NJ Gov. Christie has the right idea. I'd like to see him run for president if he didn't look like he'd die of a heart attack.

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More and more people have left the state and continue to leave the state because of the tax situation. You are not going to fix this situation by continuing to load more and more taxes onto people who have both the ability to leave the state and the inclination to leave the state if they feel as if they they are being treated unfairly. New Jersey does not have a tax problem, that we don't have enough tax revenue. We have a spending and size problem and we need to start saying, "No".

He is quickly becoming one of my favorite politicians. His campaign was just awesome to watch.

Yep, doing what he said he would do.

Of course, Obama did too!!

All he did was shift the tax increase from the state level onto the local municipality level. It is a nice slight of hand. He took a chainsaw to school funding on the state level, and not coincidentally it was about equal to the amount of new money that will be raised (cities can only raise property taxes a certain % per year) when city governments jack property tax rates up to fill in the gap. That is not a coincidence. It is a very shrewd thing to do because this way he doesn't overtly look like the bad guy when everyone's taxes go up, but the net effect of his budget is a big tax increase at the local level.

IggyPride00 wrote: All he did was shift the tax increase from the state level onto the local municipality level. It is a nice slight of hand. He took a chainsaw to school funding on the state level, and not coincidentally it was about equal to the amount of new money that will be raised (cities can only raise property taxes a certain % per year) when city governments jack property tax rates up to fill in the gap. That is not a coincidence. It is a very shrewd thing to do because this way he doesn't overtly look like the bad guy when everyone's taxes go up, but the net effect of his budget is a big tax increase at the local level.

His power is at the state level. It is the only level he has direct power to make change. He has no power to tell a local school district how to generate revenue and spend its money.

His "chainsaw" is not limited to schools. Of course the children, elderly, poor, minorities, disabled, etc. are favorite buzz words used by any political demagogue to thwart any change in government spending.

You state all the time the difficult and painful political decisions that must be made to bring a government into fiscal sanity. You as well as I have stated the near impossibility of politicians gaining power and following through with draconian spending cuts necessary to bring fiscal sanity. Yet here a guy makes them and you portray him as a conniving politician wanting to shaft the locals to protect himself.

Have you read any of the NJ or national media? Many portray him as a heartless pig in bed with the rich and big you name it. To say he is doing this to not look like the "bad guy" is ridiculous.

majorspark wrote:

IggyPride00 wrote: All he did was shift the tax increase from the state level onto the local municipality level. It is a nice slight of hand. He took a chainsaw to school funding on the state level, and not coincidentally it was about equal to the amount of new money that will be raised (cities can only raise property taxes a certain % per year) when city governments jack property tax rates up to fill in the gap. That is not a coincidence. It is a very shrewd thing to do because this way he doesn't overtly look like the bad guy when everyone's taxes go up, but the net effect of his budget is a big tax increase at the local level.

His power is at the state level. It is the only level he has direct power to make change. He has no power to tell a local school district how to generate revenue and spend its money.

His "chainsaw" is not limited to schools. Of course the children, elderly, poor, minorities, disabled, etc. are favorite buzz words used by any political demagogue to thwart any change in government spending.

You state all the time the difficult and painful political decisions that must be made to bring a government into fiscal sanity. You as well as I have stated the near impossibility of politicians gaining power and following through with draconian spending cuts necessary to bring fiscal sanity. Yet here a guy makes them and you portray him as a conniving politician wanting to shaft the locals to protect himself.

Have you read any of the NJ or national media? Many portray him as a heartless pig in bed with the rich and big you name it. To say he is doing this to not look like the "bad guy" is ridiculous.

I think the overarching point that Iggey is making is that, reducing government spending takes a whole concerted effort and it can't just involve one executive at some level of sovereignty in our federalism.

If there's a crying baby used to sucking on a teet, If you don't get that baby somehow functional to not be dependent on that, a new one's just going to pop itself in the mouth.

The society of New Jersey has to ask itself, well gee, less government sounds good, but do we want to give up the funding that goes to our schools...when they say they want a governor who will cut education spending, they'd better be prepared to have less of those services.

And, it seems like that may not be the case...and hence why the localities will foot the bill.

But nonetheless, if the wave of government slashing is going to happen, it has to start somewhere I suppose.

I for one, can't blame Iggey for his skepticism.

IggyPride00 wrote:...when city governments jack property tax rates up to fill in the gap. That is not a coincidence. It is a very shrewd thing to do because this way he doesn't overtly look like the bad guy when everyone's taxes go up, but the net effect of his budget is a big tax increase at the local level.

Perhaps but that is where the funding should be coming from right?

But then there'd be greater disparity between the have and have not cities. A wealthy bedroom community may do well, a poorer urban city may require more to equal the same percentage. Then, if they can't, they'd fall behind. Generations later, even bigger problems.

Sykotyk

The country is going bankrupt at the local, federal, and state levels across the country. Wanna stop it? Solve the problem of outsourcing, globalization, and the gross reduction in private sector jobs.

Need more tax revenues? Then stop the migration of real jobs. Put more Americans to work. It will solve this problem and a myriad of others.

Footwedge wrote: The country is going bankrupt at the local, federal, and state levels across the country. Wanna stop it? Solve the problem of outsourcing, globalization, and the gross reduction in private sector jobs.

Need more tax revenues? Then stop the migration of real jobs. Put more Americans to work. It will solve this problem and a myriad of others.

I agree.

Let's curb strangling government regulation (particularly environmental ones), lower corporate tax rates, cap minimum wage rates, educate unions on simple economics, give businesses tax incentives for not outsourcing jobs to foreign markets, slap fees on imported goods from countries whose governments unfairly subsidize their own industries, etc. just for starters?

How about bring back tariffs for foreign goods?

But, that hurts companies that aren't even based in America anymore.

Sykotyk

Sykotyk wrote: How about bring back tariffs for foreign goods?

But, that hurts companies that aren't even based in America anymore.

Sykotyk

And then see other countries do the same thing to us? That didn't work too well back in the 1930s. What makes you think it would uniquely help us now?

Footwedge wrote: The country is going bankrupt at the local, federal, and state levels across the country. Wanna stop it? Solve the problem of outsourcing, globalization, and the gross reduction in private sector jobs.

They are going broke because of over-spending - PERIOD!

Generally speaking all government entities have more money to work with every year, year in and year out, which means they have it relatively easy; unfortunately they keep spending even more than that and promising still more.

You could easily freeze government spending and start to grow out of the problem (if we had pro-growth policy makers) and eventually solve the problem. However, when you have socialists running the country, you first have to remove them from office, because it is readily apparent the course that they are on.

You could easily freeze government spending and start to grow out of the problem (if we had pro-growth policy makers) and eventually solve the problem.

We had pro-growth policies all decade and we had a net jobs loss on the whole.

The thing that is different now as opposed to 30 years ago when we did sweeping tax cuts was people actually invested in the real economy. Their investments paid people, bought and made materials.

Fast forward, and now money is really only made on paper. Instead of investing in real tangible things, the people who used to create jobs now find it more cost effective to hand their money over to a hedge fund who is just going to move money around as a way of creating wealth.

That is how we were able to see GDP expand by 30% in a decade we lost jobs on the aggregate. It's why banks don't make loans all that much anymore. There is far more money to be made prop trading their there is loaning people money.

We could cut the taxes to zero, but the money bypasses the real economy and heads right to all of the fancy financial innovations Wallstreet is always busy concocting.

Before 2000, there was no such thing as a "jobless" recovery. Now it is the norm. Nobody is interested in creating jobs, and it is not because of regulations. It is because you can make far more money with that same capital letting the MIT geniuses program your computer with some fancy algorithms that can make you more money than you ever would starting up a good old fashion bricks and mortar store where you actually work to make money.

It didn't used to be like that back in the day, which is why old prescriptions that used to work are futile in this era of technology and fast money.

IggyPride00 wrote:

You could easily freeze government spending and start to grow out of the problem (if we had pro-growth policy makers) and eventually solve the problem.

We had pro-growth policies all decade and we had a net jobs loss on the whole.

The thing that is different now as opposed to 30 years ago when we did sweeping tax cuts was people actually invested in the real economy. Their investments paid people, bought and made materials.

Fast forward, and now money is really only made on paper. Instead of investing in real tangible things, the people who used to create jobs now find it more cost effective to hand their money over to a hedge fund who is just going to move money around as a way of creating wealth.

That is how we were able to see GDP expand by 30% in a decade we lost jobs on the aggregate. It's why banks don't make loans all that much anymore. There is far more money to be made prop trading their there is loaning people money.

We could cut the taxes to zero, but the money bypasses the real economy and heads right to all of the fancy financial innovations Wallstreet is always busy concocting.

Before 2000, there was no such thing as a "jobless" recovery. Now it is the norm. Nobody is interested in creating jobs, and it is not because of regulations. It is because you can make far more money with that same capital letting the MIT geniuses program your computer with some fancy algorithms that can make you more money than you ever would starting up a good old fashion bricks and mortar store where you actually work to make money.

It didn't used to be like that back in the day, which is why old prescriptions that used to work are futile in this era of technology and fast money.

Iggy nails it yet again.

Want to stop the US' spiral into 3rd world status? Stop the outsourcing of American manufacturing. Bring back the smokestacks, the textile industries and to a lesser extent the farming industry. And if the IMF doesn't like it...tough.

The do gooder laissez faire economists keep selling the idea that the "service industry" will provide the US citizens good paying jobs are nothing more than parrots for the American oligarchs running international conglomerates.

The GDP remains in the shitter (running on 5 years now despite the fact that our population is growing like a bad weed). The GDP remains crappy despite the fact that stimulus money is being influxed into the economy by the trillions. Still, the unemployment rate remains at a pathetic 10%, with the real number hovering at 17%.

For those that remain employed, thing aren't "all that bad". For the 1 in 7 that has seen his life long company downsize, go completely under, or close down only to reopen in Mexico and India...well too bad. You lost the American economic lottery.

QuakerOats wrote:

Footwedge wrote: The country is going bankrupt at the local, federal, and state levels across the country. Wanna stop it? Solve the problem of outsourcing, globalization, and the gross reduction in private sector jobs.

They are going broke because of over-spending - PERIOD!

Generally speaking all government entities have more money to work with every year, year in and year out, which means they have it relatively easy; unfortunately they keep spending even more than that and promising still more.

You could easily freeze government spending and start to grow out of the problem (if we had pro-growth policy makers) and eventually solve the problem. However, when you have socialists running the country, you first have to remove them from office, because it is readily apparent the course that they are on.

You have a very myopic view at a very comprehensive problem. This may have worked had it been implemented back in the 70's, but it is way past the point of solid return.

You can thank Ronald Reagan for his absolutely horrendous record of spending money that we didn't have.