Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-Tenafly) laid out an ambitious tax plan today that would slash New Jerseyans’ property taxes and provide them with major new tax rebates if he’s elected governor this year – and he says the plan will pay for itself.
Under Gottheimer’s “Tax Cut Plan,” which he unveiled this morning at an event in Park Ridge, New Jerseyans would get across-the-board property tax cuts (and tax credits for renters), family and senior tax credits, and more; government bureaucracy, meanwhile, would be tightened to an extent that the plan would be revenue-neutral.
“Since November, after announcing my candidacy for Governor, I’ve visited with families in diners in nearly all 21 counties in our great state,” Gottheimer said in his remarks. “And almost to a person, I’ve heard the same thing in booth after booth: ‘I love New Jersey, but it’s just too damn expensive. I just can’t afford it. Can you help?’”
“To the moms and dads, grandmas and grandpas, and young people I’ve met – and to the rest of the folks across our great state – the answer is a resounding yes,” he continued. “Help is on the way. We must make Jersey more affordable, and when I’m governor, we will.”
Gottheimer, who recently won re-election to a fifth term in the House of Representatives from his suburban Bergen County district, is no stranger to tax battles. He’s made a name for himself in the House fighting to restore the full State and Local Tax (SALT) deduction and working to claw back more of New Jersey’s tax money from so-called “moocher” states; his gubernatorial campaign’s slogan is “Lower Taxes, Jersey Values.”
To that end, Gottheimer says his gubernatorial administration would pursue a property tax cut of 14% on average across the state, bringing New Jersey, which has the highest property tax rate in the nation, down to a level on par with Connecticut. The one-quarter of New Jerseyans who rent instead of own their homes, meanwhile, would get a yearly income tax credit of $500.
Gottheimer’s plan also includes providing businesses with a $5,000 tax credit for every new job they create in or bring to New Jersey; a “Retire in Jersey” income tax rebate for longtime New Jerseyans beginning the year they turn 70; a family tax credit to reduce taxes for families with children, especially lower-income families; and a tax-match plan that would allow those moving into New Jersey from other states to temporarily retain their old states’ property tax rates rather than New Jersey’s higher rates.
“My plan, in short, will provide income tax relief across the income spectrum, to everyone from job-creators to job-holders, and from families with young children to seniors who decide to retire,” Gottheimer said. “All of these folks are helping ‘Reboot Jersey’ – and so New Jersey needs to help them.”
The flipside to cutting taxes, of course, is that it deprives state and local governments the money that they need to continue their current level of service – especially given the state’s estimated $2 billion reduction in tax revenue going forward. But Gottheimer’s plan identifies several areas that he believes could lead to substantial reductions in government spending, accounting for the reduced revenue and increased expenditures his tax cuts and rebates would entail.
The biggest step Gottheimer says he’d take to find savings would be to mandate a statewide government efficiency review, akin to reviews previously conducted in other states like Texas and West Virginia, to find areas where the government is spending more money than it needs to. Gottheimer’s plan estimates that such a review could produce a 5% efficiency improvement, equivalent to $2.9 billion in savings, without needing to undermine any critical state programs.
“This isn’t a typical Republican attack that calls everything in government ‘waste, fraud, and abuse’ as an excuse to kill critical programs and investment,” Gottheimer said. “We all are against waste, fraud, and abuse. But my effort is all about making government better, providing better services, and operating with higher efficiency, and protecting the programs and services we value and helps people afford to live in Jersey.”
If local governments conduct their own reviews, Gottheimer says that could be worth another $2.4 billion in savings. And modernizing the state’s employee health coverage, going after taxes that other states (particularly New York) collect from New Jersey residents, getting more money from the federal government, and cracking down on tax cheats would yield further billions, Gottheimer’s plan argues.
Other gubernatorial candidates, of course, will likely quibble with Gottheimer’s numbers. So too might Gov. Phil Murphy, who has been helming the state’s fiscal ship for the last seven years; Murphy is term-limited this year, but many of the state legislators and local officials he’s worked with on budget deals over the years would still be around under a Governor Gottheimer.
Gottheimer said that today’s tax plan is the first in a series of policy proposals he will release, with future plans on housing, health care, energy, job creation, and resisting the Trump administration coming in future weeks. Several other Democratic gubernatorial candidates, including Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop and Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, have put out similar policy papers, and Fulop in particular has been extremely detailed about what he’d like to accomplish as governor.
Ironically, the only Fulop policy proposal that has yet to be released is his “Taxes and Job Creation” plan. Now Gottheimer has thrown down the tax-cutting gauntlet; it’s up to his opponents to say how their own plans would be better.
“As governor, we’ll lower our taxes, put money back in your pockets, grow our economy and improve the services we all rely on – and it’s all fiscally responsible and paid for,” Gottheimer said. “And, I’ll do it while protecting our Jersey values. We can solve this problem. That’s what I do.”
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September 4, 2018 -
