{"id":40802236038,"date":"2012-02-20T12:59:00","date_gmt":"2012-02-20T17:59:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/2012\/02\/20\/new-jerseys-2012-agenda\/"},"modified":"2021-01-25T11:22:05","modified_gmt":"2021-01-25T16:22:05","slug":"new-jerseys-2012-agenda","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/2012\/02\/20\/new-jerseys-2012-agenda\/","title":{"rendered":"New Jersey\u2019s 2012 Agenda"},"content":{"rendered":"

With Governor Chris Christie about to unveil his new budget, it\u2019s a good time to reconcile the agenda items of various players in New Jersey\u2019s policy process.\u00a0 Unfortunately, it appears that very few ledger entries line up.<\/p>\n

The governor\u2019s State of the State address last month laid out his key agenda items for the year.\u00a0\u00a0These include a 10% income tax cut, reform of drug sentencing laws, and education initiatives such as teacher tenure and charter school expansion.\u00a0\u00a0He is also pushing the recommendations of the Barer Report to merge units of the state\u2019s higher education system, including Rutgers, Rowan, and UMDNJ.<\/p>\n

The legislature\u2019s agenda can be found by examining what the Democratic leadership has put on the docket this session. As we all know, same sex marriage was Priority One. Legislative leaders have also been talking about a push for a minimum wage increase and bringing back the so-called millionaires\u2019 tax.<\/p>\n

Hmm.\u00a0\u00a0There appears to be no commonality between the gubernatorial and legislative agendas.\u00a0\u00a0But of course, they are doing this for the good of the New Jersey so some of these items must rank high with the public.\u00a0\u00a0Right?<\/p>\n

Not quite.\u00a0\u00a0The recent\u00a0Monmouth University\/NJ Press Media Poll<\/a><\/em><\/strong>\u00a0asked Garden State residents to name, in their own words, the most pressing issues facing the state.<\/p>\n

\"Chart<\/a>Let\u2019s look at how some of the leaders\u2019 agenda items stack up with the issues that occupy their constituents.<\/p>\n

Same-sex marriage?\u00a0 Only 2% of the public name this as one of the state\u2019s most important concerns.<\/p>\n

Higher education?\u00a0 Just 3% say this needs to top the agenda.<\/p>\n

Drugs and crime?\u00a0 That\u2019s a priority for only 5%.<\/p>\n

How about an income tax cut or the millionaires\u2019 tax \u2013 those have to be important, right?\u00a0 Just 8% of New Jerseyans say changes to the state\u2019s income tax needs to be on the front burner.<\/p>\n

Public schools?\u00a0 Well, this one is a little higher at 20%, although it\u2019s not clear that the governor\u2019s specific agenda items are what these concerned residents have in mind.<\/p>\n

So, what does top the public agenda here in New Jersey?\u00a0 What are the burning issues that Garden State residents want their elected leaders to tackle?<\/p>\n

It\u2019s no contest:\u00a0 Property Taxes and Jobs.\u00a0 Each was mentioned by a whopping 42% of those polled!\u00a0 And this was off the top of their heads, mind you \u2013 the poll didn\u2019t provide choices.<\/p>\n

To be fair, both the governor and legislature claim they have introduced proposals meant to spur job growth, although the comprehensiveness of any jobs plan is not apparent.<\/p>\n

The disappearance of property taxes from the leadership agenda, though, is truly curious.\u00a0 After pushing for a toolkit of reforms in his first two years in office, the governor seems to have declared Mission Accomplished.<\/p>\n

The Democrats have caught on to that and are trying to tag Governor Christie with dropping the ball.\u00a0 But that is all they have done.\u00a0 The legislature has a whole raft of property tax legislation from prior years \u2013 including from the ill-fated 2006 special session \u2013 that they appear to have absolutely no intention of moving through the legislature.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve paid close attention to the rhetoric out of Trenton over the past few weeks, you\u2019ll notice that both Republicans and Democrats have ramped up the \u201cProperty Taxes & Jobs\u201d mantra in their public statements.\u00a0 At least they now recognize they can\u2019t escape the public\u2019s demand for action on these issues.<\/p>\n

The question is whether they will put any meat on those bones by enacting an agenda in line with these goals.\u00a0 Or will there continue to be a disconnect between Trenton\u2019s agenda and the rest of New Jersey?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

With Governor Chris Christie about to unveil his new budget, it\u2019s a good time to reconcile the agenda items of various players in New Jersey\u2019s policy process.\u00a0 Unfortunately, it appears that very few ledger entries line up. The governor\u2019s State of the State address last month laid out his key agenda items for the year.\u00a0\u00a0These […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":939,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-40802236038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40802236038","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/939"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40802236038"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40802236038\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40802244222,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40802236038\/revisions\/40802244222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40802236038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40802236038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.monmouth.edu\/polling-institute\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40802236038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}