Raising Income, Sales Taxes Didn’t Lower Property Taxes
By Assemblywoman Caroline Casagrande
What do Florida, New Hampshire and Washington state have in common?
They’re among nine states that not only weathered the worst economic recession of our generation, but found ways to make their economies stronger, attract new people and create jobs when the rest of the nation floundered.
From 2001 to 2010, these nine states saw employment increase by 5.4 percent when the rest of the country remained stagnant.
What do these states have in common that allows them to grow jobs during horrific economic times?
No income tax.
In New Jersey, we’re on our way to replicating the job-creating economic successes of these “prime nine” states, even though we’re still among the “maligned nine” states with the highest income taxes.
The tax-free states grew employment by 5.4 percent, while tax-heavy states saw jobs decline by 1.7 percent.
That’s why Gov. Christie is proposing to cut income taxes for everyone. It will keep money in people’s pockets and help bring back the jobs that disappeared last decade as Trenton taxed and spent the state into economic ruin.
The Wall Street Journal recently called legislative proposals in other states to cut the income tax good “long-term growth” and attempts to use additional income tax revenue to relieve property taxes “short-term politics.”
It’s not even good short-term politics. Remember what happened to Jon Corzine in 2009 when he raised income taxes? He was one of nearly 120,000 New Jerseyans who lost a job that year.
Franklin D. Roosevelt, who knew something about emerging from horrific economic times, once said: “Do something. If it works, do more of it. If it doesn’t, do something else.”
New Jersey has repeatedly tried raising taxes to relieve property taxes. It has never worked. In fact, the income tax itself began as a way to reduce property taxes. Do you know anyone whose property taxes went down since 1976?
New Jersey lost an entire decade (and 156,000 jobs) proving you can’t lower one tax by raising another. Taxes increased by $11 billion from 2002 to 2009, and nearly every time they increased a tax, Trenton politicians promised it would relieve property taxes, yet the property tax burden increased 6 percent per year and 60 percent cumulatively from 2002 to 2010.
Remember when Trenton politicians shut down the state to raise the sales tax in 2006 to offer “historic” levels of property tax relief? It didn’t work. The higher sales tax remains, but the property tax relief was history after just one year.
We need to stop doing what doesn’t work. That’s why we ended those failed tactics and launched the most aggressive and effective assault on property taxes in New Jersey history.
We put a tight cap on property taxes, saved property taxpayers $120 billion over the next 30 years through pension and health care reform, and we are working to do more, such as ending the payout for workers’ unused sick and vacation time and allowing towns to save money by opting out of Civil Service.
Our comprehensive approach to tax reform has businesses and homeowners optimistic about our state’s future for the first time in several years.
If we continue to do what has been working, we will continue to create more private-sector jobs in addition to the 60,000 that have been added in the past two years.
Adding jobs won’t just improve our unemployment rate, but likely will achieve precisely what short-sighted critics of Gov. Chris Christie’s income tax cut say it won’t: property tax relief.
Raising other taxes has not lowered property taxes, but reducing the income tax may because it will keep forcing government to spend within its means while encouraging businesses to create jobs in New Jersey.
More businesses and jobs in our economy means a greater share of the tax burden is shifted away from property taxpayers.
Many other states have seen the wisdom of low income tax rates. They know that reducing the income tax burden creates jobs and builds a strong economic foundation. I’m eager to see New Jersey follow suit.
In the last two years, New Jersey has added more than 62,000 private-sector jobs. And our Economic Outlook Rank has improved from 48th to 45th this year, according to the American Legislative Exchange Council.
Our plan to make New Jersey affordable and create jobs is working. We can’t stop doing what is working. We need to do more.
More from my site
Project Interchange trip to Israel: Day 1
Casagrande Calls On Cumberland Prosecutor To Drop Gun Charges Against Retired Teacher
Project Interchange trip to Israel: Day 2
Opinion: Divided We Govern, Both in Trenton and Washington, D.C.
Blood drive in Freehold on Thursday
Chamber of Commerce honors Casagrande as Legislator of the year
Asbury Park Press Endorses Angelini and Casagrande in LD 11
Casagrande Introduces Legislation To Nullify Absurd Texting Decision
Project Interchange trip to Israel: Day 3
Christie makes Gas Tax increase deal with Sweeney and Prieto
Tips to reduce your Property Tax :
You must evaluate your property .
Try to find error in the property bills.
If you found them incorrect then you must appeal against your property bills.
What do Florida, New Hampshire and Washington state have in common?
While income and property taxes (all taxes really) are indeed the primary issue for votes, self-included, it is surely no coincidence that states that have laws that obey the US Constitution, protect the 2nd Amendment and do not seek to control their populace through various government agencies and licensing also have lower taxes.
Washington is a shall issue state, meaning the state is required to furnish a permit if you can pass a background check. Washington issues concealed carry permits to residents of the state as well as non-residents. All fees for non-residents are the same but the waiting period is extended to 60 days.
Florida is a Shall Issue state and will issue concealed carry permits to Residents and Non-Residents that meet the state requirements for a Florida concealed carry permit.
New Hampshire is a Shall Issue to Residents and Non-Residents.
New Jersey is a May Issue to Residents and Non-Residents
Issuance of the permit is almost completely discretionary, and New Jersey courts have upheld the policy of strictly limiting permits “to persons pecifically employed in security work . . . and to others who can establish an urgent necessity for carrying guns for self-protection.”
Want to pay less taxes? Find, elect and thank good people like Caroline Casagrande and Declan O’Scanlon who will obey the US Constitution, protect your 2A rights and oppose those would otherwise support tyranny, and higher taxes.
Well I give my town (little silver )credit for tenacity ,Christie enacts the cap …so the best way to beat the cap… have a reassessment last time most long time residents in town there bill went up 22% ..In contrast Fair Haven (Mike Halfacre) was also asked by the county to do a reassessment but said NO . ..a simple tale of two mayors one protects longtime residents …the other protects the machine that got him elected …Little Silver you have just been Corzined
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Very interesting article, Assemblywoman Casagrande. I would now throw out this additional idea for you to consider. The school tax accounts for more than half of property taxes in our town and elsewhere in NJ. If you ban the use of property taxes to pay for schools you immediately cut the property tax by about 60%. You say that
“New Jersey has repeatedly tried raising taxes to relieve property taxes. It has never worked. In fact, the income tax itself began as a way to reduce property taxes. Do you know anyone whose property taxes went down since 1976?”
Since we still have the school tax on our property tax statement it is obvious that the solution I propose has not yet been tried.
So how to pay for schools? You are an assemblywoman, perhaps you can figure it out. Raise the money for schools from the income tax? from the sales tax? from some other tax? abolish the school system?
Whatever you decide, the net result is not raising taxes, it is simply transferring the tax burden from one set of taxpayers to another set of taxpayers. With the system we have now you have retired people on fixed incomes, single people, childless couples, home owners on limited incomes or even without jobs, people who send their children to private or religious schools, all paying for the education of other people’s children. Whatever solution you propose, will it be any more unfair than that?
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