I know that my friends living across the nation are thinking, “Wait – you guys are getting upset over people making more than $75,000 having their property tax rebates cut? Shut up!” Look, I understand that mindset and if this was going on in any other part of the nation, I might agree with you. But New Jersey is the most expensive state in the union! Property taxes in most of the state are between $7,000 and $10,000 each year. Each year! Most New Jerseyans wouldn’t mind paying so much in property taxes if the level of services that were received for the expense matched. However, in New Jersey most property tax revenues are shoveled into Newark and Camden and any other number of these so-called “underserved” Abbott school districts. Let me tell you something. I’ve toured many of the schools in these Abbott districts as well as many of the schools in the regular school districts. Trust me, the kids in the Abbott districts have a much better learning environment than their suburban counterparts. It’s bull.

Some thoughts from a posting on the Daily Record website:

Corzine struck a sober tone in his fourth budget address, saying tough choices are necessary now to ensure New Jersey emerges strong when the global recession lifts. He also reminded the Legislature of reckless spending in the past, saying years of irresponsible spending contributed to the state’s dire fiscal circumstances this year.

“You can’t correct 15 or 20 years of bad decisions in 38 months,” Corzine said. “The steps we’ve taken have put our state’s finances on more solid ground.”

What a sorry SOB this guy is. How out of touch with reality must one man be to say, “Hey, the last 15 years were a disaster,” when he operated the state for 3 of those 15 years!? Come on! When does reality sink in? When do the masses in Essex and Camden county finally stop and say “WAIT! Enough! We’re NOT voting for the New Jersey Democrats any more!”

I’m not advocating for everyone to vote for the Republicans (except for Chris Christie – see below), but damn it – STOP voting for these ridiculous Democrats who have no idea what it’s like to try to survive in this state. Vote for the Libertarians or the Constitution Party – vote for someone other than the Democrats already! They’ve ruined this state and they’re not going to stop.

And Governor Money Bags’ budget gets better… If you make more than $500,000, you could have your taxes raised this year only as a way to raise more funds for the state treasury. So if you were making all of this money, why wouldn’t you find a way to be listed as a Pennsylvania resident for this tax year? What stupid, stupid idea from this idiot governor.

Governor Money Bags also wants to money to hospitals and small towns (which are proven to be operated more efficiently and in a more cost-effective manner than their larger counterparts). Good grief! The next thing you know he’s going to start taxing the shore towns for how much sand is in their jurisdiction! Maybe he can go to an old folks home and tax them for each gray hair they have on their heads, too!

This man needs to be stopped as soon as possible. Chris Christie MUST win the upcoming gubernatorial election or this state is going to continue its out of control spiral towards being an unhealthy place for middle Americans to live, work, and retire.

But one thing bothers the hell out of me and that’s when credit card companies try to hoodwink students into signing up for their product. Sure, this falls into the parameters of learning about the rules of the game, but it’s cheap. The New York Times covered this last Friday in an article entitled, “Colleges Profit as Banks Market Credit Cards to Students.”

If you clicked over to see the article, then I’m sure you noticed the Bank of America table set up at Michigan State University. Anyone who has been to college has seen a similar setup on their campuses – you have a perky representative behind the table enticing students who are walking by to sign-up for their credit card and in return you get a free t-shirt, a gigantic discount at the bookstore, or some other not-really-needed benefit. When I was in college I once signed up for a credit card because they were giving away free t-shirts…which were two sizes too small for me to wear.

Hundreds of colleges have contracts with lenders. But at a time of rising concern about student debt — and overall consumer debt — the arrangements have sounded alarm bells, and some student groups are starting to push back.

The relationships are reminiscent of those uncovered two years ago between student loan companies and universities. In those, some lenders offered universities an incentive to steer potential borrowers their way.

Here at Michigan State, the editors of the student newspaper wrote this fall that “it doesn’t take a giant leap for someone to ask why the university should encourage responsible spending when it receives a cut of every purchase.”

Good for the student newspaper at Michigan State! Keep probing the issue and asking those questions. For example, if Michigan State has this credit card arrangement with Bank of America whereby it profits when students use credit cards (responsibly or not), then with which organization does the university have a contract to teach students how to use credit responsibly? And what are the metrics for either program? In other words, how much has the university generated from its Bank of America relationship versus how much it has spent on teaching its students how to be responsible economic citizens? I’m sure that with Michigan State being a public university that the students can do some digging and find some of this information. The Times article gives this information:

Michigan State University gets $1.2 million a year but is guaranteed at least $8.4 million over seven years, according to its agreement. The contract calls for a $1 royalty to the university for every new card account that remains open for at least 90 days, $3 for every card whose holder pays an annual fee, and a payment of a half percent of the amount of all retail purchases using the cards.

My guess is that the university has no formal relationship to spend any of those millions of dollars on financial education for its students. What a shame? This stuff bothers me because no matter how level-headed you think a college student might be, there is a greater likelihood of them getting into severe credit card debt because of programs like the one above. When I was in college I rang up some $13,000 in credit card debt before I had to have my Mother bail me out (thanks, Mom ). It was a costly learning experience for me – though I must admit that I’m much better off financially now then I’ve ever been and it is due, in part, to having racked up such a ridiculous credit card debt while in college.

Oh, and how many times can I quote stories from the New York Times? Geez! For their part, the Times has a series called “The Debt Trap” where they look at the relationship between increased consumer spending and the lenders providing the dollars for that relationship. It’s interesting – go take a look!