NJ Governor's Race
Steve,
Your assumptions about the thriving low-tax states being federal money hogs are not correct either.
There are many different ways to look at who is a donor state and who is a donee state, and then there are different ways to evaluate the appropriateness of that spending, but the low-tax states that have large metro areas and are leading the country in economic growth are not big federal money recipients. Most of them are at parity.
https://taxfoundation.org/states-rely-most-federal-aid/
http://www.politifact.com/california/article/2017/feb/14/does-california-give-more-it-gets-dc/
https://wallethub.com/edu/states-most-least-dependent-on-the-federal-government/2700/
Christie demanded and got 1.4B in tax cuts in exchange for the badly needed hike in the gas tax.
He vetoed hikes in the millionaires' tax multiple times. And in 2012 he called a special session of the legislature to propose a 10% across-the-board income tax cut. When there was already an $11B budget deficit.
How does that work towards funding the pension system and giving relief for property tax payers?
Republicans cut income taxes, especially in the top bracket. It's what they do. Why would Guadango be any different?
I feel the gas tax increase and associated debate missed the big issue we have with funding roadway infrastructure projects via that use tax.
As cars have become more fuel efficient, the tax collected per mile driven has decreased. In this instance the gas tax increase was needed to rebalance the revenue generated from vehicles and the cost of maintenance for roadways.
However, with predictions that many cars will be electrically powered within 20 years, how do we plan for and structure a progressive use tax that is not reliant upon miles driven being proportional to the volume of gasoline sold?
if we just get to the heart of it, we need to acknowledge that Republicans are generally too dogmatic to solve problems. Every problem can only be solved by the very few tools in their toolbox. Tax cuts. Deregulation.
I used to occasionally vote for a Republican. Tom Kean. Millicent Fenwick. Back when Republicans weren't beholden to phony think tank BS and billionaire donors.
But now I don't see a single problem that can be solved by responses that come from GOP orthodoxy.
That's really not that difficult a conundrum. Just institute another tax. Let's say it's a tax on mileage when you sell or trade in a car. It doesn't have to be rocket science
alias said:
I feel the gas tax increase and associated debate missed the big issue we have with funding roadway infrastructure projects via that use tax.
As cars have become more fuel efficient, the tax collected per mile driven has decreased. In this instance the gas tax increase was needed to rebalance the revenue generated from vehicles and the cost of maintenance for roadways.
However, with predictions that many cars will be electrically powered within 20 years, how do we plan for and structure a progressive use tax that is not reliant upon miles driven being proportional to the volume of gasoline sold?
I will assume instead of "another tax" you meant a different tax or a replacement tax.
I assume rockets would not be taxed.
ml1 said:
That's really not that difficult a conundrum. Just institute another tax. Let's say it's a tax on mileage when you sell or trade in a car. It doesn't have to be rocket science
alias said:
I feel the gas tax increase and associated debate missed the big issue we have with funding roadway infrastructure projects via that use tax.
As cars have become more fuel efficient, the tax collected per mile driven has decreased. In this instance the gas tax increase was needed to rebalance the revenue generated from vehicles and the cost of maintenance for roadways.
However, with predictions that many cars will be electrically powered within 20 years, how do we plan for and structure a progressive use tax that is not reliant upon miles driven being proportional to the volume of gasoline sold?
Runner_Guy
More than what you fear, I fear a complete failure of our infrastructure. That would completely destroy NJ. Full Stop. If we invest in our infrastructure, we'll create jobs, too. Those people will pay taxes and spend money. It's why SNAP is a good investment. It's why infrastructure is a good investment.
Also, I clicked on the tax foundation site and it sure looks to me as though the red states are the one most reliant on federal aid. Nonetheless, they still suck. Poor healthcare, poor educational opportunities. Not sure what you're seeing.
I thought that was obvious
alias said:
I will assume instead of "another tax" you meant a different tax or a replacement tax.
I assume rockets would not be taxed.
ml1 said:
That's really not that difficult a conundrum. Just institute another tax. Let's say it's a tax on mileage when you sell or trade in a car. It doesn't have to be rocket science
alias said:
I feel the gas tax increase and associated debate missed the big issue we have with funding roadway infrastructure projects via that use tax.
As cars have become more fuel efficient, the tax collected per mile driven has decreased. In this instance the gas tax increase was needed to rebalance the revenue generated from vehicles and the cost of maintenance for roadways.
However, with predictions that many cars will be electrically powered within 20 years, how do we plan for and structure a progressive use tax that is not reliant upon miles driven being proportional to the volume of gasoline sold?
Obviously you did.
But it was not obvious to me and perhaps others.
Thanks for clairifying.
ml1 said:
I thought that was obvious
alias said:
I will assume instead of "another tax" you meant a different tax or a replacement tax.
I assume rockets would not be taxed.
ml1 said:
That's really not that difficult a conundrum. Just institute another tax. Let's say it's a tax on mileage when you sell or trade in a car. It doesn't have to be rocket science
alias said:
I feel the gas tax increase and associated debate missed the big issue we have with funding roadway infrastructure projects via that use tax.
As cars have become more fuel efficient, the tax collected per mile driven has decreased. In this instance the gas tax increase was needed to rebalance the revenue generated from vehicles and the cost of maintenance for roadways.
However, with predictions that many cars will be electrically powered within 20 years, how do we plan for and structure a progressive use tax that is not reliant upon miles driven being proportional to the volume of gasoline sold?
If terrorists wanted to cripple the NY metro area and a big chunk of the northeast, just take out all or some of the main river crossings: Tappan Zee Bridge, GWB, Lincoln Tunnel, Holland Tunnel, Verrazano Bridge, and the North River tunnels.
That's all it would take. We may end up doing that on our own out of neglect and poor planning.
Steve said:
Runner_Guy
More than what you fear, I fear a complete failure of our infrastructure. That would completely destroy NJ. Full Stop. If we invest in our infrastructure, we'll create jobs, too. Those people will pay taxes and spend money. It's why SNAP is a good investment. It's why infrastructure is a good investment.
Also, I clicked on the tax foundation site and it sure looks to me as though the red states are the one most reliant on federal aid. Nonetheless, they still suck. Poor healthcare, poor educational opportunities. Not sure what you're seeing.
Steve,
I'm going to try to be succinct here.
I agree with you that Murphy is better on transit, but I think that Guadagno is a few notches better on taxes and a bit better on debt and the economy.
Phil Murphy has said that he opposes tax cap. He has refused to give his opinion on the police & firefighter arbitration cap and I think he'll at least water it down. He has told the NJEA that he will "ease up" on Chapter 78. He favors a $15 an hour minimum wage, whose effects on public agencies in NJ is un-reported, but which New York State's school BAs estimated would increase school taxes by 2.6%.
Murphy himself is silent, but his political party tried to give the police & firefighters control over their own pension benefit levels under the guise of giving them control over their investment decisions. This law, if passed, would increase expenses because localities pay for police & fire pensions. (Christie vetoed this) Murphy himself is silent, but in 2013 his party tried to ban localities from outsourcing anything. The NJSBA adamantly opposed this bill as budgetarily destructive. (Christie vetoed this too)
Murphy's website for months said nothing at all about taxes, but now he says that putting another $600 million into school aid (out of a $29 billion all-in property tax levy) is a "game changer." The $600 million will mostly be spent too, not used for offsets.
Guadagno doesn't favor any new unfunded mandates that I can tell. She supports the side-laws like the police & fire arbitration caps that allow the 2% tax cap to work.
I don't think that Guadagno's "Circuit Breaker" would pass the legislature, but if it did, it would deliver its biggest benefits to Democratic towns, not Republican ones.
Guadagno supports the Healey-Byrne commission that would finally restrain the growth of pension and post-retirement medical benefits that are strangling the state, killing our credit rating, and which make affording more public transit and supporting higher ed very hard.
While I don't think it makes that much of a difference in terms of the economy, the biggest complaint that businesses have about NJ is our tax level. The biggest complaint individuals have is our tax level too. So I think Guadagno would be marginally better on the economy.
Like I said before, of the ten fastest growing states in the US, only one (CA) has high taxes. Not all low-tax states have thriving economies, but almost all of the most-thriving state economies are also low-tax.
Guadagno obviously isn't a moral beacon, but she is uncommonly accessible for a politician and she's made basic transparency moves, like releasing her tax returns (which Murphy has not done). Her kids have gone to the public schools, whereas Murphy's never have. Christie was a bully, but nobody says that Guadagno is anything other than civil.
Guadagno does have several disagreements with her party's base. She favors redistributing Adjustment Aid, she's pro-choice, she's pro-mandated consolidation, she's pro-RGGI.
Murphy has no disagreements. He's even refused to criticize the NJEA's campaign against Steve Sweeney, probably to his own detriment since Sweeney is still going to win that race. Guadagno and Murphy are both hacks, but one is worse than the other.
Steve said:
Runner_Guy
More than what you fear, I fear a complete failure of our infrastructure. That would completely destroy NJ. Full Stop. If we invest in our infrastructure, we'll create jobs, too. Those people will pay taxes and spend money. It's why SNAP is a good investment. It's why infrastructure is a good investment.
Also, I clicked on the tax foundation site and it sure looks to me as though the red states are the one most reliant on federal aid. Nonetheless, they still suck. Poor healthcare, poor educational opportunities. Not sure what you're seeing.
I keep coming back to this thread to read your next idiotic and uninformed post. Well, you did it this time. Finally gave it away. You write about "his party" this and "his party" that, but what you don't say is even more telling. The Republicans are not "her party." It was not "her party" that actively harmed the state for the last eight years. It was not "her party" that cut deals in an effort to improve the pension situation and then reneged on them as soon as the workers fulfilled their obligations. It was not "her party" that cancelled the new tunnel (yes, it was not ideal, but there was not even an effort to renegotiate the deal or improve upon the design). Cancellation was done to steal billions of dollars to pay for road repairs instead of raising the gas tax. It was not "her party" that declined to reauthorize the millionaires' tax (that would have generated somewhere in the neighborhood of $7B during that period.
Please. That all I have to say. Not only was it "her party," IT WAS HER ******* ADMINISTRATION!!!
If someone promised to lower your taxes, you'd vote for him or her regardless of any other position. It's truly pathetic how people like you care only about their personal tax situation and not at all about societal needs, including infrastructure and education. Like I said before, so glad that you're no longer holding elected office. You make me sick.
It's also not her party that is trying to eliminate Federal deductions for state and local taxes. Let's not forget that little love note from the GOP to high tax states.
A LOT of people in New Jersey are screwed if the Republicans pass those changes.
mfpark said:
It's also not her party that is trying to eliminate Federal deductions for state and local taxes. Let's not forget that little love note from the GOP to high tax states.
Steve,
Just what do you think it will do to public services and infrastructure investment when NJ's debt payments consume 30% of the budget?
NJ cannot preserve public services without benefits reform. Higher taxes and tolls would help too (if the new money isn't going to be spent), but there is at least as much money to found on the savings side as the new revenue side.
NJ's debt crisis - which is the worst in the country - is an existential, certain, and permanent threat to the entire state. It is already causing large real-dollar cuts to public services. Looking at education alone, for FY2017 TPAF spending increased by $323.4 million and post-retirement medical increased by $48.1 million. For FY2018 the increases were even larger, TPAF funding increased by $411.5 million and post-retirement medical increased by $69.6 million.
That's not sustainable. Something has to change.
And, for the record, I'm a registered Democrat. If Steve Sweeney had run for governor I would have supported him strongly because I think he's braver than the usual politician and I like his biography.
I am not worried about my own taxes. I haven't claimed to be unable to afford my taxes. I haven't claimed that making rich people pay more in taxes is immoral, instead I have said it is ineffective. .
Many state-level Democrats including Andrew Cuomo and Dan Malloy think that taxes do have an impact on personal and business location decisions. Andrew Cuomo also pulled back recession-era high-income tax surcharges and NYS's top-bracket is lower than NJ's at 8.82%. After passing two rounds of tax increases, Malloy has refused to raise corporate and income taxes. He has admonished other Connecticut Democrats for even talking about it. Malloy has also ruled out taxing hedge funds's Carried Interest exploitation. (which probably means that NJ under Phil Murphy won't either.)
So my view that high local taxes restrain economic growth is within the Democratic mainstream. Phil Murphy, by contrast, has made a concerted chain of argument denying this. For that reason among others, I think NJ would do worse under Murphy than it would under Guadagno despite Guadagno's number of dumb stances.
The 2017 race is bad versus very bad.
You threw some ad hominem insults at me, but your posts are clueless about things like how the tax cap works and your treating Minnesota as a beacon of economic growth acts like history started in 2011. You don't know that Minnesota's growth is actually just good for the Midwest. It's average compared to the country as a whole.
Steve said:
I keep coming back to this thread to read your next idiotic and uninformed post. Well, you did it this time. Finally gave it away. You write about "his party" this and "his party" that, but what you don't say is even more telling. The Republicans are not "her party." It was not "her party" that actively harmed the state for the last eight years. It was not "her party" that cut deals in an effort to improve the pension situation and then reneged on them as soon as the workers fulfilled their obligations. It was not "her party" that cancelled the new tunnel (yes, it was not ideal, but there was not even an effort to renegotiate the deal or improve upon the design). Cancellation was done to steal billions of dollars to pay for road repairs instead of raising the gas tax. It was not "her party" that declined to reauthorize the millionaires' tax (that would have generated somewhere in the neighborhood of $7B during that period.
Please. That all I have to say. Not only was it "her party," IT WAS HER ******* ADMINISTRATION!!!
If someone promised to lower your taxes, you'd vote for him or her regardless of any other position. It's truly pathetic how people like you care only about their personal tax situation and not at all about societal needs, including infrastructure and education. Like I said before, so glad that you're no longer holding elected office. You make me sick.
Dude, you're a sh*tty Democrat if you actually believe that crap that you posted. You don't address the "his party" this nonsense while failing to acknowledge everything that the GOP has done on the federal and state level, particularly while Guadagno has been Lt. Gov.
Tax cuts don't work. It's been proven again and again. Stimulating demand is what will work and probably the only thing that will work. That requires that lower and middle income people get more money. That means getting people to work through either corporate domestic capital expenditures or government infrastructure spending. If you don't want to listen to me, listen to Nouriel Roubini. Listen to other economists. Get a f*cking clue. You have no idea what you are talking about. Seriously.
This will be the first election since Trump became President. It will be seen outside of NJ as a referendum on Trump and the Republican Party. If Kim Guadagno resigned from the Republican Party and ran as an Independent I might give her a second look. But as this point I intend to cast a reluctant vote for Murphy.
Lost puts it how I feel. The one glint of hope is a friend of mine who I respect a lot says he knows many of the folks that Murphy has working for him and they are solid on both policies and procedures. Whether he will have the ability to listen to them and to choose the wisest course remains to be seen.
I just can't shake the memory of Corzine--I had so much hope for him when he ran. Ick!!
And even with Christie, his initial campaign made him sound like he might actually be that strange kind of Republican who wanted to work with the Dems to actually get things done, while being strong enough to not succumb to Trenton ********. Boy, was that ever wrong! He is the worst governor I have ever seen, and I have seen some really bad ones up close in Wisconsin, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and of course, New Jersey.
LOST said:
This will be the first election since Trump became President. It will be seen outside of NJ as a referendum on Trump and the Republican Party. If Kim Guadagno resigned from the Republican Party and ran as an Independent I might give her a second look. But as this point I intend to cast a reluctant vote for Murphy.
mfpark said:
And even with Christie, his initial campaign made him sound like he might actually be that strange kind of Republican who wanted to work with the Dems to actually get things done, while being strong enough to not succumb to Trenton ********. Boy, was that ever wrong! He is the worst governor I have ever seen, and I have seen some really bad ones up close in Wisconsin, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and of course, New Jersey.
I knew exactly what he was in 2009. The evidence is in the MOL archives.
here was my post from July 30, 2009. Christie's shady, bullying behavior was already obvious. And let's remember, whatever one thinks of Bob Menendez, in the U.S. we still need evidence before we accuse someone.
personally the shameful conduct of Christie's office during Menendez's run for Senate disqualifies him from getting my vote. To recap, Christie's office leaked the fact that Menendez was under investigation for misusing his office as congressman. This was in the middle of an election in which control of the U.S. Senate was very much in play. As most people now know, after the election, Menendez *was never charged with anything*. Basically, Christie tried to help hang onto GOP control of the Senate by impugning Menendez's integrity *before they had any evidence*.
https://maplewood.worldwebs.com/forums/discussion/why-corzine#discussion-replies-1110639
and then in August, 2009, I wrote this. Man, I was on a roll 
with regard to the state's finances, Christie is likely to be much worse than Corzine. he's not taking much of a position on anything, but his website suggests a return to the tax-cut-and-borrow policies of Whitman.
sending a message is all well and good, but sometimes you end up with somebody worse. I'm very concerned about Christie's promises of tax cuts, balanced budgets without painful choices. in this economy, promising Christmas morning isn't realistic.
Steve,
Getting ad hominem insults from you doesn't hurt, but boy does it waste my time.
Economics is a highly ideological field, so despite Nouriel Roubini, there are more economists who do say that there is a link between low state taxes and economic growth than there are ones who don't. The responsible economists on this point out that it's hard to disentangle the effects of taxes from other conditions in a state, such as housing costs and right-to-work.
But whatever.
Here's the Pew Fifty Fifty's listing of states with the strongest annual per capita income growth since 2007, with the annualized growth following.
North Dakota, 4.2%
Texas, 2.9%
Utah, 2.6%
Colorado 2.3%
California 2.2%
Washington 2.1%
South Carolina 2.1%
Oregon 2.0%
Tennessee 2.0%
Oklahoma 1.9%
Alaska 1.9%
Massachusetts 1.9%
Montana 1.8%
Idaho 1.8%
Nebraska 1.8%
Indiana 1.8%
Hawaii 1.7%
US AVERAGE 1.7%
Your beacon, Minnesota, is actually slightly below the (weighted) average at 1.6% annual growth. That's healthy and that's above the median, but nothing amazing.
Here is the ranking from the Tax Foundation, where higher numbers mean a a more expensive tax climate.
North Dakota, 29
Texas 14
Utah 9
Colorado 16
California 48
Washington 17
South Carolina 37
Oregon 10
Tennessee 13
Oklahoma 31
Alaska 3
Massachusetts 27
Montana 6
Idaho 20
Nebraska 25
Indiana 8
Hawaii 26
So, of those 17 highest states with above average income growth, only two, California and (surprisingly) South Carolina, have high taxes. Six states have taxes that are within the middle twenty of the country, and seven states have low taxes.
Even if you take the small energy states out (ND, MT, and AK) out, the effect still holds.
If you went by job gains and not income growth the story would be similar, although Florida would be more prominent as a high performing.
To flip this around and to look at the highest taxed states, the evidence supports the contention that high taxes hurt.
According to the Tax Foundation, these states have the highest taxes.
41. Louisiana
42 Maryland
43 Connecticut
44 Rhode Island
45 Ohio
46 Minnesota
47 Vermont
48 California
49 New York
50. New Jersey
And here is the same annual per capita income growth.
Louisiana, 15th worst
Maryland, 29th worst
Connecticut, third worst
Rhode Island, 9th worst
Ohio, 16th worst
Minnesota, 33rd worst
Vermont, 12th worst
California, 5th best
New York, 30th worst
New Jersey, tenth worst
So, only one of those high-tax states is above average in growth (CA) and only three others (NY, MD, and MN) are around average. The other six are in the bottom third of the country.
You could argue that it's impossible (at this point) for NJ to be a low tax or even average-tax state (I'd agree), but it's hard to contend that NJ's level of taxation isn't doing long-term harm to us as an economy and doing harm to many individuals.
https://files.taxfoundation.org/20170302120920/TF-SBTCI-2017-Final1.pdf
http://www.pewtrusts.org/en/multimedia/data-visualizations/2014/fiscal-50#ind8
You're ridiculous. How can you include the period from 2007-2010 for MN? Pawlenty was governor and tax cuts were his thing (after all, he was trying for the GOP nomination for POTUS). You also ignore where the states started out in 2007 and what we get for our money. You also ignore that impact on federal spending in each state. Also, I'll take a lower income growth rate on a much larger base than a slightly larger rate on a smaller base. After all, we have a mature, developed economy in NJ.
We're not going to be a low tax state - ever. We demand the provision of quality services. We don't shut down when it snows. To pay for these things, we have to have taxes. We're not stopping the provision of services. That has to be addressed. Why can't you accept that basic fact? We also have to pay our debts (that have grown dramatically due to the GOP's insistence on tax cuts as the be all and save all for any problem).
The only way out of this situation is to grow our way out - that requires investment by the state in capital projects like infrastructure. A solid infrastructure and and educated workforce is a pretty damned good way to encourage business investment.
P.S. How's that great Kansas experiment working out. You planning on moving to Brownbackistan?
Guadagno's attempt to distinguish herself from Trump has not been helped by her Willie Horton-esque ad that sounds like it came from Trump's anti-immigrant script.
What do folks know about Gina Genovese? I know so little about her, other than she is making property tax reduction through muncipality consolidation the core of her program. Oh, and she ran well against Tom Kean, Jr once, was the first Democratic mayor of some small hamlet, and was the first openly gay mayor in NJ.
Sponsored Business
Promote your business here - Businesses get highlighted throughout the site and you can add a deal.
For Sale
Advertisement
Steve,
Don't you realize that the low-service dystopia you fear is going to be New Jersey in the 2020s if we don't do something about the pension crisis?
Already 11% of your state taxes go to debt. In the 2020s it will be 30%.
NJ won't resolve this solely by increasing taxes because there is no plausible way to increase taxes by the amount necessary. It will also cut spending and state aid. Like I said before, look at Connecticut.
The difference between a low-services/low tax state is that NJ will still be a high-tax/low-service state.