Posted by 
As a percentage of market value, New Jersey extracts more property taxes from its Citizens than any other State in the country. In some cases, Citizens pay three to four percent of the market value of their property each year.
This is not acceptable. It is the result of a fiscally irresponsible legislature. It leads to the destruction of private property ownership, which violates the Bill of Rights and is contrary to the free market principles needed to provide a strong foundation for American strength and prosperity.
NJ property taxes must be reduced to less than one percent of market value. NJ Government must learn to live within the reduced government revenues that will be the result of lower property taxes.
Property taxes are levied on a local level (only) in New Jersey. So, the state tax revenue would not be hurt by lower property taxes. How do you propose to make the state government leaner – and how will you prop up the local governments if property taxes are significantly diminished? Education is the largest expense of the local taxing authorities. Would you do away with public education? That would save a lot of money. But would it help New Jersey’s faltering economy? Or property values?
Heidi,
Thank you for a great question.
Your question covers the entire budget. I will try to address many of these major areas in the next few weeks.
In the meantime, the best quick response on this is that the problem is not financial, but it is political.
We will never have a solution under the current pattern of legislative thinking. Fiscally responsible, rational thinking, based on citizen needs, is just not possible with the crowd that is running Trenton. That is a proven fact that is evidenced by history. .
Politicians continue to play the left/right ball game that assumes the need for an ever-increasing budget and leads to more and more taxation. After each election, the only question is who gets to spend it.
There are many sharp people available who can come up with specific fiscal cuts and efficiency enhancements. But, the moment any one of their ideas is presented, someone blocks it because the changes distort a (money/power) status quo.
We must break the status-quo ideas and break the current assumption of unlimited taxation. Otherwise, we will never get anywhere. .
I know that this is not the answer that you wanted. Sorry. I have done cost accounting. Like yourself, I like to receive micro-management type responses with specifics. But that type of response (if I had one) would be barking up the wrong tree because it would only create a false hope without solutions.
I am researching a position paper on this and will try to include some examples and solutions. I hope to finish it by early October so that I can post it on this site.
–Gene