Tax Follies

The Daily Record reported Sunday on a study being undertaken along the western borders of NJ. Seems that PA real estate prices -- although still a fraction of the NJ costs -- are rising rapidly as ever more NJ residents claim refugee status. Traffic flow from PA to NJ is expanding markedly and projected to increase substantially in years ahead. Although not specifically addressed in the context of the story, one might ask: why are all these folks heading to PA, when they work in NJ or NY?

Obviously, housing costs account for a good deal of the answer. The report points out that a nice house on an acre of land can be had in many nice areas of PA for 2/3rds the cost of a median Morris County house.

But nice housing for a couple with a $100000 annual income can be found in and around Morris County, let alone Hunterdon, Warren, and Sussex. What other factors might account for the PA real estate explosion?

Consistently, the people asked reply: "taxes".

The PA income tax is one third (or less) than ours, and the folks in Harrisburg have not yet mastered that politics of envy which leads to absurdities like the so-called "millionaires’ tax", which punishes success. Apparently, the PA Supreme Court lacks the arrogance of our example; no decisions like Mount Laurel or Abbott v. Burke drive PA property taxes into the stratosphere. ‘Course, if you value freedom, PA lets you buy a gun with a drivers’ license and carry what you buy. Despite being about 5 times bigger in area and boasting a population half again as large, they somehow manage to get by on a budget which is about $4 billion less. Their roads seem in wonderful repair; they haven’t borrowed themselves into bankruptcy; their schools don’t seem to be falling apart. And although Philly ain’t no paragon of virtue, it doesn’t appear that a substantial percentage of the state’s Democrats are serving time.

The Wall Street Journal reports that, over the last 20 years, some 1000 people PER DAY have fled the high tax northeast for greener, less taxing pastures elsewhere. Other reports demonstrate that high income seniors change their domicile to avoid confiscatory state death taxes, such as that imposed here in NJ. Already, one in four NJ pension dollars get mailed to recipients out of state. If PA ever wises up and abandons the death tax, no one with a reportable income will live in, let alone die in, New Jersey.

Jon Corzine likes to speak about an "affordable" New Jersey, but every single one of his proposal will render the state less affordable for the taxpayers, who labor under a massive governmental burden. If Corzine wants to make the state more "affordable", he should propose the complete repeal of the massive tax increases with which his Democratic buddies saddled the overburdened taxpayers, and the elimination of the spending they support.