Why New Jersey keeps losing family members and friends

There is probably no one left here in New Jersey that hasn’t had a close friend or family member move out of this state.

We are consistently No. 1 for outward moves every year.

I have a brother in North Carolina, and my nieces and nephews are there as well. My middle son has been in Charlotte for the past seven years. And now my oldest son just moved to Florida. So, this is not just matter of statistics; it’s personal.

Photo by Denys Kostyuchenko on Unsplash

My son‘s been in Florida for a little over a week and he said the difference is instantly noticeable. You can start a business, operate a business, and make a business successful without all of the burdensome regulations and taxes that you would find here in New Jersey.

So many other states make it much easier for people to survive and flourish. In the part of Florida he’s moving to, the property taxes are 1/10th of what they are here in New Jersey.

Photo by Tessa Edmiston on Unsplash

This one hurts more because he and his wife have two little girls. Not being able to see my granddaughters every week is a tough pill to swallow. The high taxes and overreach of government is not just some political talking point for many of us. It has real-life and personal consequences.

When Phil Murphy said "If taxes are your number one issue, then maybe this is not your state," that still stings like a gut punch. Easy to say for someone who pays $180,000 a year in property taxes, and it doesn’t even make it dent in his massive fortune. Easy to say for a carpet-bagging aristocrat from Massachusetts.

(Rich Hundley III/Governor’s Office)

Well, he’ll be out of office in a little more than a year, and I wonder if he’ll take his fortune and move elsewhere.

Probably.

He’s gotten his use out of us and he will probably move on. Or maybe he’ll just use that Middletown mansion on the Navesink River as his summer home.

If it seems like I’m taking my personal grief out on Phil Murphy, I am.

Not only him but all of the other jackals in the Legislature who over the past 40 years have made it nearly impossible for middle-class families to hang on, stay together and live here in New Jersey.

A pox on all of their houses!