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New Jersey
is losing hundreds of millions of dollars a year as
both overtaxed residents and businesses are literally
heading south where they can afford to live.
The Garden State’s giant socialist state government
has finally put New Jersey into a $35 billion debt
hole, and there’s no way the state can bail itself out
of this financial disaster without laying off half the
politically appointed workers in the State Capital of
Trenton.
And that’s not a bad idea.
I’ve been waving the red flag in my weekly syndicated
columns since the 1970s, when the state budgets
started soaring to the billion-dollar budget levels.
I
remember when Republican Governor Bill Cahill
introduced the first billion-dollar budget in 1970.
He called on the Democrat-controlled State Legislature
to put the brakes on wasteful tax-and-spend programs
and projects that the state simply could not afford to
underwrite.
So here we are in 2008 with another liberal Governor
imposing surcharges on already existing taxes in a
futile effort to balance the state budget by June 30.
July 1st begins the next fiscal year.
So what’s it like living in the most expensive state
in the country?
Our regional newspaper, The Asbury Park Press,
found a typical hardworking business man in Monmouth
County, Central New Jersey. He is Don Novak, 61, of
Lakewood. The headline for The Press’ feature
article reads: Fed up with N.J, man moving business
to Pa.
He’s had it with spending, corruption
Don Novak installs auto lifts in mechanics’ shops.
These days, while measuring garage bays and drilling
holes, this senior citizen wonders whether to move his
auto-lift business to neighboring Pennsylvania, just
across the Delaware River from New Jersey.
Don has grown upset over political corruption and what
he considers excessive state spending over the past
several years.
Then, in January, Governor Jon Corzine announced plans
to borrow up to $40 billion to buttress the state’s
weak finances and increase tolls eight-fold on the
Garden State Parkway and New Jersey Turnpike by 2022.
That, Don said, was the final straw.
“I don’t think customers will put up with a surcharge
on my bills for tolls,” he said. “If the tolls go up
like this, I would have to put it on a surcharge, so
people know that my work is competitive.”
It’s not just the tolls, Don pointed out. It’s the
rising cost of living and doing business in
New Jersey,
including property taxes and a $2,000 jump this year
in his private workers compensation insurance
premiums.
Don believes state government is full of waste, and he
said he’s seen it firsthand.
“I’ve been into garages that the state operates, with
30 or 40 mechanics, and you’d be hard pressed to find
anybody working in there,” he said.
Corzine’s approval rating has been sinking since the
plan was announced. In a Quinnipiac University poll a
few weeks ago, 52 percent of voters said they
disapproved of Corzine’s job performance, and
three-quarters said they opposed his toll plan.
Pollsters say the public has seen enough of broken
promises and politicians facing corruption
convictions, and so voters are unwilling to accept the
Corzine plan.
Don’s anger has simmered for a while. He still recalls
the details of the Monmouth County corruption cases,
such as the $92,000 salary of former county bridge
superintendent Anthony Palugi, who is now serving time
in federal prison for extorting bribes.
Don doesn’t own an E-ZPass transponder for toll roads
because he refuses to pay the $1-a-month surcharge. He
said he remembers the surcharge was used to bail out
the E-ZPass system when its questionable funding plan,
put in place by former GOP Governor Christie Whitman,
collapsed.
“They wanted us to pay for their screw-ups,” Don
said.
The only thing keeping me from moving out of New
Jersey is my loving family – two daughters, three
granddaughters and two sons-in-law. It’s also a
struggle for them to live their entire life in one
place – New Jersey.
We’re all prisoners of a corrupt, sick state! |
