Friday Facts and Figures is a weekly newsletter with data points, analysis, and commentary on the biggest policy debates in New Jersey and beyond.
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$1 Billion
New Jersey is projected to collect $1 billion less revenue through the end of the next fiscal year than the Murphy administration is forecasting, according to the non-partisan Office of Legislative Services. These projections mirror those in other states showing strong revenue collections from the last few years were temporary, highlighting the need for states to be strengthening their tax bases — not cutting taxes for big, multinational corporations as Governor Murphy proposed in his budget. This $1 billion drop in revenue is also the same amount of revenue New Jersey would lose every year by cutting the corporate tax rate — go figure! [NJ Spotlight News / John Reitmeyer]
$10 Trillion
On the federal level, a new report finds that tax cuts for wealthy individuals and profitable corporations — not spending increases — are primarily responsible for federal debt. Since 2001, the Bush tax cuts and Trump tax cuts added $10 trillion to the federal debt, and without these tax cuts, revenues would be on track to keep pace with spending indefinitely. Remember this the next time business lobbyists (or the “think tanks” they fund) say that cutting taxes for corporations will lead to more tax revenue. [Center for American Progress / Bobby Kogan]
3
Earlier this week, lawmakers in both chambers passed legislation to increase caps on campaign donations, limit investigations of campaigns, and gut local pay-to-play ordinances — a bill ironically named the Election Transparency Act. In response to the bill’s passing, all three commissioners of the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission (ELEC) resigned in protest, saying the legislation would take away the agency’s independence and remove its ability to enforce campaign finance laws. “If this bill passes, the biggest donors, the biggest business interests are going to have even more control over what is going on in our daily lives,” said Arati Kreibich, Director of Democracy Organizing at the New Jersey Working Families Alliance. [NJ Monitor / Nikita Biryukov]
225,000
New Jersey is short 225,000 affordable housing units, according to a new report by the National Low Income Housing Coalition. The report found that for every 100 extremely low-income renters in the state, there are only 31 affordable apartments available to them. This problem is exacerbated by skyrocketing rent prices, which have increased more than 20 percent in most counties since the start of the pandemic. “There’s been more investment than ever before to create the affordable homes our state needs,” said Staci Berger, president and CEO of the Housing and Community Development Network of New Jersey. “Now is not the time to take our foot off the gas pedal.” [NJ.com / Camille Furst]
ICYMI
In a new op-ed in The Star-Ledger, a Bergen County teacher highlights how the mass exodus of teachers — not ChatGPT and AI — is one of the biggest threats to public education. Citing an NJPP report on the state’s teacher shortage, Ahlam Yassin highlights how the number of teacher candidates graduating from New Jersey colleges is less than half of what it was a few years ago. [NJ.com / Ahlam Yassin]
Pets of NJPP
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