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Any (relatively) unbiased sources that explain how NJ got into this predicament? Just current leadership being out of touch with the wants/needs of NJ citizens?

by umvi 5y ago

heavyset_go 5y ago
The 2020 election mobilized certain demographics in NJ to vote, and there's been a moderately successful campaign to paint the sitting governor as literally Hitler for the last two years.
throwaway6734 5y ago
My gut take is that the removal of the SALT deduction had a huge impact in NJ due to the very high property taxes
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  I doubt the vast majority of people (probably less than 10%) in NJ are paid enough to be affected by SALT since standard deduction went up so much. Property plus state income tax liabilities would have to be more than $12.5k/$25k single/married for people to have been affected. I would bet on school closings and the trend of higher taxes/less government services, but the latter is unavoidable due to the outlier amounts of debt NJ has.
  - throwaway6734 5y ago
    >According to recent reporting, if we reinstated the SALT deduction, nearly a third of New Jersey residents — almost three million people — would get tax relief. As many as 80% of them have incomes of $216,000 or less. Hardly the 1%. https://www.northjersey.com/story/opinion/2021/05/17/salt-deduction-reinstatement-can-go-long-way-nj-ny-families/5093645001/ https://www.northjersey.com/story/opinion/2021/05/17/salt-de... NJ has very high property tax rates and high home values
    - lotsofpulp 5y ago
      The writer used the word “average”, but it would be clearer if they used median, or quintiles or deciles. I could not find a source for the report they claim to be saying 3 million people in NJ would benefit. NJ income tax is ~4%, and average property taxes are not that high: https://www.nj.com/politics/2020/03/njs-average-property-tax-bill-hit-8953-last-year-see-the-numbers-in-your-town.html https://www.nj.com/politics/2020/03/njs-average-property-tax... It would be nice to find statistics by percentile, but I would find it hard to believe that many single households are living in houses paying $8k+ property tax, and married households are paying $16k in property tax. I use $8k and $16k because that would mean the remaining $4k and $8k would be for income tax for a person earning $100k/year (78th percentile) or a couple earning $200k per year (83rd percentile). https://dqydj.com/income-percentile-by-state-calculator/ https://dqydj.com/income-percentile-by-state-calculator/ Edit: the best way to figure out if the SALT caps hurt or not is to see if the amount of people itemizing on federal returns increased or not. I cannot find any NJ specific statistics, but IRS says only 11% of tax filers itemized in 2019.
uselesscynicism 5y ago
Predicament? A regular Joe beat a career politician for local representative. In what world is that a predicament? Or are you so completely partisan that having an R next to his name makes him obviously the wrong choice, even though he was liberal enough to be palatable to New Jersey voters (not exactly a paragon of conservatism)?
stickyricky 5y ago
There is an interesting story about Madigan in Chicago. Ran the Illinois machine. Corrupt as all hell. A college student decided to run against him and collected enough signatures to get on the ballot. Madigan typically ran unopposed. Well come to find about, of the 500 people who signed the petition to get this kid on the ballot, 1200 rescinded their support. You do the math. These people aren't loved. They just know how to work the system to keep the outsiders out. The article says in a district of 150k, the NJ Senate President never received more than 30k votes. 20% of the population was dictating policy. Its no surprise that, when given the choice, people will vote their preference.
- wrycoder 5y ago
  0.1% were dictating policy. The other 19.9% of the votes were just following directions.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  People where I live get a ballot and a book in the mail weeks before the election with details for all the candidates and questions, and all you have to do is drop it in the outgoing mail. Takes no more than 30min of your time, maybe 1 hour if you are a slow reader. And yet, less than 20% voter participation. It is ironic that turnout for national elections, where their vote is moot is much higher. But for school boards, county positions, and city positions that actually have an effect on day to day life and expenses, people do not care as much.
  - stickyricky 5y ago
    WA? That's how it was in Vancouver when I lived there. Best system I've experience so far. Also felt the government was very fair and in line with the community.
    - lotsofpulp 5y ago
      Yes. OR is the same.
    - 5y ago
jhawk28 5y ago
Something was mentioned about 150k total voters, but only 32k ever voted for the incumbent.
- dsr_ 5y ago
  150,000 people eligible to vote. 32,000 votes for the incumbent. Hence, 118,000 people who would either vote for someone else or could be persuaded to come and vote.
  - busymom0 5y ago
    Yep. DecisionDesk shows GOP got 32,682 whereas the incumbent DEM got 30,352 with 96% in.
newsclues 5y ago
Systemic corruption
PKop 5y ago
Quoting Durr in Politico: [0] Durr said Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy’s coronavirus executive orders, vaccine and school mask, unemployment benefits snafus and a general distrust of the South Jersey Democratic machine that has dominated the region for years all contributed to his strong performance. Sweeney, Durr said, “never challenged” Murphy during the pandemic. “You have the debacle of unemployment. The masking of the kids in school. You have Senator Sweeney trying to take away peoples’ medical freedom rights. I think the perfect storm was that he stepped into a pile of you-know-what and couldn’t get out of it because he didn’t know which way to turn. I just tapped into the right focus.” [0] https://www.politico.com/states/new-jersey/story/2021/11/03/meet-ed-durr-the-candidate-whos-leading-steve-sweeney-1392209 https://www.politico.com/states/new-jersey/story/2021/11/03/... I think many people, if they aren't exposed to it or live around it, underestimate the massive anger and frustration that exists towards the Covid restrictions and policies, and vaccine mandates.
- davidw 5y ago
  I'm beginning to come around to this point of view: https://newsletters.theatlantic.com/peacefield/617c7b245793d600215d2b35/peacefield-post/ https://newsletters.theatlantic.com/peacefield/617c7b245793d... - we are not a serious nation. There's a global pandemic caused by an airborne pathogen, and people throw an absolute hissy fit over a minor inconvenience like masks. My kids wear them all day long in school, and while they don't love them, they are not constantly whining about them like some adults. My grandparents, on the other hand, dealt with wartime rationing for years (and they were lucky, because they lived in a place where they could hunt) because our country was in a global battle with Nazis. And all that after the depression.
  - ludicast 5y ago
    My masked son had a low pulse ox in his checkup. About 80, the same number that with covid should necessitate a hospital visit. Supposedly a lot of kids have needed to demask to get a good pulse ox. As a parent this terrifies me.
  - busymom0 5y ago
    Kids have the most psychological development from looking at people's faces, emotions and smiles. Saying that's a "minor inconvenience" is silly. Especially since there's negligible risks for them. And mandating something which neither prevents catching, nor transmitting the virus is definitely not a "minor inconvenience". EDIT: In my last sentence, I wasn't referring to masks. I was referring to vaccine mandates which the truck driver also ran on.
COGlory 5y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxFhMVIPodk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxFhMVIPodk Rossman is biased, but the facts do speak for themselves here. I couldn't believe this video
- dlp211 5y ago
  That's an hour long video, could you provide a TL;DW?
  - COGlory 5y ago
    Basically, the state borrowed money against unrealistic stock market returns on pension fund investments.
- jrs235 5y ago
  OMG! New Jersey is going to be like a timeshare... some people are going to be stuck or have to pay someone to take their house. Hopefully they'll be able to get away from tax obligations though by letting the government take their property to pay the ungodly property taxes! I always thought Illinois was bad... "Hold my beer." - New Jersey
- jrs235 5y ago
  If you are a New Jersey pension fund recipient (and you're smart), you moved out of New Jersey as quickly as possible.
rlt 5y ago
> how NJ got into this predicament? Possibly due to attitudes like describing an average citizen beating a career politician as “a predicament”
- WhisperingShiba 5y ago
  GOT 'EM. Real talk, I think there is a certain level of education we should desire for politicians, since generally speaking, it denotes a certain dedication to understanding many facets of society. That said, career politicians are completely bogus all the way through.
- gumby 5y ago
  There is a minor way in which this situation can become a predicament. Outsiders who become governors don’t tend to have a network or know how the mechanisms work, so tend to either get nothing done or end up having little input into things being done by those who do know those things. But having an outsider as a legislative member is generally a good thing. In California we have term limits, so no member of the legislature (or any other position) can have the time to develop expertise. This gives lobbyists a lot more power.
  - travoc 5y ago
    For those who think government has too much power, getting nothing done isn’t as bad as it seems.
    - gumby 5y ago
      I kinda like having speed limits, food safety rules, building codes, courts, free vaccines (removing barriers to your vaccination helps me, just as mine helps you) and a bunch of other things governments do. Having lived in countries both with and without generally well meaning and competent government, in my experience the former is vastly better despite its manifold faults.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
hooande 5y ago
People turned out to vote for the marquee election, the governor's race, and voted for that party all the way down the ballot. Almost anyone from the republican party would have wound up in the same position
kevin_thibedeau 5y ago
Many NJ residents work(ed) in NY. Of which, many are high earners who could be contributing significant amounts to the state tax rolls but NY claims income tax from anyone who commutes there. To make up the difference towns have to jack up property taxes. Things should hopefully change with remote work not happening in NY anymore.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  NJ's debt per taxpayer is multiple standard deviations above the norm. On the order of $60k per taxpayer versus $10k to $20k in other states. That is just at the state level, who knows what is going at the city level, and there are a ton of tiny fiefdoms with highly paid personnel. https://www.truthinaccounting.org/library/doclib/FSOS-Booklet-2021.pdf https://www.truthinaccounting.org/library/doclib/FSOS-Bookle... I do not see anyway out of repaying these debts from previous decades with higher taxes compared to other states.
  - skinnymuch 5y ago
    If NJ is in such deep waters. Which it seems like it is. What is up with the stats and data of which states give more to the fed than what they get back and Vice versa. Why is NJ always giving more? If they have so much debt?
    - rsj_hn 5y ago
      > Why is NJ always giving more? If they have so much debt? Because we have progressive taxation and a lot of rich people live in New Jersey, so they pay more in taxes. A state doesn't need to be in financial trouble because it is poor, it is in financial trouble if it makes more promises than it can afford to pay given its tax base. The constant raiding of employee pension funds and various financial ponzi schemes is why NJ is in trouble. Median household income in 2019 NJ[1] = 85K US[2] = 69K [1] https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/NJ/SBO001212 https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/NJ/SBO001212 [2] https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2020/demo/p60-270.html https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2020/demo/p60-27...
pvarangot 5y ago
The same way Hillary lost to an extreme right wing populist reality TV star. Leadership is dumber than what they think and just there because they are the least incompetent of the political caste, but they act as if they were the all righteous saviors while delivering nothing of value to their voters except for campaign promises.
bingohbangoh 5y ago
Not trying to dunk, but comments like this -- assuming that a blue collar, republican challenger is automatically bad -- says a lot more about the OP than it does about the situation.
- moffkalast 5y ago
  Well running as a republican would mean he's a member of and supports the republican party, is that not how that works? Otherwise one would run as an independent. If you associate yourself with a group that's known to be scum then that will reflect badly on you regardless of your actual character.
  - bingohbangoh 5y ago
    The Republican party, much like the Democratic party, is a wide tent with many people. Local races involve a lot more complicated characters. You'd run as Republican because they're the default alternative choice in a lot of places. Or you could lose and say its on principle I guess.
    - moffkalast 5y ago
      Sure, a wide tent with many people that seem to be fine with an insurrection, gerrymandering and throwing democracy under the bus every possible chance given. It's not a race you're born into, it's a centralized entity you can chose to be a part of. I'm sorry, after the recent few years they've lost all remaining credibility.
mrverify 5y ago
NJ isn't south jersey. south jersey could be reasonably plucked out of anywhere in deep red fly over country with 2 coasts(Atlantic,deleware) on each side.

Any (relatively) unbiased sources that explain how NJ got into this predicament? Just current leadership being out of touch with the wants/needs of NJ citizens?

by umvi 5y ago

Any (relatively) unbiased sources that explain how NJ got into this predicament? Just current leadership being out of touch with the wants/needs of NJ citizens?

heavyset_go 5y ago

The 2020 election mobilized certain demographics in NJ to vote, and there's been a moderately successful campaign to paint the sitting governor as literally Hitler for the last two years.

throwaway6734 5y ago

My gut take is that the removal of the SALT deduction had a huge impact in NJ due to the very high property taxes

lotsofpulp 5y ago
I doubt the vast majority of people (probably less than 10%) in NJ are paid enough to be affected by SALT since standard deduction went up so much. Property plus state income tax liabilities would have to be more than $12.5k/$25k single/married for people to have been affected. I would bet on school closings and the trend of higher taxes/less government services, but the latter is unavoidable due to the outlier amounts of debt NJ has.
- throwaway6734 5y ago
  >According to recent reporting, if we reinstated the SALT deduction, nearly a third of New Jersey residents — almost three million people — would get tax relief. As many as 80% of them have incomes of $216,000 or less. Hardly the 1%. https://www.northjersey.com/story/opinion/2021/05/17/salt-deduction-reinstatement-can-go-long-way-nj-ny-families/5093645001/ https://www.northjersey.com/story/opinion/2021/05/17/salt-de... NJ has very high property tax rates and high home values
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    The writer used the word “average”, but it would be clearer if they used median, or quintiles or deciles. I could not find a source for the report they claim to be saying 3 million people in NJ would benefit. NJ income tax is ~4%, and average property taxes are not that high: https://www.nj.com/politics/2020/03/njs-average-property-tax-bill-hit-8953-last-year-see-the-numbers-in-your-town.html https://www.nj.com/politics/2020/03/njs-average-property-tax... It would be nice to find statistics by percentile, but I would find it hard to believe that many single households are living in houses paying $8k+ property tax, and married households are paying $16k in property tax. I use $8k and $16k because that would mean the remaining $4k and $8k would be for income tax for a person earning $100k/year (78th percentile) or a couple earning $200k per year (83rd percentile). https://dqydj.com/income-percentile-by-state-calculator/ https://dqydj.com/income-percentile-by-state-calculator/ Edit: the best way to figure out if the SALT caps hurt or not is to see if the amount of people itemizing on federal returns increased or not. I cannot find any NJ specific statistics, but IRS says only 11% of tax filers itemized in 2019.

uselesscynicism 5y ago

Predicament? A regular Joe beat a career politician for local representative. In what world is that a predicament? Or are you so completely partisan that having an R next to his name makes him obviously the wrong choice, even though he was liberal enough to be palatable to New Jersey voters (not exactly a paragon of conservatism)?

stickyricky 5y ago

There is an interesting story about Madigan in Chicago. Ran the Illinois machine. Corrupt as all hell. A college student decided to run against him and collected enough signatures to get on the ballot. Madigan typically ran unopposed. Well come to find about, of the 500 people who signed the petition to get this kid on the ballot, 1200 rescinded their support. You do the math. These people aren't loved. They just know how to work the system to keep the outsiders out. The article says in a district of 150k, the NJ Senate President never received more than 30k votes. 20% of the population was dictating policy. Its no surprise that, when given the choice, people will vote their preference.

wrycoder 5y ago
0.1% were dictating policy. The other 19.9% of the votes were just following directions.
lotsofpulp 5y ago
People where I live get a ballot and a book in the mail weeks before the election with details for all the candidates and questions, and all you have to do is drop it in the outgoing mail. Takes no more than 30min of your time, maybe 1 hour if you are a slow reader. And yet, less than 20% voter participation. It is ironic that turnout for national elections, where their vote is moot is much higher. But for school boards, county positions, and city positions that actually have an effect on day to day life and expenses, people do not care as much.
- stickyricky 5y ago
  WA? That's how it was in Vancouver when I lived there. Best system I've experience so far. Also felt the government was very fair and in line with the community.
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    Yes. OR is the same.
  - 5y ago

jhawk28 5y ago

Something was mentioned about 150k total voters, but only 32k ever voted for the incumbent.

dsr_ 5y ago
150,000 people eligible to vote. 32,000 votes for the incumbent. Hence, 118,000 people who would either vote for someone else or could be persuaded to come and vote.
- busymom0 5y ago
  Yep. DecisionDesk shows GOP got 32,682 whereas the incumbent DEM got 30,352 with 96% in.

newsclues 5y ago

Systemic corruption

PKop 5y ago

Quoting Durr in Politico: [0] Durr said Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy’s coronavirus executive orders, vaccine and school mask, unemployment benefits snafus and a general distrust of the South Jersey Democratic machine that has dominated the region for years all contributed to his strong performance. Sweeney, Durr said, “never challenged” Murphy during the pandemic. “You have the debacle of unemployment. The masking of the kids in school. You have Senator Sweeney trying to take away peoples’ medical freedom rights. I think the perfect storm was that he stepped into a pile of you-know-what and couldn’t get out of it because he didn’t know which way to turn. I just tapped into the right focus.” [0] https://www.politico.com/states/new-jersey/story/2021/11/03/meet-ed-durr-the-candidate-whos-leading-steve-sweeney-1392209 https://www.politico.com/states/new-jersey/story/2021/11/03/... I think many people, if they aren't exposed to it or live around it, underestimate the massive anger and frustration that exists towards the Covid restrictions and policies, and vaccine mandates.

davidw 5y ago
I'm beginning to come around to this point of view: https://newsletters.theatlantic.com/peacefield/617c7b245793d600215d2b35/peacefield-post/ https://newsletters.theatlantic.com/peacefield/617c7b245793d... - we are not a serious nation. There's a global pandemic caused by an airborne pathogen, and people throw an absolute hissy fit over a minor inconvenience like masks. My kids wear them all day long in school, and while they don't love them, they are not constantly whining about them like some adults. My grandparents, on the other hand, dealt with wartime rationing for years (and they were lucky, because they lived in a place where they could hunt) because our country was in a global battle with Nazis. And all that after the depression.
- ludicast 5y ago
  My masked son had a low pulse ox in his checkup. About 80, the same number that with covid should necessitate a hospital visit. Supposedly a lot of kids have needed to demask to get a good pulse ox. As a parent this terrifies me.
- busymom0 5y ago
  Kids have the most psychological development from looking at people's faces, emotions and smiles. Saying that's a "minor inconvenience" is silly. Especially since there's negligible risks for them. And mandating something which neither prevents catching, nor transmitting the virus is definitely not a "minor inconvenience". EDIT: In my last sentence, I wasn't referring to masks. I was referring to vaccine mandates which the truck driver also ran on.

COGlory 5y ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxFhMVIPodk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TxFhMVIPodk Rossman is biased, but the facts do speak for themselves here. I couldn't believe this video

dlp211 5y ago
That's an hour long video, could you provide a TL;DW?
- COGlory 5y ago
  Basically, the state borrowed money against unrealistic stock market returns on pension fund investments.
jrs235 5y ago
OMG! New Jersey is going to be like a timeshare... some people are going to be stuck or have to pay someone to take their house. Hopefully they'll be able to get away from tax obligations though by letting the government take their property to pay the ungodly property taxes! I always thought Illinois was bad... "Hold my beer." - New Jersey
jrs235 5y ago
If you are a New Jersey pension fund recipient (and you're smart), you moved out of New Jersey as quickly as possible.

rlt 5y ago

> how NJ got into this predicament? Possibly due to attitudes like describing an average citizen beating a career politician as “a predicament”

WhisperingShiba 5y ago
GOT 'EM. Real talk, I think there is a certain level of education we should desire for politicians, since generally speaking, it denotes a certain dedication to understanding many facets of society. That said, career politicians are completely bogus all the way through.
gumby 5y ago
There is a minor way in which this situation can become a predicament. Outsiders who become governors don’t tend to have a network or know how the mechanisms work, so tend to either get nothing done or end up having little input into things being done by those who do know those things. But having an outsider as a legislative member is generally a good thing. In California we have term limits, so no member of the legislature (or any other position) can have the time to develop expertise. This gives lobbyists a lot more power.
- travoc 5y ago
  For those who think government has too much power, getting nothing done isn’t as bad as it seems.
  - gumby 5y ago
    I kinda like having speed limits, food safety rules, building codes, courts, free vaccines (removing barriers to your vaccination helps me, just as mine helps you) and a bunch of other things governments do. Having lived in countries both with and without generally well meaning and competent government, in my experience the former is vastly better despite its manifold faults.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

hooande 5y ago

People turned out to vote for the marquee election, the governor's race, and voted for that party all the way down the ballot. Almost anyone from the republican party would have wound up in the same position

kevin_thibedeau 5y ago

Many NJ residents work(ed) in NY. Of which, many are high earners who could be contributing significant amounts to the state tax rolls but NY claims income tax from anyone who commutes there. To make up the difference towns have to jack up property taxes. Things should hopefully change with remote work not happening in NY anymore.

lotsofpulp 5y ago
NJ's debt per taxpayer is multiple standard deviations above the norm. On the order of $60k per taxpayer versus $10k to $20k in other states. That is just at the state level, who knows what is going at the city level, and there are a ton of tiny fiefdoms with highly paid personnel. https://www.truthinaccounting.org/library/doclib/FSOS-Booklet-2021.pdf https://www.truthinaccounting.org/library/doclib/FSOS-Bookle... I do not see anyway out of repaying these debts from previous decades with higher taxes compared to other states.
- skinnymuch 5y ago
  If NJ is in such deep waters. Which it seems like it is. What is up with the stats and data of which states give more to the fed than what they get back and Vice versa. Why is NJ always giving more? If they have so much debt?
  - rsj_hn 5y ago
    > Why is NJ always giving more? If they have so much debt? Because we have progressive taxation and a lot of rich people live in New Jersey, so they pay more in taxes. A state doesn't need to be in financial trouble because it is poor, it is in financial trouble if it makes more promises than it can afford to pay given its tax base. The constant raiding of employee pension funds and various financial ponzi schemes is why NJ is in trouble. Median household income in 2019 NJ[1] = 85K US[2] = 69K [1] https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/NJ/SBO001212 https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/NJ/SBO001212 [2] https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2020/demo/p60-270.html https://www.census.gov/library/publications/2020/demo/p60-27...

pvarangot 5y ago

The same way Hillary lost to an extreme right wing populist reality TV star. Leadership is dumber than what they think and just there because they are the least incompetent of the political caste, but they act as if they were the all righteous saviors while delivering nothing of value to their voters except for campaign promises.

bingohbangoh 5y ago

Not trying to dunk, but comments like this -- assuming that a blue collar, republican challenger is automatically bad -- says a lot more about the OP than it does about the situation.

moffkalast 5y ago
Well running as a republican would mean he's a member of and supports the republican party, is that not how that works? Otherwise one would run as an independent. If you associate yourself with a group that's known to be scum then that will reflect badly on you regardless of your actual character.
- bingohbangoh 5y ago
  The Republican party, much like the Democratic party, is a wide tent with many people. Local races involve a lot more complicated characters. You'd run as Republican because they're the default alternative choice in a lot of places. Or you could lose and say its on principle I guess.
  - moffkalast 5y ago
    Sure, a wide tent with many people that seem to be fine with an insurrection, gerrymandering and throwing democracy under the bus every possible chance given. It's not a race you're born into, it's a centralized entity you can chose to be a part of. I'm sorry, after the recent few years they've lost all remaining credibility.

mrverify 5y ago

NJ isn't south jersey. south jersey could be reasonably plucked out of anywhere in deep red fly over country with 2 coasts(Atlantic,deleware) on each side.