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(Editor’s Note: Greg Bean is taking a temporary sabbatical from writing his column due to the death of his son. This column was originally printed Oct. 24, 2007).
There was an interesting poll released last week that found 49 percent of the people in New Jersey would like to leave the state and move someplace where they can afford to live.
The Monmouth University/Gannett New Jersey pollsters said that of those who responded, 51 percent are serious enough to make good on their desire, which means the population drain we’ve seen in the last few years is going to continue. Last year alone, The Associated Press reports that 72,547 people left New Jersey for more affordable pastures, and that 231,565 more left between 2002 and 2006.
This is not necessarily a wonderful thing, since those absent people represent $680 million in lost tax revenue last year, according to the AP, which those of us left behind have to pay.
Lord knows state and local budgets haven’t gone down accordingly. Even with fewer people to serve, those budgets have grown like kudzu and are going to keep rising. Somebody is going to have to make up the big budget deficit predicted by the numbers guys in Trenton for next year, and the only place you’ll ever hear a local government announce a substantial property tax decrease is in your dreams at the hospital, if you happen to be hooked to a morphine drip at the time.
This is one of those deals where we hardly need a poll to tell us what we already know. If you’re a working stiff like I am, all you have to do is look at your paycheck and the bite they take out for state income tax, then look at your annual property tax bill, and your home and auto insurance bills, and your gasoline bill and your heating bill, to know things are seriously screwed up around here. And you probably don’t need a calculator to tell you that once you stop working and retire, it will be nearly impossible to keep up with those ever-increasing expenses.
Say you might want to keep living in my community of East Brunswick after you retire— and in addition to a modest pension and a modest 401K or other individual retirement account, you’re planning on Social Security to make up the difference.
Trouble is, even if Social Security is still around, the increases in benefits don’t come close to matching national cost-of-living increases, which are usually around 3 percent per year, give or take half a percent.
Next year, Social Security recipients can expect a 2.3 percent increase, the smallest annual increase in four years. Meanwhile, every other expense is predicted to go up, including Medicare, which plans a 3.1 percent premium hike in 2008.
And forget trying to keep up with the local tax bills. In 2006-07, the school tax burden in my town rose 31 cents per $100 of valuation. That followed a 28-cent increase in 2005-06, a 25-cent increase in 2004-05, a 31-cent increase in 2003-04 and a 31-cent increase in 2002-03.
With municipal taxes included, that means local tax increases of around 6 percent per year (give or take a percent), and with the absolute lack of action from our lawmakers when it comes to property tax reform, nobody expects that to change anytime soon.
Try keeping up with that whirlwind of spending on a fixed budget and a piddling increase in your Social Security check, and you understand why so many people are looking for a way out. And it isn’t just seniors, or residents of East Brunswick. How many young people do you know who can actually afford to live in the towns they grew up in? How many single-income, or even double-income households do you know of where folks are making ends meet by taking second mortgages and running up the balance on their credit cards?
No wonder nearly half of us would like to go somewhere else, somewhere where we might get ahead a little every year, instead of falling behind. And let me tell you this: when the 50 percent of us who are left find out we still have to pay 100 percent of the tax bills at the state and local levels, we’ll be looking for the door as well.
So if you happen to be the last person living in New Jersey after the rest of us hit the road, please pay that stack of bills the mailman just dropped off. Don’t forget to turn out the lights, but don’t bother locking the door. • • • Iremember the day when my middle son was about 2 years old and my grandmother came to visit. When she asked him how he was, he opened his mouth, but instead of an innocent and child-appropriate response, he let forth with the most vile string of expletives you’ve ever heard, including the F-bomb, which he dropped about a half-dozen times.
When Grandma could breathe again, she asked him where he’d learned such hideously profane language.
"From Daddy," he said proudly. "He was working on the plumbing."
While giving me a look over the rims of her glasses that could cut diamonds, she explained to him that those weren’t the sort of words nice boys used. Those were words daddies sometimes used, but only when they were working on the plumbing.
"OK," he said, and that was that. He never used those words around Grandma again, and besides a lecture from the old gal, I escaped punishment for my bad judgment.
Good thing police Patrolman Patrick Gilman of Scranton, Pa., wasn’t around to hear me, or I might have wound up in jail.
Last week, as reported in a story by the Scranton Times-Tribune, Gilman was walking by the open window of an apartment and heard Dawn Herb’s voice coming from inside. Herb, it seems, was cursing a backed-up toilet and using fairly colorful language to do it.
He hollered through the window for her to tone it down. She (not knowing he was a cop) yelled back at him to mind his own @#$%&*# business. He filed a complaint. Herb got a summons for disorderly conduct and could face a fine of $300 and 90 days in jail upon conviction. Herb was scheduled to go to court on the charge last week (represented by the American Civil Liberties Union), but I didn’t know the outcome as I was writing this column.
I will tell you this, however. If it’s come to the point in this country where you can get arrested for cussing a backed-up toilet or a leaking faucet in your own home, there are about 300 million guys (and ladies) like me who are in deep, deep … .
Oops, better not say that. I can’t afford 90 days in the slam.
Gregory Bean is executive editor of Greater Media Newspapers. You can reach him at [email protected].