New Jersey Taxes . . .
Anyone that lives in New Jersey might think that we’re taxed at record-breaking rates because the times are tough.
Or because our needs in the state are higher than in most states in the country.
Or that state revenues are scarce.
After all, NJ ranks 6th (out of 50 states) in total of all its taxes and licensing fees per capita.

Well, think again.

Steve Malanga of City Journal has been reading up on the subject:

But now comes a study from the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston that demonstrates just how much the pols have been buffaloing us with this line of reasoning. The study, comparing a comprehensive array of data from all 50 states, shows that while New York and New Jersey are taxing their citizens at rates well beyond the norm, the two states have only average public spending requirements, based on the make-up of their populations.
. . .
Jersey’s fiscal demands, meanwhile, are even lighter than New York’s and rank below those of 32 other states, including the likes of Minnesota and Kansas, based on demographic comparisons.

Malanga goes on, “That both states score much higher on taxes than on fiscal needs suggests that each is already taking in more than enough revenues to deliver quality government services.”

Jersey, meanwhile, pours big chunks of its state spending into its public schools, ranking fifth among the states in spending per pupil and first in teachers’ salaries. But Jersey’s students place tenth nationwide on test scores and the state ranks dead last on the Manhattan Institute’s School Efficiency Index, which ranks each state’s public schools by student performance in relation to school spending.

It’s no secret that taxes in both states are high. But for too long our political leaders argued that those taxes were necessary because the need is so great. Only the most gullible taxpayers would swallow that argument.

New Jersey bloggers are aware of the out-of-control state spending, and of the state’s never-ending search for additional taxes. Roberto looks at ways the state might be promoting gambling. Enlighten-NJ wants a Department of the Taxpayer Advocate to provide a cabinet-level presence for the citizens of New Jersey that actually pay the tab for government. Patrick wants a 3% tax on all “contributions” to our elected official’s bank accounts.

In the middle of all this hair-raising (hence the name of this blog) taxation, Jim, who’s been looking at the Jersey Money Pit points out that NJ, which is tethering on bankruptcy,

added one new public sector employee for every six new residents. Tell me that doesn’t make you want to barf. At least 1,000 of these positions are patronage jobs handed out by Jim McGreevey and his democrat buddies to the tune of $50 million, and, according to Republican candidate for Governor, John Murphy, none of these positions has been cut in order to meet the state’s financial shortfall.

I should point out that, even if all of those 1,000 employees were fired, we, the taxpayers, would still have to fund their pensions.

In case anyone out there thinks NJ taxes aim to only soak the rich, allow me to remind you that rich is in the eye of the beholder, and we’re all “rich” as far as the NJ tax man can see: SmadaNek illustrates the point,

If you bought a home for $86,000 five years ago, it is now subject to this additional tax. That group includes about 28% of those the census found in the $50k-$100k group, or about 64,000 homes. A little more quick math shows that, while Governor McGreevey piled this tax on about 650,000 homes, acting Governor Codey wants to expand it to over 1.5 million homes.

SmadaNek also realizes that “New Jersey gets back 57 cents for every dollar paid into the federal coffers, so the $13.4 billion in Federal Spending actually costs us $23.5 billion.”

The reason NJ residents are taxed at record-breaking rates is because NJ is tax-and-spend hell.

Everything else is a pretext.