Atlantic City, having just hosted a convention for the New Jersey teachers, is now preparing for the New Jersey League of municipalities convention with an expected 20,000 government-related officials in attendance at the four-day event. Elected and administrative officials from all over New Jersey will be convening in the shadow of the gubernatorial election which was dominated by concerns over New Jersey’s iniquitous property tax rates and overall fiscal mismanagement.
Some conventioneers may be inclined to celebrate the drop in New Jersey’s unemployment rate, but many others will be sobered by the reality of how the employment situation was improved. New Jersey’s private-sector employment fell by 4,400, but those numbers were offset by public-sector hiring, which rose by 2,600. Many of these jobs were the result of federal stimulus money that will not provide long term funding; eventually requiring tax payers to pick up the tab after 2010.
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Governor Jon S. Corzine announced at the end of October that stimulus funds expended through September 30, 2009, nearly $310 million expended to date, has resulted in the “creation or retention” of almost 20,000 jobs for New Jersey residents. The federal government, in a failed effort in transparency, provides on http://www.recovery.gov a detailed account of where the stimulus money is going. It lists the disbursements by congressional district, but unfortunately the number of districts far exceed the true number of districts in New Jersey. The state of New Jersey provides a more realistic following of the money, but reflects the underlying reality that the funds are being spent to prop up New Jersey’s fiscal budget. http://njgin.state.nj.us/oit/gis/NJ_Recovery/.
A report by the Pew Center released in November listed New Jersey as one of ten states as being at risk of a fiscal calamity. “New Jersey has perennially borrowed money to balance its budget while avoiding tough decisions about recurring revenue shortfalls; as a result, state long-term debt has soared above $44 billion, an eye-popping figure that is 53 percent larger than the state’s latest annual budget and is higher in per-capita debt than almost every other state.244 The state’s mandatory payments on that debt, in turn, have eaten up a growing slice of the budget.” http://www.pewcenteronthestates.org/report_detail.aspx?id=56044
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This bad news comes upon the annual report from the Tax Foundation which lists New Jersey residents as the most heavily taxed in the nation. http://www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/25434.html