New Jersey residents had the highest state and local tax burden in the United States for the third straight year in fiscal 2009, according to a new study. They paid 12.2 percent of their incomes in state and local levies, the Tax Foundation in Washington said Wednesday. New York was next at 12.1 percent and [...]
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie introduced a $29.4 billion budget Tuesday that demands many concessions from state workers, as well as cuts spending and taxes. Christie, who has gained a national reputation for coming down hard on public employees, wants workers to pay more for their health care. Raising their co-payments and premiums will save [...]
President Obama’s proposed fiscal 2012 budget is potentially a massive job-creation engine, with plans to generate millions of them by repairing and expanding highways, bridges and railways. But the spending plan also heralds an outsize political battle as it reignites the type of Republican skepticism over the effectiveness of such outlays that characterized the 2009 [...]
US public pensions face a shortfall of $2,500 billion that will force state and local governments to sell assets and make deep cuts to services, according to the former chairman of New Jersey’s pension fund. The severe US economic recession has cast a spotlight on years of fiscal mismanagement, including chronic underfunding of retirement promises. [...]
I don’t usually write about travel but have to give a huge shout out to Peddler’s Village. I recently had the most incredible experience there. I really felt like I had traveled to another place. It was beautiful, quaint, and quiet. I just wanted to breathe deeply as I walked through the courtyards, still decked [...]
USA Today offers five useful ways to save money on all those tempting gifts this holiday season! 1. Have a plan. Stores and websites are cleverly designed to get you to spend more than you intended. So it’s important to know what you are going to get and spend before you get to the mall [...]
Bill and Leah Westfall of Boise, ID, discuss cutting their Christmas budget in half, with CNBC’s Jane Wells. The best deal they’ve found so far is $100 from JP Morgan Chase for opening a checking account. “We put our $400 in it that we’ve set aside for Christmas spending, and they gave us $100 for opening [...]
The Philadelphia School District and its 16,000 member union are in negotiations to reach a new contract agreement before their current pact expires at this month’s end. Superintendent Arelene Ackerman wants to bring changes to a district where half of students can’t read or do math on grade level. Proposals sent to the Philadelphia Federation [...]
Philadelphia still has not been given the go-ahead from state lawmakers to raise the city’s sales tax and make pension changes, so deep cuts are expected to take effect as early as this month. Nutter outlined a comprehensive list of cuts including both jobs and services in Philadelphia- six full-time positions from the Mayor’s office [...]
We can all think of a particular celebrity’s style that we just adore, but lets be honest, celeb outfits come with hefty price tags. There is a solution, though- our Cheap Chica Lilliana Vazquez will show us how to get those styles without going broke. She says you just have to break the outfit down, [...]
