Stuff in the ‘Taxes Economy and Outmigration’ Category
NJ Is Number One in the Nation … for Outmigration of Households During COVID
Posted On09/01/2020 byNot good news for NJ. Despite all the recent headlines about New York City residents fleeing to the NJ suburbs during the COVID pandemic, it turns out that from March to July of 2020, seven out of ten households that are moving to or from NJ are LEAVING the state. According to a Bloomberg/United Van…Read More
The NJEA Wants All-Remote Learning but Will It Support Right-Sizing Staffs and Budgets?
Posted On08/27/2020 byNorthJersey.com’s Terrence McDonald reported that several school districts are having to shift to all-remote instruction because teachers are threatening to take paid leave, leaving the districts without enough staff to open schools. McDonald noted that the NJEA had “already chalked up a win this month when Gov. Murphy reversed course and said he would allow…Read More
Star-Ledger’s Mulshine: More Debt Hurts Future Generations; More Taxes Means More Outmigration
Posted On08/27/2020 byThe Star-Ledger’s Paul Mulshine nails it. Governor Murphy’s proposed budget borrows $4 billion and increases taxes by another $1 billion. Borrowing money to pay for current costs like the pension payment or a budget surplus just shifts these costs to future generations – our kids and grandkids. And expanding the millionaire’s tax and adding…Read More
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
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
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
WalletHub Sees NJ Unemployment and Recovery as Second-Worst in Nation
Posted On07/20/2020 byInsiderNJ wrote an article on WalletHub’s recent ranking of the unemployment rates in all 50 states. NJ currently has the second-highest unemployment rate at 16.4%, which is up 407% since June 2019, the second-worst recovery. We all hope that NJ’s unemployment numbers will come down, but if the past is prologue, we have cause…Read More
NJSpotlight Is Partly Right About NJ’s Meager Rainy Day Funds, Woeful Fiscal Condition
Posted On06/09/2020 byNJSpotlight’s John Reitmeyer does a good job (here) of highlighting NJ’s deficient Rainy Day funds and how NJ has been reduced to borrowing $5 billion to plug a massive gap in the state budget. He also rightly notes that state public pension payments are eating up funds that might otherwise be used to build a…Read More