If you pay property taxes, draw or are planning to draw a pension from New Jersey, the battle between the governor and the legislature is not a fight you want to sit out. Let me first address the cap on local spending:
Gov. Christie is holding to a firm cap on the amount property taxes may increase annually, while the legislature’s counter proposal could best be described as a sieve. Why do we have the highest property taxes in the country? (per the Wall Street Journal, in the last 27 years, Massachusetts, with firm caps, has had a 22 percent increase, and NJ’s are up 102 percent).
Primarily, it is because our part-time elected officials are no match for the cunning ways of the labor union leaders who get up in the morning and go to bed at night dreaming up ways to get ever more for their members. We cannot blame the membership; we would all welcome fatter checks. The problem is, the taxpayers are beyond their ability to pay.
This problem requires a fundamental rethink in order to restore sanity in our property tax burden; the governor’s immediate address is to establish hard and fast caps on spending.
Second, let’s talk about state pensions. This is not just a taxpayer problem, but also a pensioner’s problem. In case you missed it, this year’s proposed budget postpones to future years a $3 billion payment to the pension fund, which is already $46 billion underfunded. Further, the governor said that he does not support paying more money into the pension fund until pension reform is enacted.
It is clear that he is holding a gun to the head of the legislature to force it to address this problem. Why is he doing this, and why is the legislature going along with it with hardly a peep out of them? Because they have no choice; if you don’t have it, you don’t have it, and the state simply doesn’t have the money…and it is not going to have it, probably for a decade or more to come, if ever.
So what do the people dependent upon a state pension do? They must insist upon pension reform. Is there going to be enough to pay out all the money pensioners came to expect? How can there be? How does one get blood out of a stone?
The fact is, the system has been abused. While many worked a lifetime under the system, many others have gamed and continue to game the system, drawing a great deal with little time in grade. The critically important task at hand is to reform it quickly before the gamers further reduce the limited funds even further.
If you are one of those to be affected, make your voice heard, now; write or call your state legislators and write a letter to the editor (see contact information below). But don’t expect the state to come up with the money; people are already voting with their feet, which is why New Jersey has not created a single new private-sector job in10 years.
Art Hall, publisher
Governor Chris Christie, PO Box 001, Trenton, NJ 08625, 609-292-6000
Senator Jeff Van Drew, Assemblyman Matthew W. Milam, Assemblyman Nelson T. Albano, all at 21 North Main St., Cape May Court House, NJ 08210, 465-0700
The editor, Cape May County Herald, 1508 Route 47, Rio Grande, NJ 08242
Cape May – Governor Murphy says he doesn't know anything about the drones and doesn't know what they are doing but he does know that they are not dangerous. Does anyone feel better now?
