Tom Moran wants to be New Jersey's Donald Trump

Tom Moran runs the editorial section of the Star-Ledger, a small piece of the multi-billion dollar corporate empire that includes Discovery Communications, the company whose lobbyists ensured that they make money off the implementation of Common Core.  Yes, that's the difference between the rich and the rest of us.  We pay money to the government .  The rich pay lobbyists to harness the government so that it pays money to them.  That's who Tom Moran works for.  And that's why he always supports making us pay more taxes to government.

As the chief spokesperson for two of America's richest men, Tom Moran has watched as his newspaper screwed its unionized workers -- replacing them with cheap, out-sourced labor, and part-timers.  Moran's prescriptions come right from the hip, the better to avoid all that messy reasoning, and with the force of a petulant child.

Moran plays the liberal -- to salve the knowledge that he, in fact, speaks for the richest 1% of the 1 percent.  But try as he will, that self-awareness keeps breaking through, which leaves him a touchy, nasty sort.  Disagree with him and he'll write that you are "insane."  Tell him he's mistaken and he'll come back at you with the accusation that you want to kill people.  It's wild stuff, and a bit hypocritical, when you consider all the lives of workers Moran has watched destroyed, silent, so long as he kept getting his.

For years and years, property held by his rich masters benefited from the subsidy redistributed from the working poor in rural and suburban New Jersey.  Disagree with that subsidy and you would be called a "racist."  That's cute, coming from two old, rich white guys.  Moran wrote, and as he wrote, New Jersey has gotten poorer and poorer.  Is there a worst state in America to grow a business, find a job, keep a roof over your family's head, or see that your children don't go hungry?

His latest prescription is to raise taxes on this already over-taxed state -- without any accompanying tax cuts.  On top of a high income tax, the sales tax, and the highest property taxes in America, Tom Moran wants to see higher taxes on workers who commute and a special tax on those high earners who haven't yet been convinced to move outside the state.  The workers -- many underwater with a mortgage or who need the support of an extended family -- they'll have to just take it, because they're too poor to move.  As for the rich.  Well, money spends well everywhere.  Moran should ask the guys he works for and they'll tell him.  Rich people always find a better deal.

And when enough rich people move you will begin to see shortfalls in income tax collections.  Taxes on spending will suffer too -- and then there goes your safety net.  At a time of high unemployment and growing dependency, New Jersey needs high earners to provide the life support that others depend on. 

There is no loyalty to the state of New Jersey in the way there is to the nation of the United States.  Even top members of the political class who structured the high-tax, low-job creation, corporate crony playground that New Jersey is, bolt to low-tax states when they get the chance -- and their pension checks and spending follows them.  Case in point:  Former Democrat Speaker Joe Roberts (D-Norcross).

According to figures provided by the Internal Revenue Service (that's President Barack Obama's IRS) over the last ten years those leaving New Jersey have taken $19 billion more income away with them than the those moving into New Jersey have brought with them.  This is called net outflow -- and a $19 billion net outflow allowed to grow at the same rate, year by year, will in time kill New Jersey's ability to fund a safety net.  Then who will be left to tax?  People who can't afford it, that's who.

Tom Moran can trot out as many career government bureaucrats or career Wall Street bankers as he wants.  It won't lessen the pain of the screwing they're preparing for the people of New Jersey.