From the Star Ledger:
N.J. is in a ‘fiscal death spiral’ and Murphy call for new tax on millionaires isn’t the answer, top Democrat says
New Jersey’s Democratic state Senate president, who is steadfastly opposed to the Democratic governor’s call to hike taxes on the wealthy, said Thursday that the Garden State is in a “fiscal death spiral” that can’t be repaired by raising taxes.
State Senate President Stephen Sweeney’s opposition to Gov. Phil Murphy’s plan to generate an estimated $447 million in new tax dollars through a millionaires tax complicates upcoming state budget negotiations, to say the least.
Murphy’s $38.6 billion proposed budget, which he unveiled Tuesday, proposes expanding the top marginal tax rate of 10.75 percent enacted last year to income over $1 million. During last year’s budget battle, Murphy sought the millionaires tax but agreed to a tax increase on income over $5 million.
“I’m not supporting it,” Sweeney, D-Gloucester, said of the millionaires tax during an interview with NJ Advance Media Thursday at the Statehouse in Trenton. “I’m not raising the income tax.”
Despite this conflict, Sweeney acknowledged the note of reconciliation Murphy struck Tuesday and said they’re already starting off on better terms than last year, when Murphy proposed raising more than $1.6 billion in taxes, including the gross income tax and the sales tax, and slashed $123 million for Democratic priorities.
Keep telling yourself that. I guess Musk and Trump don’t work, since they tweet all day. Same with Bezos, how does he post on his blog all the time? Must be doing nothing, correct? Or maybe some people are capable of doing it, while others are not….
homeboken says:
March 8, 2019 at 11:31 pm
Pumpkin says: Put it this way, if the poor have it so good, why the hell am I working so hard?”
Based on the volume of your daily postings, I don’t think you have any clue what it means to work hard. You like to think you work hard but you simply can’t read and post to a non-work related blog all day long and be considered a “hard worker”
How long does it take to post here, give me a break…lol
Wrote 15 posts today, no work getting done…
Sweeney is playing politics. If you can’t see that, you are blind. He sounds like a republican, any questions? This was the same guy trying to push the millionaire’s tax down Christie’s throat a few years ago.
Fiscal death spiral? Yes, sure. Detroit still functioning after losing 50% of its population along with handling massive debt? Oh right, it’s actialky making a comeback. F the noise. Nj is too important to the national economy for the country to let it go into a financial death spiral. Let’s understand that.
First, why do people think nj doesn’t have high paying jobs? Both my wife and I work IN NJ. There are high quality jobs, don’t think everyone works in Manhattan.
Second, the idea that you are pushed out the door at 55 may be true in your company, but it does not apply to all. I’m not lying when I say there are lots of 60 somethings hanging on in the workplace. They are good at their job. Simple as that. If you are not good at your job, and have been simply hanging on, you are getting pushed out or taking a paycut. Go look at the stats, still plenty of people working in their late 50s and 60s.
“We found that 28 percent of stable, longtime employees sustain at least one damaging layoff by their employers between turning 50 and leaving work for retirement.
“We’ve known that some workers get a nudge from their employers to exit the work force and some get a great big kick,” said Gary Burtless, a prominent labor economist with the Brookings Institution in Washington. “What these results suggest is that a whole lot more are getting the great big kick.””
Hunterdon and Warren counties are the real suburbs in nj. They are dead. Simply too far from everything including local supermarket.
Stan says:
March 8, 2019 at 7:22 pm
3b and Eddie are both right.
I live in brigadoon, packed with kids. Packed! 2-3 is the norm per family, tearing down smaller houses for larger houses every day. Train line town, brooklyn hoboken set moving in.
Took the train today I was on the younger end by ten years. In my early 40’s with three kids, I am one of the younger parents at every elementary school event. Most parents here seem to have there last kid at mid 40’s. So I have no clue where these people are working but it ain’t Manhattan. Newer employees are foreign or millennials who live in the city or boroughs. We call it the vanishing old white man at work, they don’t exist over 55. I don’t know where people are working in the brig, but they seem to be earning enough to pay the taxes and up keep.
As an aside family in hunterdon, 1990’s McMansion land, beautiful house well maintained,, they can’t get 60% of what they paid for it. Merck leaving and changing commuting habits have crushed those areas.
Any way, I miss JJ. Long ago poster, still a lurker.
“It’s the financial riddle of the 30-something years. How does anyone, even those with a stable, upwardly mobile job, let alone a family, afford to live in places like New York City, Los Angeles, Boston, Chicago, San Francisco or Washington, D. C.?
The answer: Many are bankrolled, to varying degrees, by their parents.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/02/style/financial-independence-30s.html
https://patch.com/new-jersey/belleville/new-labs-will-add-rebirth-ex-roche-site-nutley-clifton
So it’s ok if we become Detroit,because they are still functioning?
What NJ needs is easy, Rutgers has about 20 studies, including studies of studies.
It comes down to no county government like CT and merging towns until about 110k in population, which seems to be the sweet spot for efficiency. The merge towns and the State them divide up the old county’s duties.
Who has “los cojones grande para hacerlo?”
Anybody? Bueller, Tony Montana, Freddy Kreuger?
So Bergen County goes from 70 towns into 9, 10 at most.
Hudson County becomes – Jersey City, Bayonne, West Hudson City, North Hudson City, Hoboken Heights.
At all towns health insurance are the State’s Health Benefit plans, but try to kill off George Norcross’s bread and butter of rent seeking by selling towns profitable crappier plans.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-03-04/rich-people-find-it-hard-to-flee-states-targeted-by-salt-limits
Five interesting tales.
After many months of robust growth — credit to President Trump on those, as we’ve gladly given in this column — the job market screeched to a halt in February, adding just 20,000 payroll positions. The good news is wages are still on the rise. We do not offer this as evidence that the economy is suddenly sputtering. Averages mean much more. Single months could well turn out to be hiccups. It is, however, worth note that Trump’s first 25 full months, including his massive tax cut, much-ballyhooed “regulatory relief,” trade wars, attack on the Affordable Care Act and all, have yielded 4.9 million new jobs. The last 25 full months of the man Trump and Republicans portray as a job killer, President Obama, yielded 5.3 million new jobs. This number is larger than the other. Meantime, the deficit is spiking. Try as he might, promise though he did, MAGA man hasn’t catapulted the nation into a glorious new world
Average refund currently sitting at +0.7% this season, down a bit from last week’s +1.3%, but still sitting positive.
https://expo.nj.com/news/g66l-2019/03/da3858789b4828/these-25-employees-were-in-nj-transits-200k-paycheck-club-last-year.html
Nice gig, you don’t even need to show up for work if you don’t feel like it.
Keep telling yourself that. I guess Musk and Trump don’t work, since they tweet all day
You are not Elon Musk or Donald Trump
I knew a guy who worked for NJ Transit. He was supposed to be on the trains all day. He ran an ebay business on the side. He would get out at every flea market he was able to and would catch the train on the way back. No one ever noticed.
We’re a gaggle of volunteers and starting a new scheme in our community.
Your site offered us with useful information to work on. You’ve performed a
formidable activity and our whole neighborhood will probably be grateful to you.