Sunlight Blog
The NJEA Hits the Trifecta with Murphy’s Budget; the Rest of NJ, Not So Much
Posted On08/26/2020 byGovernor Murphy presented a nine-month FY2021 budget yesterday that props up state government spending by issuing bonds and raising taxes. As analyzed by NJ Spotlight’s Jon Reitmeyer, there is virtually no state government belt-tightening: state spending will “still top $40 billion for a traditional 12-month fiscal year … even as he is projecting steep revenue…Read More
Former NJ Budget Director Urges Governor Not to Issue Bonds before Cutting Spending
Posted On08/25/2020 byFormer NJ budget director Richard Keevey urges Governor Murphy not to issue bonds (borrow money) to plug budget gaps in an op-ed in NJ Spotlight. Keevey argues that the true budget gap is about $4 billion – substantially less then the $9.9 billion that Murphy has been authorized to borrow. Keevey suggests that by cutting…Read More
Record’s Stile Rightly Eyes New Direction but Misses Murphy’s Active Role, Conflict of Interest
Posted On08/19/2020 byThe Record’s Charles Stile wrote and op-ed entitled “How Murphy’s ‘dark money’ allies allow governor to play good cop/bad cop with Trump,” which rightly focused on the cozy relationship between the dark money Super PAC New Direction New Jersey (NDNJ) and Governor Murphy. Stile deserves credit for previously scrutinizing NDNJ and recognizing that 70% of…Read More
New Jersey Policy Perspective’s Shoddy Research Misses The Mark On Extra COVID Funding For Schools
Posted On08/18/2020 byNew Jersey Policy Perspective (NJPP) has published a report, “School Funding in New Jersey: Preparing Now for the 2020-21 School Year,” co-authored by Bruce Baker and, once again, Mark Weber, Ph.D., (a.k.a Jersey Jazzman). SPCNJ embarked on writing this blog with the aim of finding some grounds for agreement with NJPP because the need for…Read More
Murphy Wins at Supreme Court but NJ’s Future Generations Lose
Posted On08/14/2020 byCongratulations, Governor Murphy. Unsurprisingly, the NJ Supreme Court has ruled unanimously that you get to borrow up to $9.9 billion to cover budget gaps due to shortfalls and costs related to COVID19. This is good news for NJ’s most powerful special interests, the public sector unions, who are Murphy’s political supporters. Unfortunately, this is bad news…Read More
Three Indisputable Facts about NJ21United
Posted On08/10/2020 bySunlight Policy Center of New Jersey (SPCNJ) recently published a report “Who and What Is NJ21United?” asking who was behind NJ21United, the dark-money, political-action group that is organizing the #OnlyWhenItsSafe campaign. #OnlyWhenItsSafe calls for delaying the reopening of NJ public schools until certain conditions are met. Here are three indisputable facts about NJ21United: NJ21United is…Read More
NJLeftBehind Digs into NJ21United and Finds a Lot More than COVID-related Issues
Posted On08/06/2020 byNJLeftBehind dug into NJ21United’s policy positions and figured out that they extend well beyond COVID-related, school-reopening issues. SPCNJ also dug into NJ21United and concluded the same thing in its just released “Who and What Is NJ21United?” report. SPCNJ’s report also uncovered NJ21United’s deep ties to the NJEA and asks whether NJ21United is another NJEA “dark…Read More
For NJ, It’s Always the Same Answer from Our State Government: Raise Taxes
Posted On07/29/2020 byNJ Chamber of Commerce President Tom Bracken spoke out against a proposed new tax on health insurance (in ROI-NJ here). The new tax supposedly is to replace the federal tax that was repealed and shore up NJ’s insurance exchanges, but Bracken does an excellent job of refuting this. The bottom line is that when facing…Read More
New Study: NJ’s Roads Among the Worst. But We Have No Money to Fix Them.
Posted On07/28/2020 byThis won’t come as news to many NJ drivers, but NJ101.5 reported that a study by Copilot determined that 42.4 of NJ’s roads are in poor condition. Only RI and CA were worse. The national average was 26%. As detailed in SPCNJ’s report “Beware the Downward Spiral: The Economic Consequences of New Jersey’s Special-Interest-Dominated Status…Read More
New BEA Analysis Confirms NJ Public Pensions as Worst-Funded in Nation
Posted On07/24/2020 byAnd this was before COVID19 hit. The US Bureau of Economic Analysis did a laudable analysis of defined benefit pension plans across the country. BEA used a constant set of methods and assumptions so that in looking at the various plans, BEA was comparing apples to apples. Importantly, BEA used a 4% discount rate for…Read More