Dem. hypocrite criticizes Space & Wirths for opposing Gov. Murphy’s RAIN TAX.

If you don’t think you pay enough in property taxes already – and if you really believe you need to pay more – then do we have the candidates for you…

Democrats Deana Lykins and Dan Smith.

These two Democrats are running for Assembly against Republicans Parker Space and Hal Wirths.  On July 5th, Democrat Lykins posted a video on YouTube in which she criticized Parker Space and Hal Wirths for voting against Democrat Governor Phil Murphy’s controversial RAIN TAX.

Governor Murphy’s RAIN TAX scheme allows government to establish new local bureaucracies with taxing power.  Once established, these “stormwater utilities” would impose a new property tax on local taxpayers based on an estimate of the water run-off coming from their “impermeable surfaces” such as roofs and driveways.  Do you feel the need to pay an extra $100 or so each year in property taxes?  Does that sound good to you?  Because it does to Deana Lykins.

Deana Lykins claims that we need to pay more in property taxes.  Lykins says we need Murphy’s RAIN TAX now to prevent things like the recent algae bloom that closed down Lake Hopatcong to swimmers.  Actually, 15 years ago the Democrats told us the Highlands Act was going to solve the problem and make sure that things like the algae bloom weren’t going to happen.

The Highlands Water Protection and Planning Act was signed into law by Democrat Governor Jim McGreevey on August 10, 2004 – just days before he held a press conference to announce his resignation.  Of that press conference, many people still only remember how McGreevey successfully diverted attention from his legal issues, by raising his sexual “identity”.  Many forget that among the host of corruption investigations into McGreevey at the time was one related to land use.  Wikipedia explains… 

David D'Amiano, a key McGreevey fund-raiser, was ultimately sentenced to two years in prison for extorting $40,000 from a farmer, Mark Halper, a Middlesex County landowner cooperating with investigators. In the 47-page indictment, there are repeated references to the involvement of "State Official 1," later revealed to be McGreevey. In a conversation with Halper, McGreevey used the word "Machiavelli," the code arranged by D'Amiano intended to assure the farmer that his $40,000 campaign contribution would get him preferential treatment in a dispute over his land.

The Highlands Act put 859,000 acres – one ninth of the entire state – under the supervision of the state Department of Environmental Protection.  The Act specifically dealt with the issue of stormwater run-off.  In return for 880,000 residents in Sussex, Warren, Morris, Passaic, and Hunterdon counties surrendering their property rights and losing the use and value of their property, issues like algae bloom on Lake Hopatcong were supposed to be resolved.  But the Democrats LIED… as they always do.

Now it is 15 years later and Democrats like Phil Murphy and Deana Lykins claim they need a new PROPERTY TAX (the RAIN TAX) to solve the problem we paid for (in the loss of property use and value) a decade and a half ago!    

Even more disturbing are the lies Deana Lykins tells in her video.  She talks about going to “the lake” as a child… but leaves out that she isn’t from Sussex County and that “the lake” wasn’t Lake Hopatcong.  Deana Lykins is from Kentucky. 

Lykins got a degree in journalism from the University of Kentucky in 1993.  Then she went to work for the New York City Housing Authority – that state’s local version of COAH.  Lykins worked for the Senate Democrats in New Jersey when they rammed through the Highlands Act and sent it to Governor McGreevey for his signature.  Lykins was a legislative staffer in Trenton who assisted in locking up our property use and killing our property values… and for what?  Now she’s back 15 years later to tell us we need to pay more in property taxes to fix what her bosses promised they would fix with the Highlands Act!   

Once she got enough experience from government she joined that never-ending “revolving door” between government and special interests.  Deana Lykins cashed-in and became a lobbyist, first for the pharmaceutical industry and then for the insurance industry.   Lykins was National Policy Manager for Schering-Plough Pharmaceuticals at a time when the drugs giant was being accused by regulators (and the New York Times) of making “payoffs to doctors for prescribing the company’s pharmaceutical products.”  She is associated with some of the insurance industry’s worst practices (but that is for another day).

The hypocrisy of this politician is incredible.  Deana Lykins’ embrace of Governor Murphy’s RAIN TAX is yet another reminder of the Democrats’ contempt for, and their malevolence towards, taxpayers.