New Jersey Governor Bankrupting New Jersey
By Gordon Bishop (02/26/07)
Governor Jon Corzine ran for election on a promise not to raise taxes.
As soon as Corzine was sworn in as Governor last year, he proceeded to inflate the State budget from $29 billion to $35 billion for his first two years in office.
If that wasn’t enough, he also increased the sales tax to 7 percent and taxed and raised taxes on just about everything he could, from cleaners and limousines to recreational facilities and you name it. It’s either taxed or increased by a “surcharge” tax.
Corzine even tried to tax hospital beds, but his liberal followers balked. They want to remain in power in Trenton, the State Capital. They don’t want to be branded cold-hearted politicians without a conscience or soul.
Insanely, Corzine shut down State government for a week last year because his liberal legislators refused to go along with his taxation madness. That was a dumb, costly decision: New Jersey lost $100 million in taxes during that seven-day showdown with his liberal legislators.
Corzine now wants to lease or sell New Jersey’s toll roads: The New Jersey Turnpike, the Garden State Parkway and the Atlantic Expressway.
As one pundit from South Jersey put it: “They can only sell it if the company who is going to buy it can raise the tolls every year.”
Corzine became governor after the Wall Street Goldman-Sachs investment house, where he was co-chairman, showed him the door. Getting rid of Corzine cost Goldman-Sachs some $400,00 million.
What did he do with all that money? He spent $62 million to buy a New Jersey seat in the U.S. Senate, and then spent another $60 million to buy the Governorship. This phony pathological liar is a classic tax-and-spend liberal. Even the liberals in New Jersey are starting to separate themselves from the “Mad Taxman.”
Tens of thousands of residents are moving out of New Jersey, as are small businesses and even mid-size and big corporations seeking tax relief in states that do not have the distinction of having the nation’s highest property taxes, motor vehicle insurance, per public school pupil cost and to top if off, the highest cost-of-living.
There are alternatives for taxpayers and voters who really want to make a difference at the polls.
Here’s the agenda of a youthful State Assemblywoman running for State Senate. Jennifer Beck is a true Conservative in the tradition of Ronald Reagan. Here’s her common-sense analysis and agenda for New Jersey:
Instead of fixing the hole in sinking ship of state by cutting spending, the (Democrat) leadership in Trenton continues to throw the heavy stuff overboard while waiting for a rescue that is never going to come.
New Jersey is ranked 49th out of 50 states in business climate. We’re one of only two states that faces a budget deficit this year (the other, post-Katrina Louisiana).
Anyone who has to balance a budget at home knows that if you’re borrowing money to add onto your house or start a business, that’s one thing. If you’re borrowing money to buy groceries or to pay your electric bill, that’s a recipe for disaster. That is what the toll lease scheme is – borrowing money to pay current expenses.
Last year, the state budget increased by 10 percent to almost $31 billion. The national inflation rate was around 2-3 percent. By comparison, Pennsylvania, with 50 percent more people than New Jersey, has a budget of $26 billion. In five years, the New Jersey budget has gone from $22 billion to some $31 billion – a 41 percent increase.
(Corzine’s new fiscal budget is double those percentages!)
Almost every existing tax has been raised, and new ones have been created by the dozens. And still, it’s not enough.
This state does not have a revenue problem. It has a spending problem.
The state’s Schools Construction Corp. was funded $6.8 billion in taxpayer dollars in 2000. As of June, it will be out of money, with less than half its projects completed.
The state’s Transportation Trust Fund had to be rescued from the brink of insolvency by borrowing $6 billion in 2006.
Just recently, an audit of four of the 31 (urban) school districts in New Jersey turned up millions of dollars of waste, including more than $600,000 in salaries paid to dead people.
The politicians in power want to preserve the status quo and continue handing out this political pork to constituents and donors. It’s an endless, vicious cycle of corruption.
When people or businesses don’t have enough money coming in, they spend less and they cut down on luxuries. Why can’t the state?
The ship of the State of New Jersey doesn’t just need to be fixed. It needs to be turned around.
Lots of luck, Jennifer Beck! Other politicians have tried over the years to turn around the system, but they all failed in killing this cancerous corruption. Give it your best shot, kid!
(Gordon Bishop is a “Who’s Who in the World” national award-winning author, historian, syndicated columnist and New Jersey’s first “Journalist-of-the-Year” – 1986/New Jersey Press Association.)
(Printer friendly version) Email: Gordon Bishop
