By Matt Rooney
_
Every now and then you see a story out of Trenton which epitomizes (perfectly) the problem.
Governor Phil Murphy and Senate President Steve Sweeney are fighting again this Thanksgiving week as they so often do, and not for the first time the high-powered Democrats’ beef is over not WHETHER to raise taxes but which taxes to raise.
–
Both men want more education funding. Sweeney wants to get there by scrapping the 2% Christie-era cap governing Garden State school budgets which is nearly a decade old; if it goes away, property taxes rates will rise (faster than they already are) after the original reforms slowed the rate of increase. Murphy immediately hit back at Sweeney and said no way, that’s ridiculous… but he’s down for taxing millionaires and raising the sales tax. This is a serious discussion happening right now! I’m not inventing discussions like Adam Schiff. Our leaders really are that pathetic.
Let’s accept for a moment that the public school system DOES have a funding problem, defined as there isn’t enough cash to go around, a premise which yours truly rejects.
Now nothing will get done (again) because the two most powerful elected men in the state are unable to solve ANY PROBLEMS for the taxpayers without hitting up the taxpayers for more taxes.
Laziness? Ineptitude? Ideological far-Left madness? Special interest-driven corruption?
It’s a little of each.
There’s no courage or imagination in the State House, both of which are necessary when the problems are as big as they are in New Jersey.
I’ll give Murphy this much; the Governor has never pretended to be anything other than a big government socialist. Sweeney’s lip service to the ‘Path to Progress’ – a series of proposals he’s using to rehabilitate his brand after a career of supporting high taxes – sounds more hypocritical than ever as of late. His de facto tax hike proposal comes in the same month as his plan (which is being partially walked path) to effectively ban independent contractors in New Jersey, a move that would devastate our economy.
You have a lot of things to be thankful for this holiday season, Save Jerseyans.
The turkeys in charge of Trenton aren’t among them.
_
