Sunlight Blog
What Has Happened to NJ Spotlight?
Posted On11/12/2020 bySunlight Policy Center has noticed a disturbing trend with the news website NJ Spotlight. Normally when Sunlight submits an op-ed, the editing process is collaborative and quick. But Sunlight has found a double-standard with NJ Spotlight: our op-eds are receiving excessive scrutiny while certain other op-eds are not. In the most recent case (which is…Read More
Just as Night Follows Day, Gov. Murphy Borrows $4.5 Billion and S&P Downgrades NJ to BBB+
Posted On11/09/2020 byBond-rating agency S&P Global downgraded NJ’s debt rating from A- to BBB+, making NJ one of only two states (along with broke IL) to have a BBB-rating, which is only one notch above “junk” ratings. When bond ratings go down, bond borrowing costs go up, so this is bad news for NJ. S&P cited NJ’s…Read More
250 More NJEA Members Run for Office; That Makes 1,560 from 2015-2020
Posted On11/04/2020 byThe NJEA Political Leadership Academy (PLA), which trains NJEA members to run for public office, must have had a busy 2020. The NJEA reports that another 250 members ran for political office in NJ in 2020. That makes a total of 1,560 NJEA members that have run for office from 2015 to 2020. The NJEA’s…Read More
Fitch Rating Agency: NJ Is a Rich State, but Not Rich Enough to Handle Our Massive Debts
Posted On11/03/2020 byThe bond-rating agency Fitch came out with its annual State Liability Report, which measures a state’s total liabilities against state personal income. For NJ, this is an important measure because NJ is a rich state and this fact has often been used to downplay the dire nature of NJ’s pension crisis. To cut to the…Read More
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