The Governor of New Jersey has, apparently, declared war on the Garden’s State’s smallest towns:
MOONACHIE, N.J. — Driving down County Road 503, if you blink, you might miss this borough.
There’s East Rutherford, then Carlstadt, then Moonachie, then — whoosh– faster than the car radio can play the latest hit single, you’re in Little Ferry, the next borough over. That’s four boroughs in one song. You pass through Moonachie during the refrain.
Moonachie is small: about 2,700 residents. That’s smaller than some New York apartment complexes. That’s just one-seventh of the seating capacity of the arena at Madison Square Garden.
That’s too small, says New Jersey Gov. Jon S. Corzine (D).
Corzine, who presided over mergers and acquisitions as chairman of Goldman Sachs, is telling hundreds of New Jersey’s smallest towns and boroughs that they are too small to exist. Multiple layers of government are financially wasteful, he says, and the littlest towns and boroughs need to merge with their bigger neighbors to achieve economies of scale.
Corzine’s incentive — more like a hammer — is a threatened cutoff of state aid. Under the governor’s proposed budget, the state’s 323 towns with populations of fewer than 10,000 people would face drastic cuts if they do not consolidate. Towns with populations between 5,000 and 10,000 people would see their aid sliced in half. Those with more than 10,000 would have their aid frozen at 2007 levels. And those such as Moonachie, with fewer than 5,000 people, would get zero state funding. Zilch.
Having grown up in New Jersey, I can tell you that people in towns like Moonachie, Dunellen, Green Brook, and Bound Brook aren’t going to stand for this one.
H/T: Tyler Cowen
