Credit: (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

In the shorthand of headlines, we were alerted Monday to the death of a former New Jersey governor “Undone by Tax Hike.” Those of us at his side in the tumultuous years of 1990 – 1993, remember Jim Florio for so much more.

“If there was a political price to pay, it was worth it.”

The words come from Gov. Jim Florio’s fourth — and final — State of the State address in 1994, a bittersweet speech that, to me, his communications director, is an ideal lens to view the man.

The words quoted above were immediately preceded by these: “In an action that is now being repeated in states and cities all across the nation, we said ‘yes’ to public safety and ‘no’ to the special interests, and fought to enact the nation’s toughest ban on military assault weapons — and kept it in place when the gun lobby came this close to repealing it.”

A national ban on assault weapons came and went; New Jersey’s ban stands. So, from the distance of decades, someone might observe that there wasn’t a political price to pay. They’d be wrong.

Much has been written about the National Rifle Association’s hidden role in guiding the so-called grassroots “tax revolt,” Hands Across New Jersey. Yes, a lot of people were angry about increases to the sales and income taxes under Gov. Florio. But you will never convince me that the force of opposition would have been as strong without the NRA.

To some, Florio’s term in office was all about taxes, but to those of us who were there, it wasn’t all about taxes.

As Florio proclaimed in that last State of the State: “We refused to let the flame of opportunity be snuffed out by a national recession. We kindled it, nurtured it, kept it glowing by putting our heads together and coming up with new ideas. And we’ve got results we can talk about today with pride.”

He listed several accomplishments:

• Decreasing the share of state revenue that goes to operate the bureaucracy, while increasing the share going to people in the form of school aid and county and municipal assistance;
• Ending “the embarrassment of defending a flawed and unfair way of paying for schools”;
• Pioneering healthcare reforms to make sure “everyone has access to quality, affordable care — “not just the lucky ones among us”;
• Measures to help people buy their first house and assist college students with tuition;
• Expanding the Transportation Trust Fund;
• Cleaning up the Shore and ending “the gridlock that was preventing adoption of sane, sensible rules to prevent runaway coastal development”;
• Making the state’s minimum wage the nation’s highest.

Florio devoted most of the rest of his speech to New Jersey’s overreliance on local property taxes and the need to change that. Here, the speech is both aspirational and valedictory — not the wish-list for the next four years that a reelected governor could offer but a warning, which Florio likened to President Eisenhower’s “military industrial complex” remarks upon leaving office in 1960.

“My message is closer to home,” Florio said, “but please take it in the same spirit.”

“Property taxes are the single biggest barrier to improving the quality of life in New Jersey,” he went on to say. “They raise the cost of doing business, putting our state at a competitive disadvantage. They reduce the profit margins of businesses, especially small businesses. They discourage expansion. They raise the cost of housing, whether you own your own home or rent. Ending this dependency will save money — lots of it — and doing so is entirely within our own grasp. Resolving this problem doesn’t require help from Washington or anyplace else. It’s right here, if we have the will to finish the job.”

The job is not finished, despite Florio’s plea: “The people of New Jersey are entitled to an honest debate over how to raise the money we need, and how much we need to raise — not the empty rhetoric of false choices like, ‘Are you for or against taxes?’ We need to continue the real discussion of how to most fairly spread the burden, rather than to pretend the burden — or the discussion — can be avoided.”

He went on to deliver a textbook explanation of why property taxes are a poor way to pay for education and government services. They increase the costs of buying a house and repaying a mortgage. They promote inequity, as some municipalities can afford more amenities than others. They gobble up green spaces as towns compete against each other for development.

“If you’ve ever watched a dog chase its tail you know exactly what I’m talking about,” Florio said.

“One problem after another,” he added. “Compounded and interconnected. Because we as a state could not — or would not — break loose from the grip of an unfair, outdated way of raising money,” he said. “Today, when you ask a widow with a fixed income of $15,000 a year to pay a third of that in property taxes, you’re not taxing wealth. You’re taxing credibility. Property taxes come down to a direct tax on peoples’ homes. They claim an ever-growing share of household income. And, perhaps most offensively, they are totally contrary to our notion that whatever tax burden we ask people to bear should be based on their relative economic well-being.”

While he was at it, Florio took on home rule, New Jersey’s propensity to divide into the smallest possible jurisdictions to educate children and provide government services: “When home rule means people make decisions on matters close to them, that’s great, and we never want to lose that. But when it means wasting money and overburdening people with property taxes because we cling to outmoded, expensive ways of thinking, and we refuse to tell the truth, then there has to be a better way. I believe we can preserve community involvement and also cut costs. And if we don’t, shame on us … I’m confident that leaders willing to explain this to people will get a fair hearing. It often takes time for people to work through it, but in the end they do.”

Finally, we come to the part of the speech where I wish Florio’s words had been more prophetic:

“When the story of the ’90s is written it will turn out to be the story of men and women who confronted challenges, and rejected easy, patchwork solutions,” Florio predicted. “Some of them will win elections and some will lose. But we will all move closer to the world we want for our children if we will but rise above the politics of the moment. If we will but rise above the anger and the disruption that come inevitably in the wake of change. And rise above the temptation to define community in a narrow and selfish way.

“I believe we will do these things — because we know that the need to do them is greater than any price there is to pay.”

Jim Florio was a student of history. He also was a creator of history. In some instances, he left New Jersey excellent policies that remain in effect. In others, he made commonsense changes that were, indeed, “undone.” What he didn’t do was shirk from challenges or look for someone else to blame. Jim Florio knew where the buck stopped; it was knowledge he embraced.