Taxes, Spending and Government Efficiencies
Corrupt politics leads to irrational economic policy. To restore the economy, government needs to
help create well paying jobs in the private sector. There is no way to lower taxes with more laws
and more government. Cutting taxes means
eliminating laws, not adding them. Henry
Ford revolutionized industrial America with the idea that workers should be
able to purchase the products they produce.
Similarly, government employees should be using the services they
provide. When public workers drive in
private vehicles instead of using public transit, when teachers send their
children to private school instead of using the public schools, then that is a
clear sign that something is wrong with the way government operates and it
needs to change.
New Revenue Sources
Legalize
and tax Marijuana. This will raise more revenue for the government. It will also thwart organized crime while
reducing expenses for police, courts and jails.
Tax
Trusts on the Basis of Wealth, not Income. The United States is a capitalist country that
hasn’t had any venture capital for the past three decades. Instead of funding start ups and new ideas to
create the economy of the future that would have been ready to take up the
slack as the current economy reached the end of its shelf life, Wall Street
bankers, lawyers and financiers created new instruments that created a river of
money into which they dipped their buckets to enrich themselves.
The money raised from the wealth tax
on trusts should be made available to entrepreneurs on a competitive basis.
Collect
Sales Tax on Internet Sales. Why
would anyone want to open a store and pay rent, insurance and hire people when
customers can order products on-line and dodge the sales tax? The failure to collect sales tax on internet
sales has severely damaged the commercial real estate market. Either there is sales tax or there is
not. If there is going to be sales tax,
everyone must pay it regardless of the mechanism by which they make their
purchases.
Expenditure Changes
Abolish
County Government. County government is the primary source of corruption in
politics. A level of government most
people know nothing about or what it does, it is an unnecessary anomaly.
Consuming about 25% of real estate taxes, this third level of government should
be abolished, local governments consolidated, and a Compact and Contiguous
clause added to the State Constitution to get rid of gerrymandering. The county lines are historical anomalies
that amount to gerrymanders. For
example, Allentown, New Jersey, in Monmouth County, is closer to Trenton,
Mercer County’s county seat, than it is to Freehold, Monmouth County’s county
seat. It is a more integral part of the
Hamilton, Hightstown economy of Mercer County than it is of Monmouth
County. Regional government is the only
one that makes sense in a modern economy.
Abolish
the Council on Affordable Housing. The laudable attempt to create
affordable housing has backfired. The
rules for affordable housing raise the cost of building new houses and punish
communities that create jobs. There is
plenty of affordable housing in New Jersey, it is just in places people do not
want to live, which is why it is affordable.
The answer is to make it safe and fix the schools in the places where the
housing is already affordable. The
police need to go where the crime is.
Abolish
the New Jersey School Boards Association.
This is a publicly funded tax lobby masquerading as an education
lobby.
Eliminate
all categorical aid to schools not affecting education. New Jersey could
save about $500 million a year if middle and high school students took public
buses like New Jersey Transit instead of yellow school buses to school. Most students already do not ride the school
buses, but the legislature has written rules that require school districts to
supply a seat even if no one sits in it.
In Princeton, where I was on the Finance Committee of the School Board
for nine years, two as Chairman, the district spent $1.25 per passenger mile on
school busing. Coach Suburban Transit, a
private bus company, charges $.25 per passenger mile on big intercity buses and
makes a profit.
So, no more transportation aid to
school districts. No more security aid
either. Security is a police function,
not an education function. Also, the
idea that the schools can be safe while the neighborhoods in which the children
live can be dangerous is an absurdity.
To have kids go to a secure school and then go home to be murdered in
their beds, as happened to Janaya Glover, age 6 and Jayasia Watson, age 7 when I was teaching at the Jefferson
School in Trenton is a misuse of public funds.
Efficiencies
New Jersey needs a usable public
transit system. NJ Transit has shown
itself to be in the car business, not the public transport business. It also loses money. So, New Jersey Transit needs to be sold to
private bus and rail providers.
We live in a 24/7 economy, except
for the taxpayer funded government portion, which is open only from 8:30 to
4:30 from Monday through Friday except for public holidays. Public employees have so many personal day
and sick leave days off, that it is rare if ever that
a full compliment of public employees is available for that one day that a
taxpayer needs to do business at a government office.
Government needs to be open from
8:00 a.m. to 6:00 or 7:00 p.m. five days a week, with limited hours on
Saturdays and even Sundays.
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Link to Op-Ed Piece on Education in Trenton Times http://www.nj.com/opinion/times/oped/index.ssf?/base/news-0/1242965106188220.xml&coll=5
Link to Another Op-Ed Piece on Education in Trenton Timeshttp://www.nj.com/timesoftrenton/stories/index.ssf?/base/news-0/1234933529136580.xml&coll=5
Return to Leinsdorf for Governor Introduction http://www.leinsdorf.com/Governor/Public%20Financing.htm