Steve Sweeney might be the roadblock that could kill Governor Phil Murphy’s plans to increase New Jersey’s sales tax and hike taxes on millionaires.
Sweeney is the Senate President and has expressed concern this week on a radio appearance on NJ 101.5 FM. He said “I’m not excited about taxes, period, we’re gonna have to have a conversation.” As the state’s top lawmaker he is in position to kill any one of the tax hike plans of Governor Murphy.
When he expressed the fact that he has concerns about raising taxes, he in fact wanted to raise them for corporations just a few weeks ago. Per NJ.com Sweeney has “surprisingly distanced himself from a plan he proposed just three weeks ago to increase taxes on the state’s corporations in lieu of Murphy’s call for a millionaires tax. He “threw that out there as a partial compromise” with Murphy.
“But again, I’m re-evaluating my whole position on this.””
So it seems that Murphy has a great big roadblock in his plans to raise taxes, as for the first time that I can remember a fellow Democrat is thinking more realistically about the fact that the people of New Jersey are overtaxed!
Again per NJ.com, “I think our real objective is that we’re gonna be once again what we used to be: a good-value state,” the governor said during a separate radio show last week. “Folks will say it’s worth it. ‘I pay a premium in New Jersey, but I get a lot back.'”
If the state Legislature doesn’t agree to the increases, it will blow a hole in the budget and lawmakers would have to find money elsewhere or slash planned spending.
Removing the sales tax hike alone would leave about a $500 million gap.
Murphy says the change in the sales tax would cost taxpayers with annual income between $75,000 and $145,000 about $85 a year.
Sweeney said Tuesday a millionaires tax is still “absolutely last resort for me” — a position he’s held for months.”
The Murphy saying that we will be a ‘good-value state’ again is just a big joke to me. What we really are is a taxed to death state and Sweeney is on the right track on saying that it is unwise to raise taxes. Our Governor does not seem to be very realistically thinking on what the true facts are concerning how many tax payers here in New Jersey are being forced out of the state due to the ‘tax and spend’ attitude that our legislature has.
What is new is the fact that a key lawmaker is saying that our taxes are too high already and maybe Sweeney now understands that we taxpayers are at the stay or leave breaking point. Let us hope that Sweeney can stand in Murphy’s way and prevent more taxation from occurring.
That is my opinion- Jumpin Jersey Mike
