By Matt Rooney
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This story is sad/angering/typical but it also illustrates something very important. I’ll start from the beginning.
Again and again, Save Jerseyans, we’ve explained how Phil Murphy’s “Millionaire’s Tax” math simply doesn’t add up. There simply aren’t enough rich guys and gals to bleed dry; the fiscal problem is now too large and too complex for a one-shot gimmick.
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Now he’s pretty much admitting it: on Monday, he announced that hiking taxes on millionaires could result in property tax relief totaling… $125.
That’s right. We’re not kidding. He’s certainly not kidding. This isn’t a satire piece. Bringing the recently-enacted 10.75% marginal tax rate on any income over $5 million down to $1 million (Governor Murphy’s big FY 2020 budget ask of the legislature) would put $125 back in your pocket (by way a refundable tax credit) as part of Murphy’s big ‘tax relief’ plan.
You can apparently buy a caviar-covered Twinkie with that but not much else, folks. Not in New Jersey.
More to the point, $125 is a fraction of the $8,767 property tax bill of your average New Jerseyans; for those of you living in Central/North Jersey, $8.7k is obviously a low-end number. Most of you are paying in the five-figure range.
The important thing I referenced at the beginning of this post: redistributive economics is a lie, Socialism is a ponzi scheme, and Murphy’s paltry $125 offer is all the proof you need. This isn’t the late 19th century when one man (JP Morgan) had enough of the total GPD in his back pocket to bailout the entire U.S. government. That’s not modern America. There are NOT enough mega rich people and millionaire taxes to solve our problems by taking their gains and giving them away to everyone else. Even if there were enough Scrooge McDuck vaults out there along the banks of the Navesink River or the horse farms of Northwest New Jersey, there isn’t a constitutional mechanism to keep them from moving out-of-state.
Our country is a complex web of large businesses, smaller businesses, investors and yes, highly-successful people, who vote with their feet when one state gets it wrong and inhibits their ability to prosper.
I won’t mince words on this one: Murphy can take his $125 credit and shove it. This “plan” doesn’t address any core property tax cost drivers; it’s a cynical, insulting class warfare talking point that has no place in a serious discussion concerning how to Save New Jersey from jerks like our governor and the problems people like him have brought about.
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MATT ROONEY is a practicing New Jersey attorney, regular panelist on ‘Chasing News’ with Bill Spadea, and the founder and blogger-in-chief of Save Jersey.
