NJSpotlight Headline Says It All: “NJ lawmakers find millions for pet projects in budget that borrows billions, raises taxes”
Posted On09/24/2020 byJon Reitmeyer hits the nail on the head in his NJSpotlight article. Despite past words to the contrary, Gov. Murphy is acting as if nothing has changed with COVID. Government spending and payrolls certainly haven’t changed. A record $4.7 billion is pouring into an unreformed and broken public pension system. Throwing (our) good money…Read More
NJ Debt Worst in America (Again), but Gov. Murphy Is Borrowing $4.5 billion More
Posted On09/23/2020 byTruth in Accounting came out with its “Financial State of the States 2020,” an annual report on how much debt-per-taxpayer each state owes. New Jersey once again ranked DEAD LAST in the nation for the SEVENTH STRAIGHT YEAR. Each NJ taxpayer owes a jaw-dropping $57,900 – which is $5,900 more than broke Illinois, the state…Read More
Thanks, Governor! NJEA-Funded New Direction Repays the Favors with a $1.25 Million Ad Campaign
Posted On09/22/2020 byNJLeftBehind nails it. In a timely piece today, Laura Waters makes the connection between the NJEA going 7-for-7 on Gov. Murphy’s budget and recently signed legislation and a $1.25 million TV campaign by New Direction New Jersey, the Super PAC that is 70%-funded by the NJEA. There’s a whole lot of back-scratching going on between…Read More
NJ to Borrow $4.5 billion to Make $4.7 billion Pension Payment: NJ Taxpayers on the Hook
Posted On09/22/2020 byAccording to the Star-Ledger, New Jersey’s FY2021 budget will borrow $4.5 billion in bonds. That’s more than 10% of the entire budget. Where is NJ going to get the money to plug the budget gap next year? I guess we should hope that economy does really well – despite the additional taxes on millionaires, corporations…Read More
New Jersey Governance in the Middle of a Pandemic: Run by and for Special Interests
Posted On09/16/2020 byThe NJEA’s investments are paying off. New Jersey’s most powerful special interest has had a great recent run with Governor Murphy. As is well known, the NJEA was “all-in” for Phil Murphy when he ran for governor and strongly boosted his candidacy. Since Murphy’s election, the NJEA and its public-sector union allies have pumped…Read More
Gov. Murphy, Using Bonds to Pay Down Pension Debt Is Essentially Another POB Deal
Posted On09/15/2020 byJon Reitmeyer of NJSpotlight writes that State Treasury officials support the idea of issuing $4 billion in bonds so the State can make a $4.9 billion pension contribution ($4.2 billion of which is making up for past pension underfunding). The idea is apparently that the State can borrow at 2% (at an annual cost of…Read More
“For the Many NJ” – A New Coalition with the Same Unions and Progressive Allies
Posted On09/09/2020 byIt is difficult to keep up with the various coalitions of public-sector unions and their progressive allies. They pop up like mushrooms after a rainstorm. The newest iteration is “For the Many NJ” (they always have catchy names that disguise their true nature), which has inserted itself into this year’s budget discussions. As presented in…Read More
Municipal Bond Market Study: NJ Ranks 49th in Nation in Creditworthiness
Posted On09/08/2020 byBarron’s published a study by mutual fund manager Eaton Vance that ranked the states by creditworthiness (in other words how risky it is to lend money to NJ) and New Jersey was 49th out of 50 states, trailing only broke Illinois. This is no surprise, given that NJ also has the second-lowest bond rating of…Read More
NJ Education Aid: More Shoddy, Misleading Research from NJ Policy Perspective
Posted On09/08/2020 byThe BuryPensions blog tells it like it is. Based on some excellent new research by New Jersey Education Aid entitled “New Jersey Policy Perspective Misleads on Pensions,” Bury had this to say: “But when a think-tank getting similar NJEA money puts out worse propaganda it gets accepted by other media outlets that choose to disseminate…Read More
NJBIA’s Siekerka Is on Target: Gov. Murphy’s $4.9 billion for Pensions Is Throwing Good Money after Bad
Posted On09/04/2020 byNew Jersey Business and Industry Association (NJBIA) president Michelle Siekerka penned an op-ed in NJ Spotlight today that made several excellent points. Among them: Cut the fiscal year 2021 public employee pension contribution: “we should remind ourselves that whatever dollar figure is settled on will still go toward a broken and unsustainable system, which will…Read More