Taxpayers, again, are up against the boards
Gov. Jon Corzine raised the sales tax from 6 percent to 7 percent, supposedly with half of the additional 1 percent going to tax relief and the other half toward the state budget. So, the state had more money to fund new programs, raising the budget higher, which meant having to raise taxes again on the working class to balance the budget. Once again, it took disposable income out of the pockets of the working class.
Jon Corzine required state union employees, as well as certain other non-union employees, to contribute 1.5 percent of their salary to offset health-care costs, raised their contributions to their pension and increased the retirement benefit age for new public employees from 55 to 60.
In 2008, Corzine approved a law increasing the retirement age from 60 to 62, eliminated Lincoln’s Birthday as a state worker holiday and required municipal employees to work 20 hours per week to get health benefits.
He also decreased funding to most programs, including state universities and colleges. Rutgers University and other New Jersey state universities have raised tuition and cut hundreds of sections of classes and several sports teams.
Democrats had no problem approving all the above, but had it been a Republican governor who wanted to make those changes, it would have been an uphill battle for purely political reasons.
We have members of the Legislature who posture when it is convenient to their party and politicians who come up with sound bites that sound good in the newspapers.
But in the final analysis, the citizens are the ones who like a hockey puck getting smacked back and forth; constantly get hurt in the political arena.
The hypocrisy of government continues at the expense of those who pay the bill.
-- Joe Sinagra
http://www.nj.com/times-opinion/index.ssf/2012/07/times_of_trenton_letters_to_th_395.html
Published: Tuesday, July 10, 2012, 6:53 AM
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