New Jersey conservative Lonegan heats congressional race over taxes
Peter D'Abrosca
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A New Jersey conservative congressional candidate Friday blasted his opponent Rep. Joshua S. Gottheimer (D.-N.J.) for standing by and not supporting reductions of Garden State property taxes.
“Governor-Elect Phil Murphy held a press conference today with Congressman Josh Gottheimer and Democrat luminaries like state legislator Tim Eustace to announce he wasn’t going to do a thing about New Jersey’s highest-in-the-nation property taxes,” said Steven M. Lonegan, a Republican hopeful for New Jersey’s 5th congressional district seat.
Gottheimer and the incoming Democratic governor Philip D. Murphy said they support the plan to relabel local taxes as charitable donations, in response to the new cap on the deductibility of state and local taxes in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, signed by President Donald J. Trump before the end of 2017.
“Not only does the recently enacted Tax Cuts and Jobs legislation cut taxes for at least 81 percent of New Jersey residents, that’s according to the figures used by liberal think-tanks, it has already sent fresh adrenaline into the bloodstream of the American economy,” said Lonegan.
Lonegan also said that New Jersey has the highest property taxes and the worst business climate in America, and that Murphy and Gottheimer have several alternatives to improve the tax and business climate in the state.
“Murphy could remove the $10,000 state income tax cap on property tax deductions this month, if he chose to,” he said.
He said that Murphy could make charitable contributions fully deductible if he chose to, and Murphy could address New Jersey’s inequitable school funding formula and its misuse of the state income tax for social engineering — the core-reasons why New Jersey has the highest property taxes in the nation.
“Instead, Phil Murphy has trotted out an ill-conceived, ad-hoc plan, cooked up by liberal public relations shill Josh Gottheimer, the same guy who provided the spin for the Wall Street firms that wrecked our economy,” he said.
Lonegan said that when you drill down through all the fluff of the bill, the Murphy-Gottheimer plan is to get people to donate more of their hard-earned money to the government in order to qualify for a tax break.
“Their answer is the same as it always is: Give more money to government in the hope that you will get something back for it.”
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