Frank Ryan: Pennsylvania and New Jersey’s race to the bottom

Government

Frank Ryan: Pennsylvania and New Jersey’s race to the bottom Frank Ryan October 31, 2025 October 30, 2025

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When a New Jersey politician looks to Pennsylvania as a model for policymaking, he’s in the middle of a fiscal disaster, looking across the Delaware River, where another government — not quite as close to calamity — looks good by comparison.

That was my first thought about Republican Jack Ciattarelli campaigning for governor of the Garden State while also hyping the Keystone State. “They don’t have a property tax crisis, they don’t have a business climate crisis, they don’t have an energy crisis,” Ciattarelli said of Pennsylvania in a Politico report that noted the candidate’s admirati