America's Best Governor Wants to Starve the Beast

Chris Christie of New Jersey has done a remarkable job so far, but his biggest battles are still ahead of him. A key fight is whether the state will impose a cap on property taxes. As the Wall Street Journal opines, this reform has worked very well in Massachusetts and is critical to curtailiing the greed of government employee unions in the Garden State.

The Governor wants to cap annual property tax increases at 2.5%, on the model of the successful cap that Massachusetts imposed in 1980. Over the next 27 years, property taxes in the Bay State rose 22% compared to 68% nationwide and 102% in New Jersey. The cap is crucial to preventing local Garden State school districts, which are dominated by teachers unions, from raising taxes and thus defeating whatever spending restraint Mr. Christie can impose on Trenton. The unions know this, which is why they've spent some $7 million in TV ads portraying Mr. Christie as the scourge of police, firefighters and children. The Governor's approval rating has held up well despite the onslaught, which may reflect that voters understand the state's new fiscal reality. New Jersey's property taxes and its overall state and local tax burden are the nation's highest, and the state hasn't created a single net new private job in a decade. Democrats who run the state legislature have counter-offered with a 2.9% cap, but with so many spending exceptions that it's more fig leaf than cap. Their bill would allow lawmakers to raise property taxes above the cap to pay for pensions, health care and utility costs and, here's the kicker, even in order to promote the health, safety or welfare of the municipality. ...This showdown is worth watching because Mr. Christie has shown admirable political grit so far, and success in New Jersey would bolster the nerve of other reform governors. One temptation for Mr. Christie would be to settle for too little reform when his political capital is at its highest, which was Arnold Schwarzenegger's original mistake in California. ...Mr. Christie's best reform opportunity is now, and taxpayers everywhere should hope he succeeds.