With the U.S. Senate narrowly passing the GOP tax proposal today, Congress has moved one step closer to final approval of a damaging and costly plan that would harm millions of working Americans while rewarding profitable corporations, foreign investors and the country’s wealthiest families and teeing up deep cuts to public services, programs and investments that all New Jerseyans count on.
At its core, this tax proposal is rooted in magical thinking and faulty, reckless mathematics: it’s premise is that borrowing money to pay for huge tax cuts at the top will trickle down to create economic growth for the nation. But this is disputed by nearly every leading economist, and has failed to work in the past.
The plan is especially terrible for New Jersey – even with the so-called ‘compromise’ on deducting up to $10,000 in local property taxes – particularly the state’s low-income, working-class and middle-class families.
In fact, even if New Jerseyans are able to deduct up to $10,000 in property taxes, 60 percent of the Garden State taxpayers who currently take the property tax deduction likely no longer would.
That’s because even though they’d still technically be able to take the property tax deduction, many would choose not to because the combination of itemized deductions (which would no longer include state income and sales taxes) would be smaller than the standard deduction. This would be a bad deal for many taxpayers even though the proposal makes the standard deduction more generous.
The ball is now back in the court of New Jersey’s House delegation – particularly our Republicans. Reps. Frelinghuysen, Lance, LoBiondo and Smith must stand firm and continue to vote against this plan, while Rep. MacArthur – the lone New Jersey member of Congress to vote “yes” the first time around – needs to change course and put the working people of New Jersey first.
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