When you’re in grade school, Save Jerseyans? Learning how to do math?
You might “lose points” on your exam for failing to “show your work.”
So how the hell is Phil Murphy (D-Goldman Sachs), the 2017 New Jersey Democrat gubernatorial nominee, getting away with hiding his math in this year’s high-stakes gubernatorial election?
It’s a rhetorical question, of course. We all know liberal bias is playing a leading role. The prototypical Republican woman is reviled by the Left as some sort of pathetic, stupid, self-loathing creature not worthy of respect. Lt. Governor Kim Guadagno will continue to be treated like a dog who’s slipped her leash by the bulk of the tri-state media establishment (to the extent they pay her much attention at all) throughout her quest to succeed Governor Christie.
A story for another post!
Murphy’s math doesn’t add up and he’s not even TRYING to add it up because NO ONE is holding him to task for it other than (1) the Guadagno campaign and (2) Save Jersey.
“This [Murphy-Oliver] ticket clearly believes that you can tax, spend, borrow, mandate, and regulate your way to prosperity, that the only problem with NJ is that McGreevey and Corzine didn’t bloat the size, scope, and expense of government enough,” Asm. Michael Patrick Carroll of Morris County recently opined in a guest op-ed on this website.
That’s not hyperbole. Murphy’s spending plans, to date, reflect $75 billion in NEW spending. New Jersey’s current budget is $34.7 billion, so the Goldman Sachs gazillionaire wants to better than triple (!) what we’re currently spending in America’s (1) most over-taxed state with (2) the country’s least-stable pension system.
HOW can he pay for all of these promises?
Search his website. The only “answer” you’ll find: “And finally make millionaires and corporations pay their fair share of taxes, so we can make the investments we need in our schools.”
That’s b******t, folks. Chris Christie and the legislative Democrats have debated the millionaire’s tax over, and over, and over again during his tenure as governor. As recently as 2015, estimates for reinstating such a tax ranged from $500 million (from Christie’s people) to $615 million (the opposition’s favorite number) annually. BTW – I suspect it’d be LESS in the long run because high taxes chase millionaires to cheaper states. Recall how New Jersey lost hundreds of millions of dollars when ONE billionaire fled to Florida.
Murphy wants $75 BILLION in new spending. Not million. Billion with a “B.”
Use a calculator; Murphy’s proposed major source of new revenues would bring in a paltry 0.0082% of what’s needed to cover the new annual spending. A drop in the proverbial bucket for a state drowning in debt.
Some public policy debates aren’t black-and-white.
This is mathematics. Math isn’t red or blue. It IS.
There is NOT enough money out there for New Jersey to survive without cutting spending and reforming legacy costs (like pensions/benefits) and reoccurring costs (like how much cash it takes to fix roads). And Phil Murphy CANNOT explain how he’ll pay for anything he’s talking about AND, for transparently ideological reasons, no one in the media is willing to call him out for it.
Are we going to have a real election to discuss this stuff? Demanding Phil Murphy finally reveal his secret math for how single-payer, more pension contributions, more funding for schools, etc. and so on, is supposed to work simultaneously? Without destroying what’s left of our state’s Middle Class and retirement-aged residents?
Or are the public’s “watchdogs” going to let this well-heeled doofus and his socialist sidekick drives us off a cliff without so much as a question or honest objection?
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