Significant news today with an impact on New Jersey property taxes:
- Bret Schundler will not be running against Jon Corzine in the November election. Doug Forrester would be well advised to pick up some of Bret’s message.
- The Senate will let the constitutional convention bill die. This virtually ensures more years of inaction on real property tax reform.
The problem we have in New Jersey is not really a taxation problem. On the whole, New Jersey workers and homeowners have the means to pay the crushing burden. The true problem is a spending problem. The 2005 state spending plan was 17% higher than the 2004 plan. This is insane! We need to put a draconian cap on state spending.
The legislature has seen fit to place such a cap on school districts, and should apply the same reasoning to itself as well.
[Posted by Ken from SmadaNek]
I’m far from an expert on New Jersey fiscal matters since I can barely abide reading about state and local politics, but it seems to me that New Jersey’s problems are structural, rather than the product of any particular budget cycle. Layers of government have to be eliminated, municipalities consolidated, and people fired. I’m guessing that if you examine the state budget, state employees and particularly their healthcare costs are the most rapidly increasing element. Like any business, the state government should have to do the same work with fewer people every year.
I’d love to see a variable cost productivity improvement written into the state Constitution — require that the government improve the cost per unit work by 1% per annum. They could do it by holding services constant and reducing headcount, or by increasing service provided with a constant headcount.