During the past four years, property taxes in New Jersey have increased by more than 30 percent.

According to the Asbury Park Press, New Jersey families are pulling up roots and fleeing the Garden State because of its oppressive property tax system. According to the Census Bureau, almost 60,000 more people left New Jersey for another state last year than moved to New Jersey.

The problem isn’t only in New Jersey. Most other states and nations share the same fate. The squeeze on taxpayers is not a revenue problem; it's a spending problem.

They're elected but fly below the radar of public scrutiny," says director of the Canadian Federation of Taxpayers.
Sara MacIntyre. "The entire culture at the local level needs to change."

The public budgeting process, lets local politicians create a "wish list" of capital projects and then calculate the tax rate to meet the costs.

Imbedded politicos value its privileges above its principles. Politicians need to begin judgement on cleaning up government first, they need to hold public service jobs accountable to norm reflected in private industry. They need to stamp out legislation that ends early retirements, expensive health care plans for public employees as well as excessive pay packages. The new politician needs to ease the tax burden by relying more on private-sector partnerships and user-pay services.

A revamping of the political landscape is essential. Party bosses that rubber stamp the embedded public service sector must be voted out of office; eliminate their stain and strain on taxpayers.

Perhaps a new independent political party needs to be rooted. It starts with grass roots meeting. A later reality is that political action group needs a wealthy individual or group of like minded patrons of public accountability to prime the financial pump.

Influencing the media and running an effective campaign is a costly exercise – and the chickens that lay the golden eggs need to win. Otherwise average working families will slowly realize that their state is too expensive to live, retire and die in and be forced out.

Property taxes and sales taxes are regressive. They affect the poor and middle class much more than the wealthy. Sales taxes are extremely regressive to the poor and middle class. The obvious way to cut taxes is to reduce government size and mandate entitlements to reflect private industry norms.