Calling out Republican hypocrisy on taxes in New Jersey

There was a lotta controversy when New York City's socialist mayor Mamdani began advocating for a luxury tax on so-called pieds-à-terre.

The mayor wants an 'ultra luxury surcharge' on second homes worth more than $5 million.

He claims the tax will bring in more than $500 million to the city coffers.

The people impacted will be the very, very wealthy, the kind of people who have multi-million-dollar trust funds and have enough money that they make money on their money.

The knee-jerk reaction from Republicans to the tax is to oppose it. "No new taxes" has been a rallying cry for the GOP for decades.

Of course, President Bush (the first one) lost re-election after promising never to raise taxes, and then, well, raising taxes.

Remember "Read my lips, No New Taxes?"

Then there was the Republican 'gas tax' brought to you by Gov. Christie and Sen. Steve Oroho.

It's simply not accurate to say that Republicans don't raise taxes. They just try to do it on the 'down-low.'

NJ Republicans support taxes when it benefits them

I've said many times before that I support 'user fees'.

Beach tags are among my favorite as this lightens the burden on local shore homeowners and puts the financial burden for clean-up, boardwalks maintenance and lifeguards on the visitors who are using the beach.

I think the sales tax is another smart way for the government to raise revenue. It was one of the things I opposed in the gas tax proposal because the GOP plan was to spike the gas tax and offset with a small cut in the sales tax.

It made no sense.

The sales tax brings in an estimated billion dollars per point, and no one is leaving the state to save a quarter point off the sales tax.

So it's built-in revenue; leave it alone.

What was worse was that the GOP took away the Legislature's power and allowed the DOT to raise the tax when revenue fell, which it had been doing over the 10 years leading up to the new tax.

I've said for years that had the Florio tax hikes been left in place, had he been re-elected, we might not be in the fiscal mess we're in today.

That tax hike cost him his re-election and we got stuck with arguably the worst governor in New Jersey history, Christine Todd Whitman.

Whitman campaigned on major tax cuts, which she delivered. But unlike Florio, who built in spending cuts in his tax plan, she failed to reduce spending and essentially spent the "nest egg," creating a fiscal disaster that we really never fully recovered from.

Could New Jersey tax wealthy second-home owners next?

This brings us to the communist running NYC.

The mayor has actually outsmarted his opponents and detractors by coming up with a revenue source that will likely work, with very little downside.

The rich can afford it; these are fancy homes that get very little use, and if you have the money for a 5-million-dollar getaway flat, you have the money to pay the surcharge.

If the rich owner decides they don't want to pay it, there are plenty of millionaire buyers who want to or need to be in the city who will happily take it off their hands.

If the buyer decides to live there, the city benefits from the regular taxes and potentially massive revenue from income taxes.

The problem in New York, and presumably in New Jersey, is that the government will likely follow the lead of Whitman, spending will continue to spike and the insatiable appetite of government will likely continue to prey on working and middle-class taxpayers to meet the rising demands.

When we owned our home in Vermont, we paid a "second home tax" that essentially helped fund the local schools in a state where there isn't much of a tax base, so they put the bill on the tourists.

I knew it going in and had no problem with the tax, in part because even though we paid a lot more than our permanent-resident neighbors, it was a small fraction of what we pay for the privilege of living in the Garden State.

The first takeaway for Republicans is stop being hypocrites; you've all supported tax hikes in the past, so you can't point the finger only at Democrats.

Second, stop pretending that you want to champion 'fairness' when it's both parties' spending habits that have caused a crisis for middle- and working-class families who now struggle to provide basic needs.

Let the super-rich New Yorkers who own multi-million-dollar homes at the Jersey Shore pay.

They can afford it, and they're not going anywhere.

Then fight the Democrats on spending. We should be able to cut the state budget by at least 10% in the first year, and use the new revenue to cut property taxes for retirees and working families.

Let's get the budget back under $45 billion, create a new wave of revenue from the second-home New Yorkers, lower taxes for regular New Jerseyans and get the state financially sound again.

It's possible and it could be a winning issue in the 2027 midterms.

Why NJ taxpayers shouldn’t eat the cost of FIFA or NJ Transit

Side note: NJ Republicans should stop fighting the governor's plan to raise the sales tax on purchases around the FIFA games.

The games are a disaster for the state with tens of millions of increased costs that FIFA won't cover.

Instead of the rest of us paying the bill for Murphy's folly, let the rich guys who can afford the thousands of dollars for a ticket pay a vig to offset the costs.

Same with NJ Transit. You should be thanking Kris Kolluri for implementing a higher ticket price for the games.

Why should regular commuters have to foot the bill?

It's time for the GOP to get smart. We need taxes; we just need a fairer way of levying them, and we need massive spending cuts to refocus and redirect government.

It's all possible, but voters don't trust Republicans yet, and trust starts with being honest.

Drop the talking points and start proposing solutions.

The post above reflects the thoughts and observations of New Jersey 101.5 talk show host Bill Spadea. Any opinions expressed are Bill's own.

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