Put an end to tax reform shenanigans.
Voters will be asked to weigh in on three statewide issues on Nov. 7. Two deserve voter support; the other does not.
One public questions seeks to set the amount of sales tax collected to be used for property-tax reform; another would use excess business tax to fund open space improvements; the third question would dedicate an additional cent-and-half of gasoline tax to transportation improvements.
All of these questions are signs of the state’s budgeting problems after all, wasn’t the whole point of the sales tax to provide property-tax support by funding education and the fuel tax to fund the transportation infrastructure?
But through years of mismanagement and neglect, we’re at the point where much of the money is siphoned off to go to other priorities in the state budget, and so we must constitutionally mandate these funds go to their intended uses.
If we’re to see any meaningful reform of state revenues, shenanigans such as this must end and voters should tell the state we expect them to use dedicated taxes for the purposes stated.
Which is why the sales-tax and gasoline-tax measures deserve voters’ support and the business-tax measure should be forcefully rejected.
The plan to use the "excess" of corporate business tax funds dedicated to environmental cleanup to pay for park and recreational site improvements is exactly the kind of fiduciary funny business that has gotten New Jersey to the point it’s in.
Knowing voters like to support parks and recreation, this question would shift money Trenton currently must review and approve each year to a source already dedicated. This, then, reduces the commitment from general revenues and allows officials to spend more on things voters would likely not support (staff and pensions, for example).
But saying the money would come from "excess" funds certainly suggests either the state can’t find any more sites needing environmental cleanup which is laughable or just possibly that the tax rate is too high.
Either way, simply changing the definitions of what the environmental spending can include doesn’t add up to sound budgeting for the state.

