I’m not a millionaire.
And unless I come up with the next “ShamWow,” I probably won’t be.
I would imagine when some people hear the word “millionaire,” they think of old “Uncle Pennybags” from Monopoly, living’ it up, with a top hat and and golden monocle, eating Kobe beef and drinking champagne, while the po’ folk is sweatin’ away. (Wait, that sounds like a state dinner at the Obama White House.)
When told that the New Jersey state legislature hatched a plan to raise taxes on millionaires (again), Republican Governor Chris Christie’s response was one never heard in these parts.
“Let me be real clear on it,” he said. “They can call it whatever they want to call it. They can package it however they want to package it. They can send it to me with a bow on it. They can send it to me in a nice box, gift-wrapped. They can throw it over the transom and leave it there and hope nobody smells it. No matter how they send it to me, it is going back. It is going back with a veto on it. We are not raising taxes in the state of New Jersey this year.“
Hallelujah, Praise the Lord!
In a show of classy class warfare, the New Jersey Assembly (better know as the NJ Democratic Party) just passed said “Millionaires Tax.”
The bill would raise taxes on those making $1 million or more from 8.97 percent to 10.75 percent.
New Jersey has 16,000 millionaires out of a taxable population of 3.9 million. These people are pretty damned important to the state’s coffers.
“About one-half of a percent of the state’s 3.9 million filers would be subject to the surcharge, (Senate President Stephen) Sweeney said. The top 1 percent of earners paid 42 percent of all income taxes collected in 2009, said Andrew Pratt, spokesman for the Treasury Department.”
Is that supposed to bolster his argument?
The democratic assembly says this tax would transfer about $637 million to people like the state’s 600,000 senior citizens who, supposedly, can’t afford their taxes.
The usual dramatic, drippy democrat class warfare sob story was on full display during this hypocritical showdown.
“Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver (D-Essex) said “Gov. Christie has made it clear that he stands for millionaires over our most vulnerable senior citizens … It was a compassionate plan that wasn’t too much to ask to protect our parents, grandparents and neighbors. Our priority was protecting vulnerable elderly and disabled residents.”
Christie also kicks puppies and burns ants with a magnifying glass.
In response, Assembly Republican leader Alex DeCroce (R-Morris) lambasted Democrats.
“It’s always tax, tax and more tax,” he said. “That’s all you guys do. You could have voted on this during the lameduck Legislature (in December) but you let the surcharge die. Now you have a conscience. You are just telling the people of my generation ‘We are pandering to you because we’ve got no other way out of this mess.’ Let’s cut the jokes, let’s get on the ball and do things right.”
God damned right.
This state has been held hostage by democrats for decades. Now the democratic assembly suddenly cares about how taxes, which they imposed, affects the population?
They didn’t give a rat’s ass about how high taxes affected our citizens when they had a complicit democrat like Corzine in the Governor’s office. They are the ones who put a high tax burden on the same senior citizens then who they claim to be fighting for now.
(This is just state income tax. It doesn’t even address municipal or property taxes, which are the highest in the nation.)
Before the ink on the bill was even dry, Gov. Christie held true to his word.
“After the state Senate passed the bill, which had already passed the Assembly, Sweeney walked the bills down the hallways of the Statehouse, from the state Senate chambers to the governor’s office. Once inside, he handed the bills to Christie, who was waiting.
“What took you so long ?” asked Christie spokesman Michael Drewniak.
Christie sat at a wooden desk emblazoned with the seal of the state of New Jersey and swiftly signed vetoes.
“We’ll be back, governor,” said Sweeney.
“Alright, we’ll see,” said Christie.”
Christie declared the “millionaires tax” passed by the Legislature to be a bad idea atop an already-bad budget situation.
“This bill does nothing more than repeat the failed, irresponsible and unsustainable fiscal policies of the past,” Christie said in his formal veto notification, which noted “out of control spending” and high property taxes “crippled our state’s economy.”
The more wealthy a person is, the more tax a state will gain. Instead of making New Jersey a state where people would want to live in and prosper, democrats have made it into one of the most undesirable places in the country in which to live.
“More than $70 billion in wealth left New Jersey between 2004 and 2008 as affluent residents moved elsewhere, according to a report released Wednesday that marks a swift reversal of fortune for a state once considered the nation’s wealthiest.”
Gee, thanks Gubner Corzine!
Christie doesn’t care about re-election. He doesn’t care about polls or cronyism.
He has inherited a state which has, under democratic control, ballooned a budget deficit to $11 billion.
The entrenched democrats can make him the boogie-man all they want.
But he is here to fix things.
Thank God.
(In other news, Hell froze over.)
