By Matt Rooney
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In case you’ve missed it, Save Jerseyans, our Democrat Governor Phil Murphy and Texas Governor Greg Abbott (a Republican) are in an op-ed war; Abbott penned a piece for NJ.com earlier this week urging New Jerseyans to flee high taxes by relocating to the Lone Star State, and Murphy retaliated on Wednesday evening with an editorial of his own for The Dallas Morning News.
“When Gov. Phil Murphy unveiled his budget proposal in early March, it left people throughout New Jersey shaking their heads in frustration–and for good reason,” said Abbott, citing his own state’s comparatively growth-conducive tax climate.
“It’s simple. If you’d like to be part of an economic revival in a state that recognizes the value of investments in public education, creates welcoming communities that protect LGBTQ residents and immigrants, defends a woman’s right to reproductive health care, then New Jersey is the place for you or your business,” countered Murphy.
Who’s right?
Sorry to say it, my fellow Garden Staters, but it should be a surprise to no one (or at least anyone who pays taxes in New Jersey) that the moving van math is clearly on Governor Abbott’s side.
Americans are voting and passing judgment on the age-old philosophical disagreement manifested by the Murphy vs. Abbott argument with their feet by leaving deep blue states, and a simple Google search (or scroll of this site’s archives) reveals a bevy of evidence that businesses, retirees, families and taxpayers of all stripes continue to abandon high tax states like New Jersey for business-friendly, thriving “red” states like Texas. Just this week? Baby food behemoth Gerber abandoned New Jersey for Virginia. Former New Jerseyans clearly value jobs over the “right” to “reproductive health care” (translation: subsidies for the ultimate crony capitalist enterprise, Planned Parenthood) and other Leftist cause du juors.
And another thing: Murphy’s boorish counter-argument is one which was long ago discredited.
We’ve been hearing this lame and tired “you’re getting better services for your money” line for many, many years. Corzine loved it, too. Now Murphy is dusting it off for his own purposes.
“For new residents, New Jersey brings to the table one of the nation’s top three K-12 public school systems as ranked by U.S. News (Texas? No. 33), led by investments in our classrooms and our teachers, a priority that Abbott has consistently ignored and underfunded,” Murphy explained before delving into other areas like crime statistics.
Unfortunately, Governor Murphy is selectively cherry-picking facts to suit his desired conclusion.
Let’s stick with education. Forget Texas (which has a larger economy than Russia); far closer to home, Northeastern states like Pennsylvania and New Hampshire are also top 10 states for education yet still manage to accomplish this feat with MUCH cheaper taxes. For example, those aforementioned states’ hard-working residents labor almost a full month less every year, on average, to pay their tax burdens relative to what we endure here in New Jersey. Poor stewardship is nothing to brag about with such poor results to show for it. Consider this: Bergen VoTech is only a few grand cheaper ($35,568), per year, than the legendary Andover (day rate = $41,900)! We certainly spend a lot of money, but the relative return on our dollars is objectively poor as evidenced by millennials’ lack of desire to stay here.
Who, exactly, does this system serve, Mr. Governor? Other than your public sector union allies?
And what good are allegedly excellent “services” if no one can afford them? Except you and your fellow limousine liberals?
New Jersey is broken. People wouldn’t be leaving this state in numbers unseen anywhere else in the country if it wasn’t. And it’s broken because Phil Murphy is currently doubling down on the policies which broke her but which other states, like Texas, have long since rejected.
So Murphy can “mess with Texas” if he wants, but blaming Texas or anything/anyone else for his own mistakes is nothing short of obnoxious.
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