New Jersey is a state in crisis. Its 2010 Fiscal Year budget has a $7 billion deficit which Governor Jon Corzine intends to close by saddling middle class families and the business community with $1 billion in new or increased taxes.
State spending has increased 46 percent over the past seven years under Democrat control. State debt stands at an astounding $44.5 billion. The average property tax bill recently toppled the $7,000 mark. At $7,045, it remains the highest in the nation, up nearly 20 percent under the Corzine Administration and 55 percent since 2002.
The state lost nearly 100,000 jobs during the past year alone and, as of February, its unemployment rate stands at 8.2 percent, the 13th straight month it has increased.
As if that isn’t enough, state revenues continue to fall – by as much as 11 percent this year.
Yet despite this economic tsunami, the state, with Governor Corzine’s blessing, is pushing forward with its plan to build a new $87 million park on State House grounds. The New Jersey Capital City State Park project will be located along the banks of the Delaware River and extend into the city of Trenton.
Assembly Republican legislators Declan O’Scanlon, R- Monmouth and Mercer, and Charlotte Vandervalk, R-Bergen, vehement opponents of the project, are livid that the state is proceeding with it in light of New Jersey’s dire economic conditions.
“Our residents are losing their jobs, their homes and their savings and state government is going to spend $87 million to build a new park?” exclaimed Vandervalk. “I certainly recognize the value of such facilities, but it is the epitome of irresponsibility to spend $87 million for a park when so many of our middle class families are in the midst of severe fiscal hardship.”
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