It is with happiness and regret that I inform you that I have escaped from New Jersey to Texas. I still have a lot of friends in NJ and I will miss them. However, the people in Texas have been very welcoming.
For a long time I have felt that conservative politics in New Jersey is a lost cause. We fought the good fight for a long time and look what we got. No matter what we tried they wouldn’t listen. The uniparty just controlled too much. I am afraid that nothing will change in New Jersey until the place is bankrupt and goes up in flames.
For the last two years I have been literally traveling the country in my motor home. I spent a good deal of time in Arkansas, Texas, and North Carolina. What a difference. Yes, there are problems but it’s nothing like you’ve got in the Northeast. I thought about this for a long time and I want to spend my remaining time (I’m almost 80) someplace more inviting. So, Hondo, Texas, here I come.
I wish you all the best of luck and I really hope that you will be successful in your quest to make things better. I will continue to subscribe to this great newsletter and will pray for you frequently. Good luck!
People of God, MANY of whom are conservatives who I number among my best friends, are leaving in droves, or at least contemplating it. Many of us were born and raised in NJ, and have worked to right the political ship here for many years.
Some of us just try to vote for righteous candidates and advocate quietly for Godly principles in our governance. Others have worked together to speak with a louder voice. We contact legislators, campaign for and fund candidates who will truly work for the People, and testify in Trenton.
No one in Trenton wants to hear us. And so we are forced to leave, or at least consider it. Family and good friends hold us back.
We understand how completely broken NJ is. NO ONE, of either party, seems either willing or able to fix it, but to rather drive us further off the cliff with each passing day. Since January, the new Legislature is outdoing itself in passing the worst kind of legislation that is usually reserved for Lame-Duck, when they think People aren’t paying attention.
NJ is in the unenviable position of competing with California, Connecticut, and New York for having both the highest taxes and the highest exit rate. The State budget has grown from $35.5 billion in 2017 under Gov. Christie to $54.3 billion in 2023 under Governor Murphy, with a statement that, “This is a budget focused on the pocketbooks of our families.” Allied Van Lines routinely places us among the top three states for residents leaving. And when People leave, they take their taxable assets with them.
During Lame Duck Session this December, the Legislature passed a bill, that in 2026, will increase Legislators’ salaries from $49,000 to $82,000 – a whopping 67% raise. Not bad for a part time job. Maybe we wouldn’t care so much if the People weren’t being raped and pillaged for the privilege. Clearly, the idea of “public service” has died in NJ. According to NJ.com,
The measure (A5910) will also increase the salary for the state’s governor from $175,000 to $210,000, a 20% increase, starting the same year. That means it would apply to future governors, not Murphy, who is set to leave office in January of that year.
Meanwhile, there are immediate raises for the governor’s cabinet members and legislative staffers, as well as a cost-of-living extension for state judges.
The increases will cost state taxpayers $3.1 million in 2024 and 2025 and then $9.6 million in 2026 and $12.4 million in 2027, according to a fiscal estimate from the nonpartisan state Office of Legislative Services.
Additionally, the Governor and Legislature HAVE:
–Renewed a new round of Affordable Housing, that continues to violate any semblance of local control, over-crowd our communities, and stress local services, including education.
–Removed almost all the conservatives from the State Board of Education and replaced them with Progressive idealogues. They are indoctrinating our children with Marxist ideology and aberrant sexuality, against our religious principals and First Amendment rights. As reported in the NY Times 30 years ago, Marxism first invaded our universities, and then our public schools, in cooperation with the NEA and the NJEA teachers’ unions. The Governor, Legislature, and unions are intent on destroying religious and Constitutional protections for parental rights, including allowing children, at the age of 14, to consent to medical and surgical care and mental health counseling without parental knowledge. They have trained our children to be activists, kept us locked down during COVID, and overseen plummeting high school graduation scores, test scores, and school district monitoring scores. They have abysmally failed, over three decades, to improve education in urban areas, while wasting BILLIONS of tax dollars in the process. The NJEA is a HUGE funder of campaign donations for legislators.
–In Jan. 2022, passed the most radical and demonic abortion law in the nation, allowing mothers to kill their babies up until the moment of birth, and have taxpayers “confidentially” fund abortions for victims of human trafficking and those here illegally from ANY state in the nation. It was rammed through during Lame Duck, breaking all the laws, time frames, and its own rules for due deliberation. All in the name of “Women’s Rights”.
–Allowed our state to be over-run with those who have come here illegally, and forced taxpayers to support them by feeding, educating, housing, and providing free medical care for those who flagrantly and defiantly ignore our immigration laws, with the complicity and support of our “elected officials”.
–Supported Progressive tax policies that pit citizens against each other, according to racial and various economic interests groups, and allow those that government designates as “disadvantaged” to take advantage of public largess. This serves to disincentivize those in need to become self-sufficient, while it punishes those who work hard.
–Approved multitudinous election laws that violate the security of our elections, with easily hackable electronic voting machines, insecure Vote by Mail, weeks of voting, ballots without postmarks for two days AFTER the election, NO proof of citizenship requirements, and no personal ID on election day. We’ll see whether a Mercer County lawsuit is successful in addressing the complete failure of tabulators to work on election day in November 2022.
–The Governor has issued decrees that will force us to give up our gas appliances and automobiles and convert to electricity, that cannot be sustained by the energy infrastructure. Even Maine just announced they won’t comply with such dictates.
AND NOW:
–They’re working to gut the OPRA law to remove the access of the citizens to PUBLIC information, including access to election and voter information and access of the Press. Even the Democrats are pushing back against this one.
–A proposed Constitutional Amendment to “protect the environment” would violate all private property laws. To do this, they must lie to the citizens, and tell them they’re PROTECTING their rights, even as they give the State the power to issue edicts to control our property, air, water, flora, fauna, and climate. All while killing whales and creating eyesores off our coast that will eventually become rusting hulks.
–A new bill would support Ranked Choice voting, which is being used across the nation to destroy our election processes.
We could go on, but we don’t want to make Legislators any more proud of how they have, collectively, destroyed this beautiful state. After decades of abuse of their public duty and responsibility, the “chickens are coming home to roost”. Unfortunately, innocent citizens will be hurt by the “crimes against humanity” that have been forced upon them.
Since we’re sending this to members of the Legislature as well as friends, we’ll see whether any of them, under Democrat control since 2001, respond.
Feel free to circulate this to others, and contact your Legislators.