Free Republic

A New Jersey man has filed a federal lawsuit in New York over the Port Authority's toll increase. Yoel Weisshaus of New Milford claims the increase is an abuse of power and discriminates against him because he is poor. Cash tolls on the George Washington Bridge, Holland Tunnel, Lincoln Tunnel, Goethals Bridge, Bayonne Bridge and Outerbridge Crossing went up from $8 to $12 on Sunday. Weisshaus claims the tolls are targeted to restrict minimum-wage earners and will be used to complete the World Trade Center project instead of improving bridges and tunnels. The Record newspaper reports the unemployed Bergen Community...

Trenton If the citizens of New Jersey like candor, Chris Christie is the governor they’ve been waiting for. Or I should say citizens of “the failed state” of New Jersey, as he tends to call it. It’s a “broken state” and a state that’s “broke.” New Jersey was in “a shambles,” he says, when he became governor in January. It’s “a fiscal basket case,” suffering from the “madness” of tax increases and excessive government spending, a “wonderful state” that’s been brought to “the edge of bankruptcy” and faces “the ruination” of its economy and “the quality of life that we...

... Governor Corzine Limits Property Tax Rebate Program, Spends Down Rainy Day Fund, and Looks Again to High-Income Earners Due to unfunded mandates imposed by the state on several byzantine layers of local government, New Jersey property taxes are among the highest in the country. Their unpopularity has led to calls for action, and the state's response has not been to address the underlying mandates or redundancy. Instead, the state chose to shift tax revenue from local property taxes to state sales and income taxes, by offering state-level tax rebates and income tax deductions for the payment of local property...

There is no shortcut to economic prosperity. It takes investing, which means money.Jon Shure is president of New Jersey Policy Perspective, a non-partisan, non-profit organization in Trenton that conducts research on state issues.   IF YOU FIND yourself at the bottom of a deep, deep hole, which would you rather have: a ladder or a shovel?If you said ladder, congratulations on having a firm grasp of the obvious. If you said shovel, you have lots of company in Trenton. With state government's tax receipts already dropping off because of the national recession, policymakers are hard at work making the hole...

NEWS 1920 L Street, NW • Suite 200 • Washington, DC 20036 202.785.0266 • Fax 202.785.0261 W W W . A T R . O R G FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Paul Prososki 30 October 2003 202-785-0266 Gas Tax Hike in New Jersey? It’s Time For Candidates To Come Clean With Voters Rumors claim New Jersey gas tax will increase once legislators have no accountability to their constituents. WASHINGTON – With less than one week before an election, rumors are circulating a deal has been cut to increase the gas tax during the lame duck session of the state legislature....

As I was watching the groundbreaking ceremonies for that gleaming new stem cell institute in New Brunswick the other day, my mind drifted. I got to thinking of one of those situation comedies about the South. I imagined the camera focusing on a hillbilly in overalls sitting in front of a shack. His wife is wearing an old homemade dress. She's complaining that she doesn't have any food for the kids. Then the camera pans past the pigpen. Under an old oak tree sits a brand-new car. "She's a Dodge Hemi. She's got the 426 V-8," says the hillbilly, as...

Health advocates wrote to the governor, lobbied legislators and worked closely with the New Jersey League of Municipalities. And their efforts have paid off. Earlier this summer, a 7 percent state tax on gym memberships and health clubs was repealed by the state Legislature -- giving a sigh of relief to health clubs around the state. Rick Gorab, president and CEO of the Metropolitan YMCAs of the Oranges -- which has branches in Livingston, Maplewood, East Orange and Sussex County -- said 44 YMCAs banded together statewide to repeal the tax, which was passed last October. "We are a charitably-based...

New Jersey added 59,400 state and local-government jobs in the first half of this decade, even as private-sector employment was flat, a Star-Ledger analysis has found. The 11 percent increase in government jobs -- driven largely by ballooning education payrolls -- outpaced population growth and came at a time of rising anger over skyrocketing property taxes. "It's an incredible number that leaves private businessmen and taxpayers scratching their heads and saying, 'How is this possible?'" said Philip Kirschner, president of the New Jersey Business and Industry Association. "The economy is the same for all of us, so where are the...

A New Jersey Tax Revolt By STEVEN MALANGA Mr. Malanga is a contributing editor of City Journal, from whose latest issue this is adapted. New Jersey Republicans suffered a humiliating defeat in November’s elections, even as the GOP made big gains across much of the rest of the country. Jersey’s floundering Republicans face a similar problem to that of their equally unsuccessful New York brethren: powerful public-sector groups that live off government money and push incessantly for ever higher taxes have seized control of the state’s politics, and feckless GOP leaders have accommodated them, leaving the state party without core...

Retailer Says New N.J. Tax Will Cut JobsTRENTON, N.J. - The corporate parent of Macy's and Bloomingdale's said it will cut jobs and possibly close stores, and blamed a new tax that more than doubles what the chain pays to New Jersey.Federated Department Stores Inc. will also curtail hiring and end plans to remodel or expand existing stores, the company chairman said yesterday. The announcement is the first such complaint since the law was approved last week.The retail chain claims it paid $4.4 million in state corporate taxes last year. Now, thanks to a law Gov. James E. McGreevey needed...