New Jersey’s Taxes Are Too Damn High!

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We Need a Tax Revolt in New Jersey

By Lee Enochs

 

New Jersey is a wonderful place to live. Each and every morning, I ride my bike over many of the Garden State’s majestic highways and roads on my way to work. Almost every day, I see beautiful examples of God’s grace and glory here in New Jersey as I am greeted by a multiplicity of animals and birds in harmony with nature at the breaking of dawn.

New Jersey is also an epic and historic place to live. One of the United States original colonies, New Jersey has a storied place in the annals of American history and those who live here should be proud of this great legacy.

However, New Jersey is also a place where career politicians in Trenton have made life in this state almost unlivable. These out of touch politicians have continued to raise our taxes with impunity.

As a full-time graduate student who is working two jobs to put myself through school, I can barely afford to survive here in the Garden State since our taxes have skyrocketed out of control.

It is time for this situation to change. For too long the good people of New Jersey have been taxes and gouges by the career politicians in Trenton. It is high time for the great New Jersey tax revolt to occur throughout the Garden State.

The good people of New Jersey simply cannot afford the high taxes we are compelled to pay each and every pay check. Something must change immediately or more and more people will leave this state for tax relief.

I propose that our state income and property taxes be reduced by ten percent over the next three years. By reducing the astronomical taxes here in New Jersey, our residents can have more money to pursue the American dream that unfortunately has become a nightmare to many New Jersey residents because of our high taxes. This must change now! Let the great New Jersey tax revolt begin today!

 

New Jersey’s Taxes Are Simply Too High

By Patrick McKnight

                                                                                

 

I love New Jersey. My family has lived here for four generations. Unfortunately, New Jersey has become a difficult place to live for anyone other than the extremely wealthy. It doesn’t have to be this way.

In my town the average homeowner will pay nearly $150,000 in property taxes over the next 10 years. This fact represents a serious failure of public policy. A community should be more than a school district where its graduates can’t even afford to live.

Middle class families are fleeing New Jersey for a reason. It isn’t because taxes are too low and government is too small. Rather, the Garden State is an object lesson for the problems inherent in unlimited government. Corruption is rampant. Spending and debt are out of control. Economic growth is stagnant. Our business and tax climates are among the worst in America.

It’s easy to blame the politicians for getting us into this mess. As the ongoing crises over public pensions painfully demonstrates, promises were made that will be nearly impossible to keep. Certainly both major parties have been complicit in the irresponsible fiscal behavior that helped New Jersey earn the third-lowest credit rating in America. However, the real explanation for how we got here is a bit more complex.

The truth is the politicians merely told us what we wanted to hear. It was convenient for us as citizens to believe we could defer our moral and civic responsibilities to a benevolent State government. This was a naïve abdication.

Cutting taxes and spending will require painful adjustments for powerful special interest groups, but this is the only way forward. I don’t want to leave New Jersey. I want to help fix it for future generations. Let’s make reasonable compromises now so our children won’t have to make excessive sacrifices later.

 

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Lee Enochs is a graduate student at Princeton Theological Seminary. Lee is also the author of “The Case for Rand Paul” and, “A Biblical Defense of Capitalism.” Lee also writes regularly for the Libertarian Republic online magazine.

Patrick McKnight is the chairman of the Libertarian Party of New Jersey. A graduate of Rutgers University, Patrick is currently pursuing his law degree at Rutgers Law School’s Newark location

 

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