I would highly recommend reading The Soprano State by Ingles and McClure. The book is about government corruption in New Jersey and how much money gets skimmed. The second theme of the book is how little control the taxpayer has with respect to various state authorities (Bride and Tunnel; Turnpike) and agencies. While Jersey may be the leader in corruption I am sure we would go a long way towards easing our financial difficulties if taxpayers could get better control over the money they give to their government.