Highlands News Service

MOUNT OLIVE (11/03/07) – On Tuesday’s ballot there are four public questions. Each one is very important to the economy of the state and the health of its residents. Voters should give careful consideration to each and the consequences if any are rejected.

Currently, a national organization of ultra conservative Republicans, based in Washington, DC is organized under the banner, “Americans for Prosperity.” They have been campaigning in areas of New Jersey where they feel they are accepted, urging voters to vote “no” on the three main questions. Regardless of the merits of whether the spending programs are reasonable, the reasons they state for their opposition are mostly fallacious and without merit.

In New Jersey they have been on a three day statewide bus tour of diners to “Take Back New Jersey.” They say they’ve posted thousands of signs in communities across the state.

The New Jersey branch is led by Bogota (Bergen County) Mayor Steve Lonegan, generally in the forefront of excessive right wing causes, and who was soundly defeated for the Republican nomination in the 2005 gubernatorial election. His mantra on just about everything is “reckless and irresponsible big spending.

The first question proposes that the added 1% increase in the sales tax last year be totally dedicated to property tax relief and tax reform.

Lonegan and his followers (one of whom is Morris County Assemblyman Michael Patrick Carroll) make the argument that if approved, the money would be used to condemn older buildings and land under eminent domain for new housing and businesses. It’s simply not true. Carroll is not a member, but he too is urging defeat of all three questions.

Question 2 is arguably the most important. It concerns authorizing the sale of $450 million in state obligation bonds over 10 years for grants to fund stem cell research projects. If approved institutions of higher education and other entities in the state conducting scientific and medical research would be able to apply and receive funds to research such diseases and severe injuries as Alzheimer’s, cancer, diabetes, Lou Gehrig’s and Parkinson’s diseases, sickle cell anemia and spinal cord injuries.

Question 3. Green Acres, Farmland, Blue Acres and Historic Preservation. The State would issue bonds in the amount of $200 million to provide monies to acquire and develop lands for recreation and conservation; preserve farmland for agricultural or horticultural use and production and acquire for recreation and conservation purposes properties and flooded areas of the Delaware, Passaic and Raritan rivers and their tributaries that are prone to or having incurred flood or storm damage and funding historic preservation projects and providing the ways and mans to pay the interest on the debt and also to pay and discharge the principal.

Question 4 would amend the constitution to delete the phrase “idiot or insane person” and replace it with “person who has been adjudicated by a court of competent jurisdiction to lack the capacity to understand the act of voting” in describing those persons who shall be denied the right to vote.

As to the stem cell question, Joseph Seneca, Ph.D, a Rutgers economist recently released the results of a detailed analysis that estimates the state will reap nearly more than $2.2 billion in direct economic benefits from the investment. He points out that if the private sector matches the funds it would add another $2 billion to the economy. And, finally, he concludes, if the research is successful in providing effective therapies for any six diseases being researched the state would save more than $72 billion in health care costs. “It’s the most important of the four questions,” he said.

Another Rutgers Neuroscientist, Dr. Wise Young, chairman of the Neuroscience W.M. Keck Center for Collaborative Neuroscience at Rutgers, points to what will be if the question is not passed. All experts, he says, agree that stem cells represent the future of therapeutics. Much of New Jersey’s economy depends on this industry, he says. This state wasn’t the first to fund stem cell research. Many other states have moved ahead. California has invested $3 billion to fund human embryonic stem cell research; New York passed a $650 million bond issue for re-generative medicine (stem cell research); Connecticut is investing $100 million and Maryland $25 million a year… If the bond issue doesn’t pass, he says, New Jersey will lose is its therapeutic industry.

According to Dr. Young…therapeutics companies move to where the research is. If a laboratory spends a million a year and there are 100 laboratories in the state doing stem cell related work that’s $100 million added to the state’s economy. If the referendum fails and those labs move out of the state that would be a $100 million a year loss to the economy.

There would be additional benefits for the state if the referendum passes, he said. There would be funds to support clinical trials. Affected people would not have to wait for therapies to come to the state or have to go out of the state for clinical trials. The investment would build and strengthen universities in the state as well as research institutions.

The other benefits, of course, are priceless, he said. What is it worth for people to be free from having to take insulin injections for the rest of their lives, therapies that can make people walk after brain and spinal cord injury and treatments that can slow or reverse Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s diseases…what is the value of having cured people, he asks.

Contrary to what critics charge, the referendum explicitly forbids use of the funds for research that produces clones of humans, including human fetuses by somatic cell nuclear transfer. The funds will support all types of stem cell research including research involving umbilical cord blood and bone marrow stem cells. All the research will be competitively awarded only after rigorous independent peer and ethical review of the research applications. Only the best science will be funded, he said

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