I believe this is where they are going with A-3119. Of course it’s too early for the state to bring that to the table. It’s all about government efficiency, you see.
So let’s have a look at the handiwork our “efficiency experts” down in Trenton:
> Income tax – 3rd highest in the nation
> Sales tax – Only California’s is higher
> Business taxes – Worst in the nation
> Cigarette tax – 2nd highest in the nation
> State debt – 3rd highest in the nation, 4th highest per-capita
> Budget deficit – over $8 billion!
> NJ was named by the Pew Center as one of nine states facing financial ruin in the near future.
> Moody’s Investor Services has downgraded NJ’s credit rating from “stable” to “negative”.
I don’t think anyone could accuse the state assembly of being miserly. To the contrary, their desire to appropriate and redirect the fruits of our labor seems to know no limits.
So Why A3119?
The great equalizers don’t like the fact that there are wealthy towns and poor towns. Apparently all the “redistributive change” occuring at the federal, state, and county levels are not sufficient. To them it’s simply not fair that some towns are wealthier than others. Solution? “Regionalization”
From the website of The New Jersey Regional Coalition ( http://www.njregionalequity.org/ ), which claims to have the ear of State Senator Raymond Lesniak:
Launched in 2003, the New Jersey Regional Coalition (NJRC) is a diverse, statewide non-profit organization of congregations and civic groups working to bring about regional solutions to such pressing and pervasive local problems as poverty, racial and economic segregation, and sprawl. Over its short life, NJRC has developed pragmatic solutions to New Jersey’s high level of economic and racial segregation, problems of municipal fragmentation and competition, and the severe regional disparities in housing, tax base, poverty, and educational opportunity.
and:
The current tax structure is unfair. It allows a very small handful of towns to control huge tax revenues that are generated regionally through retail and business centers yet disproportionately benefit only the towns and school districts they are built in.
On the other end of the spectrum, billions of dollars are being spent to support school districts in the most distressed and poverty impacted towns, while the most economically diverse school districts suffering from rising costs and increasing tax rates.
Everyone agrees that the current system is broken and the people are demanding solutions. But real structural reform is not currently being proposed by most state decision makers. Consolidation, spending cuts, rebates and a convention are not solutions.
The legislature has the authority to make policy now, through the special session. We are proposing that the legislature and the governor support fundamental tax reform that reduces our dependence on local property taxes for schools and includes tax base sharing that allows the growth of our region to stay in the region. We are recommending these strategies but welcome others as long as they provide real relief for towns, homeowners, by:
- reducing the tax disparities between towns,
- reducing the amount we pay for schools out of property taxes, and
- lowering taxes for middle class and working families. In other words, we want fundamental and lasting change in the system. Not a quick fix or an unpredictable scheme!
The redistributors won’t stop until all the wealth-producing people and companies have left the state. It’s possible that governor-elect Christie will put a stop to this, but I’m not optimistic. If you don’t want Belmar to be forced to merge with, or share tax revenues with other towns, you must do your part to prevent assembly bill A-3119 from becoming law.
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