WyBlog

Gov. Christie plans a "Proposition 13" for New Jersey

Tomorrow Governor Chris Christie will unveil his plan to rein in our state's escalating property taxes. Reports say that he'll propose a strict 2.5% limit on annual property tax increases.

Finally, a hard limit on property tax increases! No more excuses from local officials whinging about "unforeseen circumstances". It's not quite the "1% of assessed value" limit in the original Proposition 13 but it's a reasonable limit nonetheless.

The danger of course is that the government leviathon will still need to be fed. Unless deep cuts in actual spending are also imposed we'll soon see other taxes ratcheting up to cover our government's seemingly insatiable need for revenue. And anything Christie proposes has to pass muster with our activist State Supreme Court which time and again has intervened in legislative matters to mandate lavish funding for utopian social programs.

What we really need is a Constitutional Amendment telling the Court to keep it's nose out of tax policy. What I hope we have is a governor who will finally thumb his nose at their meddling in legislative affairs when the inevitable court challenges to his proposals are filed. The social justice activists won't take these limits on their funding sources lying down; they'll agitate for more school aid, more programs to transfer wealth from those of us who work to the folks who do not, and more court ordered spending across the board.

Governor Christie has his work cut out for himself. Reining in taxes is but one part of the solution to New Jersey's fiscal problems. He also has to curb the abuses heaped upon the taxpayers by our State Supreme Court under the auspices of "social justice". Yes Jesus said that we have an obligation to help the poor and downtrodden, but He most definitely did not say that obligation should be enforced at gunpoint by the state.

Posted at 10:18 by Chris Wysocki   [/nj_politics]   Comments | Archived | Perm Link |
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