Even the faraway Washington Post Sees Gov. Murphy’s Blocking of Charter School Expansion as Appeasing the NJEA
Posted On03/01/2022 byA Sunlight subscriber sent us a Washington Post article by Jay Mathews entitled “N.J.’s education chief blocked growth of state’s best charter schools. Why?” Sunlight does not typically opine on charter schools because they are for the most part outside our purview. But insofar as New Jersey’s charter school policies reflect Governor Murphy’s subservience to…Read More
Like Sunlight, ELEC’s Brindle Warns About Special Interest Domination of NJ Politics Via Shadowy Super PACs
Posted On02/24/2022 byKudos to Jeff Brindle, executive director of the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission (ELEC), for calling out the danger to NJ’s electoral system from shadowy, special interest Super PACs (political action committees). Brindle has frequently decried the influence of dark money and Super PACs in NJ elections, but Sunlight is happy to see that Brindle…Read More
How Many Members Does the NJEA Have? And Did It Just Lose 3,500 Members?
Posted On02/17/2022 byProbably no one knows more about the inner workings of America’s public employee unions than Mike Antonucci, author of the valuable and informed Education Intelligence Agency website. Antonucci recently wrote a piece for The 74 about the decline of public employee union membership, and particularly the decline at the local government level, where most school employees…Read More
Star-Ledger’s Moran Nails It: NJEA Influence Drives Gov. Murphy’s Policies on Charter Schools
Posted On02/15/2022 byTom Moran’s editorial in the Star-Ledger calls out Gov. Murphy for the disconnect between his rhetoric and his actions when it comes to New Jersey’s charter schools. Murphy has professed support for charters and yet he has blocked many proposed charter expansions. Meanwhile, ten thousand mostly minority families and their kids remain on waiting lists for seats…Read More
More Biased “Research” from Mark Weber, Bruce Baker and NJ Policy Perspective
Posted On02/09/2022 byThe eleventh time is a charm, apparently. Or as NJEdReport says: “Here we go again.” The New Jersey Policy Perspective (NJPP) duo of Mark Weber (a.k.a., “Jersey Jazzman”) and Bruce Baker continue to churn out flawed “research” that uses cherry-picked data to reach predetermined conclusions, which always and everywhere support the agenda of their NJEA…Read More
WalletHub’s 2022 Study: NJ Is THE WORST State for Retirement. Will Gov. Murphy Do Anything About It?
Posted On01/28/2022 byWalletHub came out with its “2022’s Best States to Retire” study, and New Jersey ranked dead last. This has real-world negative consequences for NJ: NJ also came in dead last in United Van Lines’ 2022 study of moving patterns, with retirees comprising almost one-third of out-movers and almost half of out-movers having incomes over $150,000. The…Read More
Despite a Record Payment and Much Happy-Talk from Gov. Murphy, NJ’s Public Pensions Remain in Deep Trouble
Posted On01/26/2022 bySunlight wants to amplify a highly credible report that sounds the alarm on NJ’s public pensions by Andrew Biggs (of the American Enterprise Institute) for the Garden State Initiative (GSI). The bottom line: Because NJ’s pension system remains unreformed, Gov. Murphy’s record $6.9 billion pension payment was “money down the drain” and NJ’s public pensions remain in…Read More
Words Are Nice, But Gov. Murphy’s Highest-in-the-Nation Corporate Taxes Hurt NJ Start-Up Businesses
Posted On01/19/2022 byIn his inaugural address, Gov. Murphy emphasized reducing NJ’s sky-high property taxes. This is an improvement over his previous posture of “if taxes are your issue then NJ may not be your state,” but words are cheap and if Murphy simply raises other taxes to lower property taxes, then NJ’s very-high-tax status quo will remain…Read More
Gov. Murphy’s State of the State Happy Talk Ignores the Woeful Underperformance of NJ’s Economy on His Watch
Posted On01/14/2022 byWith his happy-talk in his State of the State speech, Gov. Murphy ignored the woeful reality of NJ’s economy under his watch. While it’s typical for a politician to sugar-coat things to make his record look better, Murphy needs to called out for what is in reality severe underperformance compared to the rest of the…Read More
Three Studies Confirm the Consequences of NJ’s Uncompetitive Business Climate: People, Businesses and Wealth Are Leaving
Posted On01/10/2022 byLast week, we noted that the Tax Foundation ranked New Jersey’s tax climate for businesses as dead last – for the seventh straight year! We mentioned a natural consequence of this was the outmigration of people, businesses and wealth to states with more attractive business climates. As it happens, we now have three data points…Read More