Are we sure NJ taxpayers want property taxes cut? Maybe we should put it on a referendum.

A lot of homeowners have lost their connection with the means to pay. Taxes based on a property's estimated value is unfair and punitive. Too many taxpayers are becoming land poor in that their property value no longer is proportional to their income in these hard economic times . If any one tax needs to be cut it's one that has it basis in the wizard of OZ not in the real world .....CUT PROPERTY TAXES

Before NJ or any other State reduces taxes___they should pay down their State debt obligations FIRST. For the past few years Gov. Chrisitie was ranting like Chicken Little that NJ has $30 billion of debts we can't pay and now that election time approaches he wants to cut taxes to BUY votes.

So what happened with all the phoney bologna hype about redeveloping Ft. Monmouth? It is a red Herring that the federal government passed off to NJ.
In 12 years now no re-development has taken place for the 12 little officers quarters building on Sandy Hook. 12 years and NO progress, Zero, None, Nada and yet these same politicians think we should believe they can redevelop millions of square feet of office space at Ft. Monmouth____ when they Failed to find a single way to re-develop just 12 small building on Sandy Hook during the past 12 years..

I have to live within my budget, how about making the towns do the same. The 2% cap is a joke. There are too many exceptions. I don't think getting out of the "no child left behind" deal is going to decrease my school taxes.

you will never lower property taxes as long as school boards exist to create a job fair for their relatives . I have 1 teacher for every 9 students and 1 aide for every 10 students in my Town . Why do you think most districts went to Nov. elections ? Boards will try and take over enough Council seats to not worry when the budget does exceed the CAP and fails . Not enough NJ voters have a clue what is driving their taxes thru the roof .

I'dl like to see the sales tax cut or even done away with.

The best cut would have been an across the board property tax rebate or cut. Cutting the income tax is disproportionate. If this is truly a shared sacrifice we all had to tighten our belts then why is the Governor in this case cutting a tax that will not provide a shared sense of return for the past two years cuts. If we did a property tax cut/rebate the average household could receive around $500 to $700 dollars relief. With an income tax cut to get to $500 or $700 tax break a person will be earning in excess of 500K and closer to 1 million. I supported not punishing the rich with an additional millionaires tax as it was unfair. If the millionaires additional tax had been enacted in the last two years then this might make sense. However, right now it is disproportionate relief and when compared to property tax relief negatively affects the majority of the middle class. Christie fan but he is off on this issue it is unfortunate.

I see how this will go. Christie will claim to have cut taxes by cutting the income tax. We will default on state pension obligations, and he'll blame teachers for being greedy for raising the issue. Additionally, less money will go to the municipalities for school aid and whatever else towns get state aid for. Then, towns will need to raise taxes to make up for the lost revenue. But, Christie will be able to claim that he cut taxes in NJ, and voila, there is his Presidential campaign mantra.

Property tax reform in this state is long overdue.

I see the appeal of a tax cut, but I don't see where he's going to find the money in the state budget.

I've been a supporter of CC but on this he is way off ,as property taxes increase but he gives back pennies yes he can say he's the first governor to cut taxes ...but at a higher cost to the rest of us ....what he saying is the same as I'll feed everyone free soup so no one goes hungry ...but the bowl and spoon will cost you 50 bucks

tax cuts are for dummies! I am tired of Republicans hiding behind tax cuts as their mantra. CUT SPENDING AND CUT GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES!

How do you have a tax cut when your public employees are screwing the system? So you get more in your paycheck which you in turn, then give to your local township to pay for ridiculous health and pension benefits!

82% of the Elizabeth school budget is paid from the state income tax.
Believe it or not the state income tax is pledged to property tax relief, just not in the communities where it is collected.
Throw out all the liberals on the supreme court and start over.

Martin ain't brilliant. Can you please explain what the banking disaster has to do with property taxes being so high, no not in 100 years. we pay the highest property taxes in the nation because we pay exorbitant labor and pension and health care costs. It really is simple. Don't struggle too hard with this

We have been so dumbed down and stupefied in this country that we always blame public employees for what ever is wrong with the economy, the country or even the universe. Public employees are the scapegoat and sacrificial lamb du jour because that's what we hear from demagogues like Christie, from hate wing radio and even much of the main stream media. It's sickening.

Gee, the bankers, the hedge fund managers, the Wall Street guys are the ones who nearly brought us great depression #2. Did you forget that part? In 2008, because of fraud at Morgan Stanley, the pension fund lost about $400 million. Christie Todd Whitman used the pension fund to give tax breaks that mainly benefited the rich. She denied the pension fund its rightful resources so she could give tax breaks for the rich. Public employees have paid into the system for decades but the politicians (D and R) have paid little or nothing into the system over almost 2 decades.

Martin you are VERY wrong, NJ is in financial straights because like Ca they have public unions that are out of control. I have studied this issue extensively. You cannot pay a middle school wood shop teacher 90k a year, let them retire at 62, pay them and their families ENTIRE medical bills and a pension for the rest of their lives and afford it! It really is stunningly simple but the issue is that people have been brainwashed, now I agree Chrisite's tax cuts are a joke, But if you look at what Mitch Daniels did in Indiana with HSA 's for government employees he saved 100's of millions of dollars!

Joe (not Joe R), maybe you can't afford it, but I can afford it. That's why we need to raise the income tax and cut the property tax. We also need to correct the stupid provision in the State Constitution that dedicates the income tax to property tax relief. I've already listed some of the reasons why New Jersey is an expensive project, and the cost should be recovered from those who can afford to pay it.

The basics of economics have nothing to do with money. Economics is about production and distribution of goods and services. Question number 1 is, can we produce enough, and distribute it appropriately, so that everybody's needs (not wants) are satisfied? If the answer is No, in what we think of as the richest country in the world, they we're all in very deep trouble. Assuming the answer is Yes, then Question number 2 is how to manage the money to make it happen. Surely we're smart enough to do that.

We have 50 million UNINSURED and tens of millions more UNDER INSURED. So the right wing libertarian solution is to kill off Medicare, Medicaid and anything else that helps ordinary Americans. Why should my tax dollars go to moochers, blah, blah, blah, all that right wing garbage? We pool our tax dollars for public roads, interstate highways, the judicial system but health care is off limits? Medicaid is for the desperately poor and it also pays for old people in nursing homes who have used up all their own personal funds and assets. What do you do with those old people in nursing homes if you abolish Medicaid? I'm sure that Joe does not give a damn unless he has a relative in a nursing home thanks to Medicaid. Oh, I forgot, libertarians never get sick and they are all billionaires.

My doctor told me yesterday that her Medicaid patients gets taxi service to her office from 2 hours away and she can't get paid a decent wage for treating them, the system is broke and for all you idiots that don't get it go get a real education!

MMMMMMMM Christie could have cut more from the budget --More school aid ---waste of money ---- we pay as much to educate a 5th grader as we do to educate a college kid --stop coddling kids -if ya fail at school -------------guess what --your job will be ditchdigger

NJEA still runs NJ they just let Christie blow off steam now and then

Eatontown -- Middle school 7th -8th grade ----cost per pupil --14,245 dollars for each kid

15k a year per student! Just put the money in an account and when they turn 18 give them the check and no more problems.

flag my comment? who made you God of the internet? 3,000 per person every year with no tangible results? with no accountability? Oh and yeas those prisons, those fine institutions that create gangs and more pensions for us to raise taxes to support

isn't it true, the same public unions that want to bash Wall Street for greed expect 9% returns to fund their lavish Florida retirement homes!

or the very taxpayers that pay their salaries and the children they can't educate for some reason

Oh and the politicians that feed them very trough they pig out on!

Of course Christie will do income tax cuts as it caters to his cronies. No millionaire left behind. We need property tax help or NJ will be a vacant waste land with a few ultra rich.

He screwed the middle class on tolls and now this and outside of NJ theythink he is a hero???!!! Let's put ABC back on our bumpers--Anyone but Chritie!!!!!

Take any New Jersey municipality, layoff 20 to 25% of the employees, be sure its the laziest and dumbest of the lot. It is common knowledge that many government workers are unemployable in the private sector or real world. After the layoffs are complete there will be no decrease in services and municipal property taxes taxes can be reduced.

Dano, stop with that argument! It's really getting old. Of course we need government services, does that mean we pay a cop 120k a year in rural towns where deer population is the biggest concern, or we keep throwing people in jail for drug use, or we have leaf collection service! And I want vouchers so that we don't have shitty teachers we cannot get rid of! Are you suggesting in your stupidity that you support crummy teachers no matter ho incompetent they are?

Wow where to start. The issue was property tax reform verse income tax cut. It is pretty clear that property tax reform with an across the board cut would provide a more even distribution of funds. The numbers are the numbers the average average in NJ making between 40K and 350K will receive $300 dollars or less from the income tax cut. An across the board property tax credit could have yielded an average of $750 dollars per family. Martin B Brilliant I suggest you study that book a little more and possibly a history book on the constitution. Your suggestion is that taxes should be taken from the more affluent and provided to the less affluent. You fail to recognize that by the current tax system both federal and state. the more affluent do pay more. In NJ the top 1% pay 41% of the income tax. The issue is not an argument of whether they should pay more the issue is how do we reform the tax codes to eliminate or drastically reduce write offs and credits. As for Joe R the bankers have some responsibility for the most recent mess, so do the politicians and union leadership but I do not blame the union worker individually it is the leadership that is the issue. Please remember under William Jefferson Clinton banks were threatened to be sued for discriminatory practices for refusing what they considered to be risky loans. The discriminatory practice was based on formulas that had been used for years like debt ratio. .......continued

These bankers were not looking for specific categories of people to deny. Enter Fannie and Freddie who now tell the banks they will guarantee the loans and the problem starts. You see this is where home ownership was nearly deemed a right rather than something you had to work for. The intention of this was good allow more people the opportunity to purchase homes the execution was awful. This does not excuse the banking practices that followed such as no doc loans and predatory loans. Actually what Fannie and Freddie did was make the banks the clearing house for loans they would not have to underwrite. Now we go to George Busch who pointed out the issue to congress in 2003 and was laughed at by Harry Reid and Barney Frank. This does not give a pass to Busch who himself evaporated the issue by taking a surplus budget and running up ridiculous deficits at least we thought they were as bad as could be until Obama. Anyway Busch was not a fiscal conservative he was as liberal a spender as everyone before him. Joe and Martin some additional information. The biggest tax cuts in US history occurred under Regan and Clinton with Clinton being the largest. In both these administrations we had enormous growth. In the Regan years it was curtailed by deficit spending which was a mistake. Under Clinton we managed to create a surplus through tax reduction and cost cutting and reform. Clinton worked with a republican house and senate to accomplish this task..continued

Please do not make the mistake of telling people that tax cuts do not work and they will cause havoc history will prove you wrong. The argument that they cause gap in wealth is a hollow argument. Who cares if somebody make 100 times your salary as long as you have a high quality standard of living. The wealth gap or income inequality is a way of creating class warfare. I hate the billionaire he has more than me. Whatever happened wow he is really successful what do I have to do to achieve that level of success. In the end the likelihood of you becoming that successful is slim it should be that is why only 1 percent achieve it. If you want to focus on the real issue it is tax reform. Go to a flat tax with the only write offs for mortgage interest only on your primary home, charitable deductions and education credits. Place a cap on the amount of mortgage interest that can be deducted. Then put in some safeguards for the truly less fortunate where under certain income levels you are not charged the flat tax but rather a flat dollar amount not to exceed 1% of your income. Now everybody has skin in the game. The people not paying any tax will pay something and those using the exorbitant write offs will loose those write offs and that money will be taxed. Also Martin just like Christie told Buffet if you can afford to write a check to the government and believe so strongly in that ideal because you are doing well you can write the check nobody is stopping you. cont

Otherwise you are spouting a philosophy you claim to believe in but are not willing to take part in unless you force others to join you. That my friends is a hollow argument either you believe in the principles or you don't and actions speak louder than words. Between Buffet, Gates, and Soros they could each pick 5 families a week and by them a home and solve financial issues for those folks. I suggest thy start that program. Now onto the cost of educating students in New Jersey. Yes the cost is high and it is a combination of things that account for that some of the cost are the pensions and healthcare costs some are ridiculous state mandates some is inefficiency As far as the pensions go the state fund would be solvent had the state made its contributions however, that does not mean the system is sustainable. As far as healthcare there has been reform and it is being phased in over the next few years. Our additional pension issue is police and fire there need to be real reform. Think about this a police officer hired out of college age 22 works 25 years retires age 47 his/her replacement hired out of college age 22 works 25 years retires his or her replacement is hired out of college. The average age of a man is 84 I use a man because the life expectancy is lower. After the first officer retires you are paying 2 people for 25 years after the second officer retires you are paying three people for 12 years and two for 13. This is not sustainable. .. continued

There needs to be reform. I suggest you keep the system that allows people to retire but they can't collect their pension until age 62 when they are first eligible for SS. Of course this needs to be phased in over a period of time you should not screw the people who have been working for years under a certain assumption it would not be fair. There are solutions to issues we just need give and take on both sides. The most pressing reform is really within our political system we need to address political contributions and special interest groups. It needs to be made clear that organizations do not have the same rights and privileges as citizens. This does not mean they have no rights there just needs to be limitations on their influence in the political system.

Dano, did u get all your name calling in? Make you fell better you tough guy. Grow up and go take a steroid shot