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Stephen Sweeney Todd, The Demon Senator of State Street

I don’t believe New Jersey state Senate President Stephen Sweeney (Todd) is sincere when he says he wants property tax relief.  Even the couple of rusty old screwdrivers that comprise Governor Christie’s “tool kit” is more than Sweeney (Todd) wants Belmar to have to fight property tax increases.  He wants the unions to have basically complete control over our town’s budget and ultimately over our household budgets.  So he is looking for any reason other than the obvious reason to explain our ballooning property taxes.  The obvious reason, for anyone who has just awoken from a twenty year coma is THE LABOR, ENVIRONMENTAL AND PUBLIC SAFETY MANDATES THAT TRENTON HAS FORCED MUNICIPALITIES TO COMPLY WITH.  Add to that the fact that the state income tax, which was introduced in 1976 under the fraudulent claim that it would be used for property tax relief, has instead been used for wealth-redistribution.  Suburban towns like Belmar get almost none of that money.  And as columnist Paul Mulshine pointed out recently, the money doesn’t even go so much to poor people as it does to the urban Democratic machine which uses it to buy votes and elect more Democrats who act to take even more of our money. Belmar doesn’t need a tool kit.  It needs a divorce!

Of course Senator Sweeney (Todd) doesn’t want to divorce Belmar.  He wants to murder us.  Just as the fictional Sweeney Todd slit the throats of his barbershop patrons, the real Sweeney (Todd) wants to slit the throat of home rule and our right to self-determination.  He thinks the reason that taxes are getting so high in small suburban towns is that these towns exist at all.   “Every time the mayor of small town tells us, ‘We run efficient and effective government’ -— they do. The question is: Is there a need for that government?”  he says.

And then there’s this from the Asbury Park Press: 

Sweeney wants to take on towns and force them to find ways to share and consolidate. He wants to turn towns “upside down” to force change, he said. Home rule, Sweeney said, is a “farce.” 

The question came from a reporter in the room: Are you declaring war on home rule? 

“Yes,” answered Sweeney.

Hey Matt, are you listening?

As I said at the debate, it’s not like New Jersey was one big town with low taxes and then twenty years ago there was a big bang that exploded it into five hundred smaller towns which then each had to have their own governments and now our taxes are high.  We’ve always had small towns and actually the larger towns in New Jersey have higher taxes than the smaller ones.  Do any of you really think that if we created some governmental unit consisting of Belmar, Avon, Bradley, Asbury, Neptune and Neptune City that our property taxes would decrease?  Sweeney (Todd)’s forced-consolidation schemes are just a way to put us further in harness.

Don’t be fooled.  Sweeney (Todd)’s barbershop is a trap.  We don’t need the haircut that Sweeney(Todd) is offering (ramming down our throats, actually).  Shared services, then consolidation, then regionalization and then POOF! No more Belmar!  The only thing that will remain will be the high taxes.  Higher, actually.  The right way to control Belmar’s spending is to have Belmar actually control it’s spending. 

Stephen Sweeney (Todd) wants us to sacrifice home-rule so his union backers don’t have to sacrifice their big fat contracts.  Tell Sweeney (Todd) that if he really wants to help us he’ll take his sharpest knife to all of these outrageous mandates (and to our fraudulent income tax too).

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