Property taxes I believe are independent of state government funding. While the state government is doing poorly, I think someone else here talked how municipal government pensions are pretty solid and doing well.
Not to mention the schools in many places are pretty good. Although having seen it all first-hand, it's the Asian kids and parents that make the schools great, not the teachers or facilities. That and the industry here is more tech, science, higher education.
It's also pretty safe in many areas (except Newark, Camden, Jersey City is improving, Somerville got WAY better, overall getting better, SNJ is meh good and bad). Gun control actually works, no mass shootings. In my town, there hasn't been a single murder I think in over 27 years. The only gun violence was recalled by someone else, some hostage situation but no one got hurt.
The Asian drivers can be dangerous though. Indian women these days. Well there's more of them now but people these days don't signal when turning anymore.
It's not a bad place to live. It's hard to be Mustachian though. COL is high, and real estate rental is a poorer investment than most other states.
Not sure your ethnicity comments are contributing anything to this discussion.
I'm Asian. Then to be PC for you...newly arrived immigrants that tend to come from the Asian continent these days (in the form of H1B visas displacing jobs and abused by companies) that never grew up in a car culture or taught safety (especially in winter, no snow in most of India to my knowledge and have different ideas of the road).
I've seen my share of bad white drivers. More aggressive, speeding through traffic, changing lanes. And demographic is currently changing. More Asians, "poorer" driving? Like no signaling. Not even slowing down for stop signs, and more density, traffic. It's definitely changed since I started. Could be coincidence, could be cultural.
Thread derailed off about life in NJ sounding bad, I'm just saying it ain't that bad. Every state has challenges. Pension funds are just one part.
My town is one of the biggest actually. More to do with people and median income though, not just gun laws, but I'd say a combo is better than one alone. Asians don't get gun culture as much as other groups. They usually get guns cause they see different skin colors or foreigners like Asians. A lot of towns in NJ are pretty safe though.
We're taxed high but COL is high too, and salaries are higher overall. We also have NY and Philly. I asked a similar question before...so I'm not too worried about NJ. NJ has a lot of potential, it's just squandered away by corruption (law enforcement, politics, etc).
Corruption and poor governing. The people are kinda meek though so they're responsible for not being louder. Started way back, Whitman was horrible, but I think Kean started it. McGreevey didn't do much. Only Corzine did anything to help the pension. Christie just inherited the hot potato and it landed on him and once he wanted and made mashed potatoes, so now it's a mess. This pension debacle has been going on for decades. NJ just wanted more $$ for some mysterious reason (probably K-12, NOT college definitely) so they drew from the pensions.