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.
Posted: March 9th, 2012 | Author: Art Gallagher | Filed under: Art Gallagher, Caroline Casagrande, Taxes | Tags: American Legislative Exchange Council, Assemblywoman, Assemblywoman Caroline Casagrande, Caroline Casagrande, Civil Service, Florida, Franklin D. Roosevelt, Goveror Chris Christie, Income Tax, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Property Tax, Sales Tax, Taxes, Trenton, Wall Street Journal, Washington | 7 Comments »
By Mark A. Falzon, President, Jersey Shore Tea Party
So long, Nikita. Bye bye, Brezhnev. Sayonara, Stalin. Change the drapes at the Kremlin for now Washington DC, USA is the hub of global Marxist activity in the world. Yes, the Kremlin has succumbed to the weight of time and passed the torch to North America.
This migration of the Marxist HQ has taken decades to complete. For a while there, global Marxism has had no official home. Castro and Peking have been fermenting internal revolutions or been occupied with other things. Moscow was drained of her captive nations. But then, a consortium of undesirable elements here in this country including our vaunted press, 1960ish radicals and greedy, selfish politicians have all participated in the slaying of the grandiose experiment known as the American Republic. Notice I use past tense because it is almost complete. The EPA, the NLRB, un-appointed czars (now I know why they use that name!), POTUS and a DC over-regulated, centralized nanny state are in place. To hell with individual liberty! To hell with the American Constitution. It was written by greedy, wealthy white slave owners anyway. God knows what else the devils have put in place because surely we cannot count on our vaunted press to expose it.
After the pseudo stimulus bill was passed I noticed something not widely published. That being, Andy Stern made a trip to Europe, stopping at many of the Euro capitals and larger cities. The same Andy Stern that was at one time the most frequent visitor to the WH. The same Andy Stern who was the brains and brawn behind SEIU and ACORN. I asked myself, “why?” and then it hit me. Our government, loaded with new Marxist-Leftist Radicals brought in by BHO and that Valerie Jarret were now flush with American taxpayer cash. We all know money talks. I ask, could Andy, as proper a Marxist representative as there is, have been parading through Europe handing out our taxpayer money to the cash starved Marxist groups all over Europe? I asked Joe (verbal gaffe of the day) Biden who was responsible for over seeing the disbursement of the stimulus funds, but he didn’t respond. Think about it. Marxist now rule the roost here. What better way to cement your global control of the Global Marxist Movement than to rain US taxpayer cash on them. At that point, you have control and allegiance. So long, Moscow hello DC!
Was this part of a master plan to fund the Euro demonstrations we saw last summer? Is that same cash secretly helping OWS who is threatening to bring Euro style violent demonstrations to our shores? Are known and unknown persons in DC calling the global Marxist Movement shots subsidized by US tax collections? Could be! Who knows because there certainly has not been a ledger produced detailing stimulus outlays…..and even if there were what clear thinking person would believe anything to come out of this administration. Credibility is not their strong suit.
Why mention this now? One word, ROMNEY. Romney is not the favorite of the Tea Party Movement. Of the 4 candidates I would safely say he is the least liked. The GOP Establishment with decades of experience and tons of money, appear to be having their way. The Tea Party Movement, newbies to the political scene have lost in this GOP presidential primary process. The GOP is poised to put their boy at the top. But there is the congress.
If a military field commander was charged with defending a city, bridge or any target, Officer training 101 would include several lines of defense. Line A, then Line B and possibly a Line C to maintain possession and thwart the enemy. We, the Tea Party Movement cannot influence whom we want as the GOP presidential candidate this cycle. But there is the congress. Congress can be our second line of defense. What better way to outflank the GOP Establishment and our Marxist interlopers in one move than the Tea Party Movement influencing the senate majority leader selection and the Speaker of the House? What a citizens’ coup! So my Tea Party brothers and sisters, do not lament for long Romney’s apparent success. Identify those senate and congressional candidates running that are true American patriots. Help those we put in office 2010 stay in office. Let’s make our new goal the following: both congressional leadership positions must go to a member of the congressional Tea Party Caucus! By controlling both houses of congress we can neuter a RINO president. With a RINO president and Tea Party congress we can squash once and for all this American Marxist initiative.
Let’s get out there and continue the revolution we started September 12, 2009. Let’s get out there and use as our goal the record setting congressional turnover in 2010 and try to build on it. Let the GOP Establishment focus on POTUS and we should not hinder them. We must, must have BHO removed. We must, must have the final say in our beloved nation and an iron grip over the congress will do just that.
Posted: February 1st, 2012 | Author: admin | Filed under: 2012 Congressional Races, 2012 Presidential Politics, Tea Party | Tags: ACORN, Andy Stern, BHO, Brezhnev, Castro, Congress, DC, Euro, Jersey Shore Tea Party, Joe Biden, Kremlin, Mark A. Falzon, Marxism, Marxists, Nikita, OWS, Peking, POTUS, RINO, Romney, SEIU, Staling, stimulus, Tea Party, Tea Party Movement, Valerie Jarrett, Washington, White House | 8 Comments »
