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HappySqurriel on 26 September 2010
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numonex said:
mrstickball said:
HappySqurriel said:
numonex said:

Aggressive cuts to health, education, public service job cuts. Tories increase taxes on the lower and middle income classes who pay for the rich and business tax breaks and concessions. Republican Tea Party = cynical politics driven economic ideologue stooges. Chris Christies is a conservative stooge with a bitter cold axe to grind against the low to middle class. Tories/Republicans only serve the rich corporate elites and powerful interest groups driven by neo-liberal ideology as free market fundamentalism. 

Tories shaft the young, poor and working classes to please the business/firm owners and rich elites. Republicans are right wing extremists pushing their politics to comply with their Victorian 19th century conservative Christian views on society. Tories encourage wage freezes or wage reductions on lower classes to increase the bottom line for the rich business/firm owners.

So, being that New Jersey already had one of the highest tax rates in the country and had the largest debt and deficit in the country, where should they have gotten the money from to balance the budget?

Increasing taxes on the wealthy will only result in the wealthy increasing their gross income, avoiding taxes through loopholes, passing on the costs, or moving out of the region (capital flight); increasing taxes on businesses will only result in New Jersey being at a competitive disadvantage, and businesses (and jobs) leaving the region to more business friendly regions; increasing taxes on the middle class will only result in decreased economic activity as people can afford to buy less or leave the state.

This leaves cutting spending ... From my understanding of American State finances, the vast majority of spending is on education and social spending; and this means that education and social spending need to see significant cuts.

 

You might want to maintain your belief that this government spending translates to increased economic activity which justifies the spending, but the current position of states like California and New Jersey would indicate the opposite.

Don't forget that NJ has one of the worst business climates due to taxes already. Raising more taxes would see few returns due to flight, as you said.

Most of the jobs are outsourced overseas to cheap labour markets these days to  help these multinational business owners to make bigger profits. There are huge costs associated with international free market economics which has resulted in high rates of unemployment in developed nations and the rise of the developing nations. Weak or no unions in America and higher rates of unemployment and underemployment. High rates of unemployment due to companies outsourcing jobs overseas and flooding market with cheap labour. More tax payers are needed to contribute towards the New Jersey economy. 

Fox News and Republicans will tell you  that the Democrats are Socialists/Communists and the Republicans are the good white knight who will save the day. Chris Christie does not have a chance at becoming the next President of the US. Fox News and the American people are already sick of Obama. Obama came with lots of hype and hope in 2008 but his popularity has fallen dramatically over two years. I have a feeling that  Sarah Palin will be elected the Republican Party's candidate for the 2012 Presidential election. Sarah Palin as President of America is a very scary proposition.  

You're making a very large (and false) assumption that all jobs that are moved are low-skilled manufacturing or telephone-support positions. Quite often the jobs that are moved are the highly skilled jobs within the corporate headquarters that are located in a region because that is the most effective way to change the corporate taxes you pay. Typically this is done by "building up" a regional office in a lower cost area while laying off individuals in a higher cost area until the regional branch is established enough to act as the corporate headquarters. If you want to see an example of this, look at Canada and focus on the growth in the number of corporate headquarters located in Calgary. A city with a population in its greater metropolitan area that is an order of magnitude less than many others in Canada (and North America in general) is one of the primary places in North America to locate your corporate headquarters.

With that said, you still haven't explained what you would have done to balance the budget ...

 

On the topic of who will be the presidential candidate in 2012, I really don't think we're in a position to make an accurate prediction right now. The results of the mid-term elections and how the government and a variety of politicians perform in 2011 will likely determine who will be the candidate for 2012. I wouldn't be surprised if Sarah Palin runs, and I wouldn't be surprised if she does fairly well early on due to vote-splitting, but as more candidates drop out she will likely fall behind quite quickly.