( - promoted by Thurman Hart)
The first time I ever heard of Frank "Pupie" Raia, I was trying to help Carol Marsh in Hoboken. I thought it was kind of odd that a grown man would walk around calling himself "poopie", but I have a great uncle named "Pleasant" and my grandfather had twin cousins named "Gainer" and "Gaither" - so who am I to talk? Anyway, the Poop-ster sent me this mailer a couple of days ago:
As you can tell, it is designed specifically to appeal to the overtaxed New Jerseyan who has no clue what county government does. But think about this for just a moment: What is a "per person per household" tax?
County property taxes are not assessed per capita, but per unit of value of constructed buildings. My share of the county tax burden will increase by the same amount no matter if I live alone or with fifteen other people. Simply put - it is an outright lie to say that any county tax hike will increase taxes by any amount per person per household. It just doesn't work that way. You could say "an average household" will face a tax increase of whatever - but that isn't what good old Poopie is saying.
The taxes my wife and I pay didn't go up when we had the twins and, if we have another (or ten!), that will be immaterial to the calculation of our taxes. I'm going to inflict some math on you after the jump, because I'm going to show you what a liar Poopie old Frank Raia is. |
Now, budgetary information in Hudson County is not easy to come by. But I found a "Political Insider" column that gives some broad figures: The howls you hear are from Hoboken, and to some extent Jersey City. They pay the lion's share of the tax levy, with Hoboken having to pay somewhere around $3.9 million and Jersey City saddled with about a $4.2 million tab.
Let's see, according to my calculator, $4.2 million divided into $335 (the amount of the per capita tax Raia says we'll face) is 12,537 and some change. Uh - there's a LOT more people in Jersey City than that. It's actually in the neighborhood of a quarter million (give or take), and, if each household is comprised of three people on average, then we'd have 83,333 households.
So just what the heck is Raia talking about?
Well, you should see the other side of his mailer:
$34 million in additional taxes? Refering back to the "Insider", the entire county pays an assessment of slightly less than $12 million - TOTAL. The entire county budget is $431.1 million, which is a 5.1 percent increase. If I remember my high school algebra right - last year's budget would be somewhere around $411 million. That means the entire increase in the county budget is about $20 million. If I remember my third grade goes-intas and goes-outas right, that means that Raia is claiming a $14 million excess tax hike on Jersey City above the entire tax hike for the entire county!
Now, I have to be fair to Raia - the Jersey Journal numbers weren't set in stone. So it's possible that the tax assessment on Jersey City will increase even more than the article says it will. But Raia is either lying through his teeth or just plain ignorant if he is saying that the entire additional spending will be paid for by Jersey City. Even in Hudson County, it just doesn't work that way.
Maybe that's why Raia is the only candidate to speak out against this tax hike. He's the only one that knows what the hell he is talking about.
It's the parting shot that exposes Raia for pure grandstanding, though (as if it weren't clear enough).
Frank Raia will vote against all attempts to raise your taxes...
Well, that's just stupid, Frank. I'd like to pay less tax, just as much as the next guy. But you have no way of knowing what this term in office will bring. It's stupid to give a knee-jerk condemnation of future taxes when you can't even figure out what's going on now.
I don't know who I'll be voting for in the Freeholder slot, but it sure as hell won't be Frank Raia. Sending out a mailer like this is just screaming that he is running for a job he doesn't understand. Or he's just lying. Either way, he doesn't deserve to be Freeholder. |
