State Government Polices Are Destroying New Jersey

A new report by Rutgers economists James Hughes and Joseph Seneca warns the advanced economy and standard of living that New Jersey historically enjoyed are now at considerable risk and are eroding.

New Jersey, once synonymous with world-class research and cutting-edge technology, is facing its most uncertain future since the Great Depression.

The center of gravity of America’s new knowledge based economy, as its manufacturing-based economy did a generation ago, appears to be shifting from the high-cost places of doing business of the Northeast to the lower-cost and more affordable states of the nation’s Sunbelt.

In New Jersey during the past five years, "there was very little concern about the impact of tax policy on the economy," Hughes said.

Overall, while the state lost 117,600 high-paying service and manufacturing jobs, it replaced them with 113,200 low-paying service jobs. The first half of the first decade of the 2000s has been characterized largely by the contraction of high paying, private-sector office and manufacturing jobs, replaced by lower-paying private-sector employment and expanding public-sector, tax dependent jobs.

Since Democrats took control of Trenton in 2002, state spending and taxes have increased by 35 percent and debt has ballooned by a whopping 214 percent. New Jersey’s population has grown by less two percent, while the number of state government workers in the executive branch has increased by more than 20 percent. The increase in all public-sector jobs in New Jersey has been increasing at the rate of 9 percent.

New Jersey’s relative economic well-being has been slowly but clearly eroding. Combined with the much higher costs of living in New Jersey, this erosion of relative income has become an increasingly crucial public policy issue facing the state.

Do public decision makers and the broader population of the state understand that New Jersey has likely entered a new era of below average economic growth? Does it matter to them?

Judging by the results of New Jersey’s elections for Governor and Assembly this past fall, as well as, the tax and spend frenzy witnessed this month in Trenton, the answer is a resounding – no.

For a long time, a significant (and rising) share of the state budget has been used to redistribute income. Too little attention and too few resources were consistently dedicated to growing income.

Success for New Jersey in the competitive environment of the twenty-first century also requires a thorough examination of the business cost structures of the state and of appropriate changes to promote investment, risk taking, and job creation.

The Bush administration has done just that at the national level and the country has experienced remarkable levels of economic growth, job creation, as well as, record levels of tax revenues.

Wake up New Jersey, before it’s too late. Progressive state government polices are destroying New Jersey.