New Jersey Declines While Government Grows

Steven Malanga in The New York Post reports:

From 2003 through 2007, while the nation's private economy soared, only tax-supported government jobs grew robustly in Jersey. Private employment increased a meager 1.8 percent, mostly in low-wage service jobs. In 2006, when the country was in the midst of an economic boom that produced government surpluses everywhere, Jersey faced a crushing $4.5 billion budget shortfall that prompted an embarrassing shutdown of state government.