Governor Murphy and the Democrats are at odds over the 2019 State Budget. Murphy sees one shot deals and unwise taxes while his fellow Dems just see more money to spend.
Per NJ Spotlight, the governor “has promised to veto their budget over concerns about the proposed corporate-tax hike and the reliability of the revenue assumptions that underpin the legislative spending plan.” From North Jersey.com, “Murphy is proposing nearly $1.7 billion in tax increases, including raising the income tax rate on millionaires to 10.75 percent and restoring the 7 percent sales tax rate, which dropped to 6.625 percent this year.
Sweeney, and to a lesser extent Coughlin, have expressed skepticism about the tax increases. The Senate president has said New Jersey can’t tax its way to prosperity – it’s already tied for the nation’s second-highest tax burden, according to the Tax Foundation – and must consider spending cuts.
In March, Sweeney proposed an alternative to Murphy’s taxes: raising the corporate income tax to 12 percent from 9 percent, which he said would yield about $657 million a year. Sweeney has since backed away from his own tax proposal, which Murphy never embraced. The Murphy administration argues that the 12 percent rate, which would be tied with Iowa’s as the highest in the country, would make New Jersey uncompetitive for businesses, which would favor New York’s 6.5 percent tax or Pennsylvania’s 9.99 percent.”
So it seems that while Murphy is wild about raising taxes on millionaires and the Middle class, Sweeney wants to tax the business community to death instead. Neither of these plans is even worth the money spent to print them. The only positive that I see is that Sweeney now shows that he has realized that the State of New Jersey can not tax its way out of budget problems.
If Mr. Sweeney really understands this, then why does he not propose an austerity budget in which the state makes massive tax cuts to encourage business sector to grow and remove all the fat in the budget? I will tell you this, if Sweeney did these things the rest of his fellow greedy political allies would end his career in a minute.
The governor being a naive politician does not understand that the backlash from raising taxes to fund ‘pork barrel’ programs is political folly and could damage his chances for higher office. Did you not know that our governor wants to be President of the United States? Well now you know and be forewarned, as anything or anyone that gets in his way of that goal is in for some real trouble from his office.
That is my opinion- Jumpin Jersey Mike
