New Jersey’s $10.7 billion budget deficit is the second highest among all U.S. states. With New Jersey already facing one of the worst economic outlooks in the country according to ALEC’s “Rich States, Poor States,” newly elected Governor Christie has promised not to raise taxes. He’s already once vetoed a new tax on millionaires passed by the New Jersey legislature, but now spend-happy legislators are trying again.
Democrats want to re-impose a one-year tax on millionaires that has been vetoed by Republican Governor Chris Christie. The 10.75 percent tax on income above $1 million would hit 16,000 people, some of them likely to work as financial professionals just across the Hudson River in New York.
…The tax would raise $637 million that the state would use to fund rebate checks of up to $1,295 for some 600,000 senior citizens who would otherwise face steep increases in their property taxes during fiscal 2011.
It’s highly unlikely the tax would raise as much as they project. A similar soak-the-rich approach to the problem of fiscal irresponsibility backfired in Maryland, which saw high-earners flee the state in droves. At a time when taxpayers are moving to low-tax states in greater numbers than ever before, state politicians need to find more creative solutions to the fiscal messes they have created than chasing job-producers out of the state.
