newjerseynewsroom.com

BY MICHAEL MORRIS

NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM

COMMENTARY

The best thing about the social networking website Facebook is the chance to reconnect with long lost friends or family members that you haven't seen or spoken to in years. Since I established my account on Facebook a few years back, I've connected with many old friends from the past.

One such friend is an old high school buddy that I haven't seen in over 25 years. While growing up, my buddy's mother was very active in town politics and served as the township mayor at least once to my knowledge. Over the years though, he has become disillusioned and bitter with partisan politics, saying that he had his fill of it while growing up and now considers himself a true Independent who no longer believes in the political process.

One such exchange we had recently dealt with the issue of property taxes. We both agreed that the tax structure throughout the state needs to be changed and the reliance on property taxes as the major funding source for education needs be addressed seriously by the politicians in Trenton, not by demonizing teachers or other public employees as Governor Christie has done thus far, but by real change to the tax structure that past governors haven't had the political will to make:

Tim: "I agree 100%. I know he (Christie) has to do something and the Corzine & McGreevey way didn't work. I am not opposed to a tax increase but, my problem is ...The State cannot be trusted! Corzine raised the sales tax so 1/2 of that would pay for rebates and rebates were cancelled but, the sales tax increase remained. Byrne said "Raise the income tax and I will lower your property taxes", that didn't happen. Oh! McGreevey raised taxes on 500K or more to pay for rebates and that didn't last, yet the tax increase stayed. I simply don't trust him."

Me: "It seems that you are blaming Dems here, which I know is not your intent but let's talk about Byrne for a moment. Byrne pushed the income tax onto residents of the state and it did work!! Property taxes were kept in check and it led to massive budget surpluses during Kean's reign as Gov."

"What did Kean then do? He succumbed to the ideas of Reaganomics and cut taxes instead of redirecting them towards property tax relief. Towards the end of Kean's term the state was in the same financial trouble as before which lead Florio to raise the sales tax and we know what happened then. Whitman came in cut taxes by 30%, bonded for $3B for dredging the ports (which never happened) and raided the state pension fund, which to this day has never been repaid! Christie Whitman did more to set this state back than any other Gov. in the history of the state, McGreevy and Corzine were left to pick up the pieces. Albeit, not very successfully."

"It is unfortunate that Corzine will be remembered more for Carla Katz than for the job he did as governor. He was on the road to setting the state right when the recession hit. He gave more state aid to municipalities and education than any other governor in the past 60 years and he was funding the pension for the first time in 8 years. Property taxes under Corzine rose less than 3% a year in each of his years in office, which was the slowest rate of increase in over 25 years. Christie now has wiped that achievement out; across the board property tax increases could easily reach 10% or more this year."

"There is enough blame to go around for everyone and as we said before the system needs to be changed and Christie will not change it by the process that he has started."

Tim: "No, I am not really. I was just speaking of recent times and Byrne was the 1st to propose an income tax in NJ. Whitman??? Please Mike she was the worst. What Bush did for the Republicans Nationally. She did it to the State. She withheld funds to towns and thus the first property tax increase of a substantial amount. Florio warned if you withhold funding to Towns then property taxes will rise and he was right!!!"

"Byrne did supply funding to towns but, it was a shuffle. Much like now. What good is stable property taxes when we pay an income tax? I just think cutting taxes is not needed. What is needed is cutting spending and reducing waste and size of Government. I think you are correct. Christie is just getting by with this budget but, what about an overall plan? Reducing districts? Pay to play? Bloated salaries?"

As you can see, the discussions at times are deep but the question remains, "What about an overall plan?" Other than a "Toolbox" for mayors that only seems to include ways to curb employee benefits, guts COAH and places a 2.5% cap on budget growth, where is the innovative and progressive thinking that could lead to real and lasting property tax relief? There hasn't been any.

Why hasn't anyone talked about revamping the state sales tax? Lowering the sales tax by a couple percentages while extending the number of taxable items that could be subjected to it, such as clothing items over $100 or accessories such as belts and expensive shoes could bring in millions of dollars of revenue. Also, by extending the sales tax to include certain processed and prepared foods high in fats, sugars or sodium you could promote a healthy lifestyle and smart food choices.

And let's not forget, revenues generated by extending the sales tax to professional services, such as lawyers, accountants and architects as former gubernatorial candidate Chris Daggot suggested during his failed campaign last year. This has the potential to add hundreds of millions of dollars more to the state treasury.

Why not allow counties and local municipalities the right to impose their own sales taxes? By doing so it would allow all sales tax increases above 5% to be decided by local governments.

These have been just a few ideas that Tim and I have talked about there are many more that could be considered, but it would be nice if some of these ideas would be discussed on top of all the talk about mergers and consolidation of services that is currently being floated by those in Trenton.

Michael Morris is involved with the Democratic Party in New Jersey. He is the author of MiddletownMike.blogspot.com.