A Blog For All - Comments - Keep it civil
It's the Soprano State, all right.
Live in Jersey long enough and none of this'll surprise you. There are millions of dollars in slush funds, no-show jobs and other forms of bribery in this and every other budget since 2002 that, if removed, would have prevented this mess.
But folks here just keep voting for these thieves so they get what they deserve: a dysfunctional, dishonest and impulsively greedy ruling class that has no regard for the people who created the wealth Trenton continues to waste.
I'm curious where you think this ends up. We keep hearing that the unions will never renegotiate contracts that the state cannot afford, and that the time bomb continues to tick. What's the end result of this mess? When does it reach a point where dramatic actions actually occur, or does the can get kicked down the road ad infinitum?
It will keep getting kicked down the road. Trenton will refinance the debt as many times as it can and will continue to increase state spending even though it can't pay for it.
Corzine's probably betting on Obama and the feds bailing out the states from their pathetic spending plans with a reckless spending plan of its own.
Who pays? Your grandkids, if you or your kids can afford to have them...
John Mc - it ends up on the backs of the local property taxpayers. Every time the state cuts back, municipal property taxes go up. Annual reductions in state aid to schools force the local Board of Education to raise the school tax to make up the difference. Services which the state no longer provides to the big cities get pushed down to the counties, and the tax bill goes up.
Corzine is being disingenuous with his proposed "cuts". Most of that money will have to be recouped via higher local property taxes. If he's serious about freezing spending and public employee wages then he has to make his edict apply to all levels of government -- county, municipal, and school districts. Teachers, police, firemen, DPW, judges, clerks, etc. But if he thinks Hetty Rosenstein and the CWA are a tough nut to crack, just wait until he tries to tackle the NJEA (teachers union).
I think the time is coming when the property tax burden will simply become too great. People will either flee the state in droves or stage a tax revolt and refuse to fund the lavish salaries and benefits and pensions of the public employees.
One problem though is as taxpayers leave NJ, the majority of the voters left are what I call "consumers of government". That is, they are people who depend in one form or another on receiving money or benefits from the state (the largest employer by far in NJ is all the various levels of government). They vote for the politicians who promise them the most goodies and don't think twice about who is going to pay for it.
Why are people so surprised at the horrible state of NJ finances.It has a remarkable history of corruption that makes the current situation in the Democratic Party in Congress look almost pristine
Maybe when it goes bankrupt China could enter a bid
"Who pays? Your grandkids, if you or your kids can afford to have them..."
I unfortunately was not blessed with children, however I am thoroughly disgusted to witness a majority of Americans who are willfully and eagerly enslaving their children and grandchildren to a lifetime under Serfdom.
Do parents honestly think that selling their souls for 30 pieces of lousy silver would be good for their own children's future.
Despite the parent's betrayal, I will continue to wage war against Serfdom on behalf of their children and grandchildren; I'll do that job the parents are too frightened to do.
Thanks for the comments. I live in Monmouth. Housing prices are down 20% plus in most areas and the inventory is growing, as is unemployment so I wonder how much more munis think they can squeeze out of property owners. Most people have already seen property taxes up as a result of the reappraisals (at 2006 property values) that were shoved down everyone's throats.
This is sickening. I'm only 47 and my wife and I are already talking about which state we retire to.
By the way. Love the blog. I found it through Instapundit and will come back often.
John MC:
It never really comes to ahead. No one can ever trully take all the money out of the system, so while the system is underfunded, it has what it needs to make payments to retirees now. But, as retirees die, the amount of money needed to be funded actually decreases. Add to that the fact that the state is supposidly limiting new hires, thereby decreasing the future load on the system, and you get the Corzine hope that the unfunded pension liability will fill its own gap.
legalbgl:
That works only when the state workforce remains stable. Corzine keeps increasing the size of the state workforce, just as his predecessors had done with alarming regularity.
Hawk, thats why I said "supposidly limiting new hires".
The state is not legally obligated to make these pension contributions unless the legislature appropriates the money for the payments in any particular year.
The state may believe itself to be morally "obligated" by it's union agreements to make the contribution, and the unions may want to make the most of that sense of obligation. The state may even receive the ire of it's unions over a failure to make the payments. But the unions don't have a legal leg to stand on-- they have to take appropriation risk like any other state creditor-- and politically the unions are going to have a very tough time getting sympathy from beleagured New Jersey taxpayers when they don't get their "gold plated benefits packages".
I say to Corzine, "Good for you." Don't make the payments.
Thanks for explaining why I moved to Pennsylvania six years ago, and why many of my friends also have left for somewhere else.
I left in '95, and am very happily settled in Cochise County, Az. I don't even like visiting there anymore.
The problem with all these people fleeing New Jersey is they take their voting habits with them. Just ask any western state that's been Californicated.
The question is why? People flee states that have been mismanaged into bankruptcy by corrupt Democrat politicians, then they elect corrupt Democrat politicians in the states they flee to. What is up with that?
V the K,
It's called spreading the wealth misery....
Commenting by HaloScan
