NJEA All-In for Murphy Again Because Murphy Has Delivered for NJ’s Most Powerful Special Interest
Posted On10/29/2020 byNJEA Secretary-Treasurer Steve Beatty said it all about the NJEA’s endorsement of Gov. Murphy for re-election: “There is no governor in the nation who has worked as closely and collaboratively with public employee unions than Gov. Murphy.” Another way to put it is: special interests dominate New Jersey politics all the way to the very…Read More
Inconvenient Fact: NJ Unemployment Drop Due to Workers Leaving the Labor Force
Posted On10/28/2020 byNJ.com reports that the US Bureau of Labor Statistics data showed that the NJ unemployment rate dropped from 11.1% to 6.7% in September. This looks like good news, but unfortunately, it’s not. Most people don’t realize that the unemployment rate only includes people who are out of work and who have been looking for a…Read More
NJ’s State Business Tax Climate the Worst in America – for the Seventh Straight Year
Posted On10/23/2020 byYou read that right. For seven years in a row, NJ has the worst business tax climate in America, according to the Tax Foundation’s annual ranking. In other words, NJ is a lousy place to do business and has been for a very long time. As the Tax Foundation researchers said: “The evidence shows that…Read More
We Don’t Have $55 Million for Body-Cams but We Do Have $4.7 Billion for Our Broken, Unreformed Pension System
Posted On10/20/2020 byNorthJersey.com reported that Gov. Murphy has conditionally vetoed a bill that mandated body-cameras for all uniformed police because the source of funds – civil forfeiture proceeds – is too small. All in, the body-cams would cost about $55 million. The legislature passed the bill by wide margins and the governor called the cameras a “wise…Read More
The COVID Pandemic Has Not Changed Some Things: More Shoddy Research from Jersey Jazzman and NJ Policy Perspective
Posted On10/16/2020 byMark Weber, Ph.D. (a.k.a., Jersey Jazzman), has published an op-ed in NJSpotlight (based on a report he did for New Jersey Policy Perspective (NJPP)) that purports to show that NJ school districts that are all-remote this fall are doing so because they are underfunded, which disproportionately hurts Black and Latino students. As exhaustively documented by Sunlight…Read More
Public Sector Union Pals Pay Gov. Murphy Back with New Direction’s TV Ads
Posted On10/15/2020 byAs reported in InsiderNJ, Super PAC New Direction New Jersey (NDNJ) has cut a new ad touting Gov. Murphy’s COVID response and his recovery plans. Sunlight just wants to remind NJ citizens that NDNJ is 80% funded by the public sector unions (70% by the NJEA). Just a little more back-scratching between Murphy and his…Read More
Senate Pension Reform Bill Makes Some Necessary Changes but Needs More
Posted On10/14/2020 byTony Howley of Americans for Prosperity NJ penned an op-ed in the Star-Ledger supporting Senate President Sweeney’s S-861 bill based on his Path to Progress pension reform recommendations. These are sensible and necessary reforms that protect existing pensions but try to put NJ on a more sustainable path. The path we are currently on is not sustainable….Read More
Pew Charitable Trust Pension Update: NJ Is Dead Last Among the States
Posted On10/08/2020 byThis isn’t new news but it’s also not good news. Pew Charitable Trusts updated its pension study to include 2018 data, and NJ comes in dead last among the 50 states. NJ only has 38 cents set aside for each dollar it owes. That means that 62 cents of every dollar owed is an unfunded…Read More
Gov. Murphy: “Labor is at the table in New Jersey unlike any other state in America, and that will always continue to be the case.”
Posted On10/06/2020 byWell, there you have it from an excellent report by NJ101.5: a perfect, one-sentence description of NJ’s political status quo, delivered by our state’s top elected officer. Gov. Murphy was elected with the strenuous support of the public sector unions – a.k.a, our most powerful special interests – and continues to work hand-in-hand with them…Read More
COVID Hits NJ Pensions: Investments Earn 1.2%, Teachers’ Pension Funding Likely Down to 25%
Posted On10/01/2020 byThe Star-Ledger reported that NJ’s pension investments earned 1.2% for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2020. This is far below the 7.5% assumed return and given that NJ pensions are cash-flow negative, it is highly likely that assets had to be used to pay out pension benefits. It is also highly likely that as…Read More