Inquirer Special Report: Property-Tax Madness

In Sunday's Philadelphia Inquirer, the headline report is on the New Jersey property tax situation and its impact on the citizens of this state. Despite the Inquirers more liberal leanings, they place the blame clearly in the court of the party that has been running the state for the past several years state's ruling party(Democrats):

Nowhere is there a higher average property-tax bill: $6,796 per household, up more than 50 percent in just the last five years.

And that, in a costly nutshell, is why New Jerseyans are some of the angriest taxpayers in America.

The article gets going with this typical story:

Among seniors, the anger is giving way to panic, Tom Yarnall warns. "Are we going to run out of money?" he asked. "Or are we going to run out of heartbeats?"

Yarnall, 76, a retired computer specialist, pays $9,053 in property tax - about one-quarter of his fixed income - on his two-story colonial on Weston Drive in Cherry Hill. That's up from $6,344 in 2002, a 43 percent jump.

"When I retired, I thought I was in good shape," he said. But every year, "I'm taking more and more out of our savings. It will be gone in eight to 10 years."

The article proceeds to document several other stories and are frankly typical from the blog's perspective. Seniors that can no longer afford their homes, long term residents who children will never live in their parents house and municipalities who cannot cope with the cost of running the town.

Some of the reasons they cite as to why we are in such a mess:

New Jersey ranks third among populous states for the number of public employees per capita working for school districts and towns.

With New Jersey's cost of living one of the highest in the country and its labor unions effective, that force of 350,000 is better paid than anywhere but California - on average, $55,000 a year.

The article goes on to discuss many of the issues that we have covered in the past her at NJTaxRevolution. The questionable savings from combining home rule municipalities, the fact that the unions who really run the state are unwilling to concede anything and the overbearing education mandate essentially unfunded by the state.

Can something be done? Sure. Can it be done with the current crop of politicians in the state of New Jersey. No chance.

Read the article here, it is well worth the time.

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