New Jersey Corruption: The Why And How Of It

Why does New Jersey seem to have so much corruption; so many dirty deals; so many jailed politicians? Why?

To begin with, there's more corruption in New Jersey because there's more government -- lots more government. There's more state government, more county government, more local government and more government boards, commissions, authorities, bureaus and entities per square mile than anywhere else that we know of. There are 565 towns, boroughs, villages, townships and cities in New Jersey that we know of and countless more school districts, agencies and other governmental entities.

It's been said that in New Jersey if a politician really wants to get rich quick, he or she aspires to be the assistant water commissioner rather than the governor. In the Garden State, it's that simple: more government (and more places to hide) mean more opportunities to do dirty deeds.

Second, we hate to say this but New Jersey is a solidly one-party state and that party is and has been the Democrat Party -- a party that's welded to old-line, rust-belt union rule and union money. No checks and balances equals unbridled rule and that breeds corruption. Just look at this list:

Williams† McGreevey Torricelli Menendez* Thompson† Errichetti† Musto† Feinberg† McCann† Milan† Levy† James† Helstoski* Keating† Friedland (the younger)† Friedland (the elder)† Webster† Addonizio† Whelan† Bryant† Scarpelli† Zambrano† Lynch†

What do all of these guys have in common? They're all New Jersey Democrats. All ran into legal and/or ethical problems and most were indicted (*) and convicted (†). Yes, 19 of them were convicted and sentenced! And this is just a PARTIAL list. 

New Jersey Democrats & Corruption: Perfect Together! And the people keep electing them! 

Runaway government and entrenched one-party rule have made New Jersey one of the most expensive, highly-taxed, most over-regulated and most corrupt states in the country. We rank right up there at or near the top in all these categories.

To mend our ways, we have to re-establish healthy, vigorous, two-party rule and reduce government at all levels.

We will ever learn? Will we? Ever?