About the Campaign
Who We Are
Better Choices for New Jersey represents more than 65 organizations -- environmental, housing, labor, health, education and community groups -- across New Jersey that so far have endorsed the campaign’s call for investing in New Jersey’s future. See them all listed to the left.
Our Principles
Better Choices for New Jersey is based on these principles:
We need a balanced approach to New Jersey’s fiscal crisis instead of simply relying on short-sighted cuts to services working families rely on.
Our state’s fiscal crisis is the result of the global recession as well as years of irresponsible and short-sighted decisions in Trenton. Rather than raising revenue to meet New Jersey’s needs, politicians engaged in years of A.I.G. style accounting, irresponsible income tax cuts, cost-shifting to local governments and excessive borrowing. As a result, New Jersey relies too heavily on local property taxes, takes too much from working families and is failing to generate enough income to provide essential services and invest in our future. Now we face the greatest economic crisis since the Great Depression, and just as the needs of working families are rising the state has even fewer resources to meet them.
The current crisis is too severe to be addressed with only one approach. We can’t cut our way out of a multi-billion dollar budget gap without compromising the very services that working families rely on in difficult times. The truth is that we have crying needs that must be met if we are to maintain the quality of life New Jerseyans expect and deserve—and to make this a state of opportunity for all. We need to maintain adequate funding to repair crumbling bridges and highways; to keep classes small and high-quality education accessible to all; to preserve open space and invest in clean energy; for safe, affordable housing and revitalized cities; to upgrade mass transit and increase mobility; and to provide quality, affordable health care for all New Jerseyans. These are the investments essential to protect working families in the present and promote economic growth in the future.
We can afford to protect vital services and invest in our state’s future. New Jersey has the third highest percentage of millionaires of all fifty states. We’re second in median household income. While local property taxes are untenably high as a result of cost-shifting to local governments, New Jersey ranks 36th in state government tax revenue as percentage of income. We can make better choices that protect and strengthen New Jersey.
We can address our fiscal crisis and ensure a better future with a balanced approach of responsible revenue measures and common sense savings. New Jersey needs a state and local revenue system that is adequate to protect services and invest in our future. The revenue burden must be shared broadly and fairly, based on ability to pay. In addition, we can save millions and make our neighborhoods safer by updating ineffective practices in the criminal justice system; by negotiating lower drug prices for our health care programs; by ending tax breaks and subsidies to corporations that still lay people off or leave New Jersey when some other place gives them a higher offer. By making better choices today, we can make sure working families get the help they need in tough times and lay the foundation for a shared recovery. We can make better choices. We can’t afford not to.