen Norcross, a senior re search fellow at George Mason University’s Mercatus Center, is the co-author of “Institutions Matter: Can New Jersey Reverse Course?””
Is that a Norcross of THE Norcross dynasty?
If Norcross is onboard, Christie might actually get some of the aforementioned reforms done.
Just keep the waste management folks out of this, yaknowhatimean?
The mayors, police chiefs, etc. of these 566 municipalities are not going to give up their government jobs and power easily. There are way too many town government buildings and bureaucrats.
Christy and Patterson have to call the unions out. If they don’t lay off government workers, nothing will change.
New Jersey’s pension fund was underfunded by $34 billion in June 2008, before last year’s stock market collapse drained another $15 billion from it. The $68.2 billion pension fund provides benefits for about 700,000 working and retired teachers and public sector workers.
Significant pension reductions, not just two-tier systems which only produce savings thirty-forty years out, will produce out-and-out war between Christie and public employee unions. Interesting times are upon us. Stock up on popcorn.
Looks like you guys are buying the propaganda.
In 1976, New Jersey had a maximum Income Tax rate of 2.5%, a reasonable property tax, and a reasonable sales tax.
Guess what? They probably had very close to 566 towns also. Just because Corzine identifies a town structure that goes back to pre-Revolutionary times as the problem, doesn’t mean that us conservatives have to agree with him.
Thank you for this accurate post.
2. Immediate end to pensions for all elected officials. Recalculate all pensions being paid to remove time served for elective office.
3. Immediate end to double dipping. No person may receive any payment for more than ONE government job in the state of NJ.
4. Immediate end to overtime being considered in all pension calculations. Recalculate ALL pensions currently being paid to remove overtime.
5. No pensions paid to anyone under the age of 60 for any reason.
6. A 20% reduction in all government pensions for persons not living at least 185 days per year in NJ.
7. School vouchers to ALL parents with complete portability within the state of NJ. This will force schools and teacher unions to compete with new private schools.
8. Unconditional right-to-work law for government employees. Severe fines for striking public employee unions and union members (1% loss of pension per day of strike).
This is a start. I'm sure the rest of y'all can come up with other good ideas.
Garde la Foi, mes amis! Nous nous sommes les sauveurs de la République! Maintenant et Toujours!
(Keep the Faith, my friends! We are the saviors of the Republic! Now and Forever!)
LonePalm, le Républicain du verre cassé (The Broken Glass Republican)
That is the problem! All these towns want their buildings, their various individual forces, and the ability to rule their little fiefdoms themselves. And don’t get me started on the 566 school districts, each with superintendents, principals at each school, coaches and councilors and spec ed depts, ESL programs (growing by leaps and bounds every day) and all paid for by property taxes.
So people want all these things - but they don’t want to have the property taxes to pay for them. Make a choice, people. Home rule is destroying this state.
Then he should look into all the commissions and authorities with fiat powers to bond and to negotiate lucrative contracts with their employees, like the port authority of NY and NJ, passaic valley sewage authority, Delaware bridge authority, sports and exposition authority, etc. there are about 30 of them in the state.
Here’s a couple of notions I’ve had:
1. Cut the sales tax 2 cents.
2. Tax union receipts from dues.
3. Tax pensions.
4. Tax campaign contributions.
5. Allow municipalities to raise “maintenance fees” on all public properties—state and national— to compensate for loss of tax receipts and cost of providing police protection, infrastructure, and access maintanance.
6. Raise juror’s compensation to $50. per day.
7. Make it a crime, punishable to up to 4 weeks improsonment, and $20,000 fine to operate leaf blowers on Sundays, and all other days before 1:00 pm or after 4:30 pm.
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