Garden State Initiative Launches Innovative “Taxpayers Deserve a Better Deal” Digital Ad Campaign Challenging New Jersey’s Financial Status Quo

***Digital Ads Focus on Comparison of High Cost of Living Residents Face***

MORRISTOWN, NJ – Independent, non-partisan public policy organization the Garden State Initiative (GSI) today announced the launch of a digital ad campaign to highlight the high cost of living New Jersey’s Middle Class families face compared to competitor states and the national averages in key categories. The ads feature the question: “Isn’t it time New Jersey got a better deal from their government?“

The series of ads, featured on Facebook and Instagram, launched the week of October 4th, and began with four ads (below) focused on New Jersey’s standing for lifetime taxes paid, debt per capita, outmigration and highest property taxes along with a comparison of in-state college tuition costs.

“As GSI consistently points out, these ads offer simple, yet stark illustrations of the high cost of living in our state versus our competitors and should prompt residents to demands answers,” said Regina M. Egea, GSI’s president.  “New Jersey’s public officials have grown far too comfortable responding “that’s just the way it is in NJ” to our state’s high taxes and escalating affordability issues.”

The ads are linked to a new GSI microsite, Trenton Takes, Our Economy Breaks, which offers visitors independent research on how decades of fiscal mismanagement in Trenton are squeezing our state’s Middle Class and limiting New Jersey’s economic future unless significant reforms are undertaken. The microsite prominently features GSI’s recent report, Toward a Fiscally Sustainable New Jersey: Analysis & Recommendations, authored by NYU professor Thad Calabrese, Ph.D., and Thomas J. Healey, a senior fellow at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. The report was released at a September 22^nd press conference featuring former Gov. Thomas H. Kean.

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The Garden State Initiative is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization dedicated to strengthening New Jersey by providing an alternative voice and commonsense policy solutions in the state — solutions that promote new investment, the growth of businesses, the creation of economic opportunities, and innovation to the benefit of all New Jerseyans.