Lonegan: Corzine’s Budget fails to come to terms with the problems facing New Jersey

Mayor Steve Lonegan, Republican gubernatorial candidate, issued the following statement after listening to the budget address of New Jersey Governor Jon Corzine:

The Governor's budget ignores the fact that New Jersey is the highest taxed state in America. His proposal exacerbates this condition by increasing the income tax, guaranteeing that we will continue to drive out high-income wage earners. I have proposed a flat income tax of 2.9% that will provide the state with the revenue we need while stopping the outflow of jobs and high-income tax payers from New Jersey.

This budget increases destructive small-business corporate income taxes – the third highest in the nation – perpetuating New Jersey's ranking as the worst state to do business in.

As I predicted in 2007, the rebate program which was funded with higher income taxes will once again be cut back and turned into nothing more than a glorified welfare check.

New Jersey's governing establishment has failed time and again to recognize the role played by the State Supreme Court in burdening property taxpayers with funding mandates and regulation.

The Abbott school funding decision continues to drain billions of dollars to be poured into a failed education bureaucracy. Because of the State Supreme Court and the acquiescence of both party establishments, New Jersey has the most unequal education funding system in America and the highest property taxes anywhere in our nation.

The Court-inspired COAH scheme to tax job-creation in order to build 100,000 government subsidized low-income housing units will further drive out income producing businesses and jobs.

Instead of addressing these economic life and death issues, the Governor continues to hide behind a "happy-talk" income redistribution philosophy of big government programs and social engineering.