Paterson Plummets In Ratings

James Bradshaw emailed to note that Gov. David Paterson's ratings have plummeted ever since he first proposed taxing everything from carbonated beverages to iPod music downloads. His rating was at 51% in December. It now stands at 26%, which is among the lowest for a New York governor since polling data was first collected.

It isn't the sole reason, but it cannot be a coincidence.

Does this bode poorly for other politicians who think that raising taxes is the answer?

I'm not so sure. Look around New Jersey today and you'll see that municipality after municipality is raising property taxes, some by more than 10%. Most exceed the property tax caps that Governor Corzine said would contain property tax rates.

Most North Jersey towns increased their tax revenue by more than 4 percent last year — blowing past a state-imposed cap designed to slow the growth of the nation's highest property taxes.

In Bergen County, 21 percent of the towns kept their tax levy increase at or below 4 percent. In Passaic County, 19 percent met the mandate, designated by Governor Corzine. Towns were granted waivers to exceed the cap for costs deemed out of their control, such as decreases in state aid and increased health care costs.

But residential property tax bills did not rise as quickly as they had in recent years, increasing statewide by an average of 3.7 percent in 2008. Still, homeowners reached an unwelcome level for the first time: Average tax bills topped $7,000 in 2008, data released by the state Department of Community Affairs show.

For strapped homeowners, joy over a smaller increase in 2008 is "tempered by the realities of the circumstances," said Jerry Cantrell, president of the New Jersey Taxpayers Association.

They claim that they have no choice because they're losing state aid and must make up for shortfalls in their own budgets.

Looking closer, and these local politicians face few options because the state is cutting education funding, and the localities have to make up for any shortfall.

While Corzine claims that education funding has been increased, Bergen County school districts got hammered. Many saw their funding cut, some by as much as 10%.

Consider that in Fair Lawn, the education budget was cut by nearly 10% from $70.8 million to $63.1 million. Similar cuts were felt by other localities in Bergen. Yet Lodi saw an increase of $6.5 million? The full state breakdown is here.

This is redistribution of existing tax dollars, and given that the entire state is hurting, the most sensible thing to have done was to retain last year's education budget or to decrease funding across the board by an equal percentage, rather than this arbitrary and capricious method that harms many school districts for no good reason other than they're more affluent than others. Corzine redistributes the money in the name of improving underperforming districts (many of those who have received hundreds of millions more in extra state aid as Abbott Districts over the years) and which have not seen performance improve despite all the extra money. He expands the state aid being disbursed to even more districts, but that comes at the expense of those districts are are doing exceedingly well. Where is the logic in that?

If there is one politician whose ratings deserve to be even lower than Paterson, it is Corzine.