Latest news with #NewJerseyMonitor
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3 days ago
- Business
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Republicans running to become New Jersey governor want tax cuts
Republicans seeking New Jersey's governorship are united in wanting to cut taxes, though their favored methods differ. (Illustration by Alex Cochran for New Jersey Monitor) Republicans hoping to reclaim New Jersey's governorship are largely united on how to make New Jersey more affordable. They want to cut taxes. Though virtually all five of the GOP candidates to succeed Gov. Phil Murphy support some form of tax cut — whether through rate changes or awards to offset locally set property taxes — they differ some on the details. The primary is June 10. State Sen. Jon Bramnick lauded a longstanding Republican proposal to adjust New Jersey's income tax brackets for inflation to combat a phenomenon called bracket creep. GOP legislators have argued that because the state's income tax brackets are not indexed for inflation, residents' tax rates increase over time with their incomes, cutting into any gains in purchasing power. Bramnick also suggested simplifying New Jersey's tax brackets, though he did not detail those proposed changes. He said the combined changes would produce $1,600 in annual savings for joint filers, or $1,000 for single filers. He also proposed requiring school districts to return excess state aid to their property taxpayers, saying it would lower average residents' property tax bills by $800. State school aid, pegged for just over $12 billion in the fiscal year that begins July 1, is funded with income tax revenue. Former Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli likewise said he would condense New Jersey's income tax brackets, adding he would 'reduce income taxes for all taxpayers' and introduce exemptions and deductions for home improvements and student loan interest. His platform provides no specifics about either plan. Ciattarelli, who sought the governor's seat unsuccessfully in 2017 and 2021, pledged to reduce New Jersey's corporate business tax rates by five points over as many years. Currently, New Jersey taxes its businesses on non-marginal rates ranging between 6.5% and 9%, depending on net income. Businesses with more than $10 million in income face an additional 2.5% non-marginal surcharge for what's called the corporate transit fee (which is intended to fund NJ Transit). Counting the surcharge, New Jersey has the highest state business tax rates in the nation. Without it, the Garden State's rates are the nation's fourth highest. Ciattarelli said he would cap property tax rates to a percentage of a home's valuation. Statewide, locally set property tax rates in 2024 averaged just over 2.6%, according to Department of Community Affairs data. Ciattarelli also seeks to reduce state spending by 30%, though it's not clear what programs he would slash to produce more than $17.4 billion in savings. Gov. Phil Murphy's budget plan for the next fiscal year calls for about $58.4 billion in spending. Longtime radio talk show host Bill Spadea's affordability plan offers few details. It proposes unspecified cuts to individual and business taxes and cites the large growth in spending under Murphy. Gov. Chris Christie's final budget called for $35.5 billion in spending for the 2018 fiscal year, 40% smaller than the final budget proposal of Murphy's second term. Much of those increases can be attributed to full funding of pension payments and school aid, which together rose by $7.6 billion between Christie's and Murphy's final budget proposals. The roughly 31% in inflation between the two budgets accounts for much of the remainder, though some budget items are not directly tied to rising prices. Former Englewood Cliffs Mayor Mario Kranjac's tax plan focuses mainly on property taxes. He said he would seek to cut property taxes, which are locally set, by 2% in each year of his term. The average property New Jersey tax bill was $10,095 in 2024, according to Department of Community Affairs data. He also said he would seek to cut regulations and business taxes to encourage small business growth but did not provide specifics about either proposal. Burlington County contractor Justin Barbera has said he would seek to lower taxes for New Jerseyans without children and lower or remove them for seniors, veterans, and those with disabilities. The details of those proposals are unclear. Here's how the Democrats running to be governor say they'll make New Jersey more affordable
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4 days ago
- General
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Trump admin likely violated Constitution in bid to deport Columbia University activist, judge says
Supporters of Mahmoud Khalil rally outside the federal courthouse in Newark on March 28, 2025. (Reena Rose Sibayan for New Jersey Monitor) A federal judge said Wednesday that attempts to deport a pro-Palestinian Columbia University activist likely violate the Constitution, dealing a potential blow to efforts by the Trump administration to kick political student activists out of the country. But U.S. Judge Michael Farbiarz stopped short of releasing Mahmoud Khalil, a legal resident of the U.S., from the Louisiana jail where he is being held. Farbiarz directed Khalil's legal team to present more arguments on why he should be released. The judge added that while Khalil may be successful in challenging the government's 'vagueness' regarding his detention, the government may still be justified in detaining him based on their allegation that he lied on his green card application. Khalil contends he is a political prisoner detained in violation of his free speech rights. 'If an immigration court holds that the Petitioner did not have to disclose the allegedly omitted information, that could fully dispose of the underlying ground for removal, without any need for a federal court to reach a potentially complex First Amendment question,' Farbiarz wrote in the 106-page decision. Khalil was arrested by federal immigration agents in New York City on March 8 and has been held in immigration detention in Louisiana since. He was among the first in a wave of pro-Palestinian legal residents who have been arrested by federal authorities as the Trump administration has ramped up mass deportation and tested the limits of immigration law. While Khalil hasn't been charged with a crime, he's facing removal based on two claims: inaccuracies on his green card application and a determination by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio that Khail's presence in the country would have 'serious adverse foreign policy consequences' and 'compromise a compelling U.S. foreign policy interest.' Khalil's legal challenge to his detention is playing out in two courts — immigration court in Louisiana, where a judge said she had no authority to question the government's decision to remove Khalil, and in federal court in New Jersey, where Khalil was temporarily held while his attorneys filed a petition for his release. Farbiarz's ruling says Rubio likely overstepped his authority when he invoked a rarely used provision of federal law called section 1227 to target Khalil and other student activists for deportation. The statute allows for the deportation of non-citizens if the secretary of state determines their 'presence or activities … would have serious adverse foreign policy consequences.' 'The petitioner is likely to succeed on the merits of his claim that section 1227 is unconstitutionally vague as applied to him through the SoS's determination,' Farbiarz wrote. Removal of this kind, he added, would be 'unprecedented.' The judge asked for additional briefings on the government's claims surrounding Kahlil's green card application. He also said he would soon issue another order with the next steps in the case. The American Civil Liberties Union, part of the legal team representing Khalil, said in a statement they vow to keep fighting for his release. 'We will work as quickly as possible to provide the court the additional information it requested supporting our effort to free Mahmoud or otherwise return him to his wife and newborn son. Every day Mahmoud spends languishing in an ICE detention facility in Jena, Louisiana, is an affront to justice, and we won't stop working until he is free,' his legal team said. Khalil is protected from being deported immediately under a previous order from Farbiarz that bars the government from removing him while his fight to be released from detention proceeds.
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4 days ago
- Business
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Here's how the Democrats running to be governor say they'll make New Jersey more affordable
The six Democrats hoping to succeed Gov. Phil Murphy have wildly different plans to rein in New Jersey's high cost of living. (Illustration by Alex Cochran for New Jersey Monitor) [Election 2025 Voter Guide: Eleven candidates are running in the June 10 Democratic and GOP gubernatorial primaries.] Affordability is perennially a top issue in New Jersey elections, and the six Democrats hoping to succeed Gov. Phil Murphy all have plans to bring down costs here in the Garden State. The Democrats, who are vying on June 10 for their party's nod for governor in November, have plans to lower costs that range from broad tax code changes that would place more of the burden on wealthy residents to expanded tax credits for families and low-income individuals to significant tax cuts for property owners. New Jersey's cost of living and tax burdens could well decide the race for the state's next governor. An Emerson College Polling/PIX11/The Hill poll of New Jersey voters from earlier this month found 45% of respondents said the economy (including taxes) is the No. 1 issue facing New Jersey, followed by housing affordability at 12%. It remains to be seen how voters will judge Democrats' affordability promises after eight years under a Democratic governor. Neither party has won three successive terms as New Jersey's governor since 1961. 'If you're unhappy with the way things are going, you vote for a change. If you're happy with the way things are going, you vote for whoever's in charge,' said Dan Cassino, the director of the Fairleigh Dickinson University poll. 'So it's entirely plausible that voters are going to go to that voting booth and say, 'Well, New Jersey's unaffordable. We need a change. Let's vote for a Republican.'' Tax reform features heavily in Newark Mayor Ras Baraka's affordability plan. The progressive Democrat has proposed taxing the first $90,000 of income residents earn at 1.4%, the rate currently charged on the first $20,000 earned in a year, and reducing rates for those making less than $500,000. Under Baraka's plan, marginal rates would fall to 6.37% for those making at least $152,000, to 7.5% for those making at least $350,000, 9% for those with incomes of at least $500,000, and 10% for residents who earn at least $750,000. Those who make at least $1 million would pay more under Baraka's plan, and the state's top earners would pay the highest state income tax rates in the nation. Marginal rates for individuals making more than $1 million annually would range from 11% to 14% under Baraka's plan, with the highest bracket kicking in after $10 million in annual earnings. California's top state income tax bracket, the highest in the nation, taxes earnings above $1 million at 13.3%. Baraka says these changes would boost annual collections by about $2 billion. Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop also favors higher taxes for high earners. Fulop would create new tax brackets for those earning $2 million, $5 million, and $10 million per year. Fulop's affordability plan does not state the levels of the new brackets, but a New Jersey Policy Perspective report cited by his plan recommends they be set to 12%, 13%, and 14%, respectively. The think tank's report, published in November, says the changes would generate $1.2 billion annually. Fulop says he would like to raise the state's earned income tax credit — which offsets tax burdens for very low-income residents with credits worth between $253 and $3,132 in 2024 — to 50% of the federal benefit, from 40%. He's also proposed changes to Stay NJ, a new state program that aims to halve senior citizens' property taxes. Fulop would reduce the income limit for Stay NJ participants from $500,000 to $150,000 and make the program's credits flat and phased-in rather than based on a resident's property tax bill. Tax cuts lie at the center of Rep. Josh Gottheimer's affordability agenda. The five-term congressman's cost-lowering plan centers around a promise to reduce state and local taxes by a combined $5.9 billion through a raft of cuts, credits, and rebates. The state's average property tax bill in 2024 was $10,095 Gottheimer proposes requiring local governments to cut property taxes to receive an equal amount of state income tax revenue, echoing a Republican school-funding proposal from years past. Gottheimer's version proposes to move roughly $4.7 billion in annual costs from local ledgers to the state budget. Because property taxes are set locally, municipalities would have to act to lower them, and matching state funds would only be offered to those that undertake efficiency reviews that Gottheimer says would pay for his tax cuts. He says those reviews would cut 5% of state and local spending — $2.9 billion at the state level and $2.4 billion locally — by merging departments, unifying procurement offices, and even removing light bulbs from vending machines. Local governments billed a little less than $35.7 billion in property taxes last year, according to state records, meaning that across-the-board 5% cuts would have produced close to $700 million less than the $2.9 billion advertised by Gottheimer's plan. The congressman's property and income tax credits for renters, those with dependents, retirees, and businesses would reduce state revenue by $1.2 billion each year. Rep. Mikie Sherrill has eschewed proposing broad changes to the tax code, though she favors increasing award amounts for the state's child tax credit — a per-child refundable tax credit worth between $1,000 and $200, depending on income — and its earned income tax credit. She would also create a caregiver assistance tax credit for residents caring for elderly family members. Sherrill has not proposed specific levels for any of the tax credits. The congresswoman also proposes the return of a sales tax holiday for back-to-school items. The state implemented that in 2023 but halted it last year as the state's budgeting began to tighten. New Jersey Education Association President Sean Spiller's policy platform places little focus on affordability, at least in the realm of taxes. He says he would seek to expand the child and dependent care tax credits, which offset a portion of taxpayers' child care expenses, and boost other assistance for child care. The state's child and dependent care tax credit is set as a percentage of the federal benefit — $3,000 for a single filer or $6,000 for joint filers. At present, New Jersey's child and dependent care tax credit offers between 50% and 10% of the federal benefit, with those earning less than $30,000 receiving the largest credits and those making between $120,000 and $150,000 the smallest. Former state Sen. Steve Sweeney's affordability plan focuses on seniors. He has proposed a massive expansion of state income tax exclusions for retirees that would entirely eliminate all income tax for residents 65 and older with a household income of no more than $250,000. At present, residents 62 and over who make no more than $100,000 can exclude from their income taxes large portions of their pension income — $100,000 for joint filers, $75,000 for single filers, and $50,000 for married individuals filing separate returns. Those with incomes between $100,000 and $150,000 can exclude a percentage of their pension income from their taxes. A separate process calculates exclusions for other types of retirement income, and New Jersey does not tax social security benefits. It's not clear how much Sweeney's exclusion proposal would cost the state in foregone revenue. Sweeney also proposes lowering income limits for Stay NJ from $500,000 to $250,000. That program, due to issue its first half-year benefit in the fiscal year that begins July 1, is expected to cost at least $1.2 billion annually under current law. It's not clear how much money the state would save by halving the program's income limit. SUPPORT: YOU MAKE OUR WORK POSSIBLE
Yahoo
5 days ago
- Business
- Yahoo
Congresswoman running for N.J. governor is target of escalating attacks on campaign trail
Three of Rep. Mikie Sherill's Dem rivals have turned their sights on her as the June 10 gubernatorial primary approaches. (Amanda Brown for New Jersey Monitor) With less than two weeks to go before the June 10 primary, Democrats vying to become New Jersey's next governor have stepped up their attacks on Rep. Mikie Sherrill, who election observers and pollsters consider to be the race's front-runner. In new television ads and mailers, Sherrill's rivals have bashed her wealth, her establishment ties, and past campaign contributions she accepted from a PAC associated with SpaceX, the spaceflight company helmed by Elon Musk. The grievances aren't new, but they're escalating as the primary approaches. And they're coming from candidates like Steve Fulop and Ras Baraka, who are running as anti-establishment insurgents, as well as party darlings like Steve Sweeney as they look to erode Sherrill's support among voters, many of whom remain undecided. 'Why on earth would Mikie Sherrill vote to send millions in taxpayer funds to Elon and SpaceX? Musk be the money he gave her campaigns. End the corruption!' says an ad from Coalition for Progress, a PAC boosting Fulop's candidacy (its treasurer is Fulop's wife's business partner). Another ad from Baraka's campaign takes aim at Sherrill for both the SpaceX donations and profits Sherrill and her husband, a banker, made from stock trades. The congresswoman, along with other politicians, paid a fine several years ago for disclosure failures. 'Mikie Sherrill let us down. Mikie took $30,000 from Elon Musk's campaign fund, while Trump attacked abortion access,' the ad's narrator says. Sherrill, after speaking to voters in Somerset Tuesday, told the New Jersey Monitor that the uptick in negative campaigning against her is 'a shame to see.' 'A lot of that's based on false information from Newsmax, which is paying $40 million in court settlements for misinformation. And I'm the only person in the race that's put out my tax return for state and federal over the last two years. It's all really transparent,' she said. Sherrill's congressional campaign received $24,000 between 2019 and September 2024 from the SpaceX PAC, while a Sherrill-affiliated leadership PAC received another $7,500 total from the PAC in 2020 and 2022. Sherrill donated the amount her campaign received to a food bank, her campaign filings show. When Charlamagne tha God, a host on the radio show The Breakfast Club, interviewed Sherrill last week and asked her to confirm claims in Baraka's campaign ad — plus in news reports — that she made $7 million in stock trades, Sherrill said she didn't know. 'I haven't, I don't believe I did, but I'd have to go see what, what that was alluding to,' she said. 'Look, I, both my husband and I come from very middle-class families. My parents were the first in their family to go to college and his were both teachers, and then we both went into the military. And afterwards he got a good job and, I, we've been really lucky. I really, I really deeply feel like this country has provided an incredible amount of opportunity to us and that's why I think I feel a responsibility to sort of pay that forward.' The clip of the interview promoted on social media prompted a succinct reaction from Sweeney. 'Yikes,' he wrote. Fulop, the mayor of Jersey City, told the New Jersey Monitor that the criticism facing Sherrill is fair given the race's high stakes. He doesn't think Sherrill, if she wins the Democratic primary in June, can pull off a general election win in November, citing mounting public disillusionment with Democrats in both D.C. and Trenton. Sherrill has the backing of key New Jersey Democratic Party officials. 'She's a creature of the political establishment,' Fulop said. 'She has the same machine infrastructure and the same playbook as was run in the last 25 years. And the nature of where the state is and the country is, is not that. After eight years of Democratic machine politics, it's going to be hard for any Democrat that is part of that structure to be elected.' He pointed to Jack Ciattarelli, a former assemblyman and the front-runner on the Republican side of the race, and his habit of hammering Trenton lawmakers for things like skyrocketing taxes and electric bills. Fulop said Sherrill makes an easy target for Ciattarelli because she's 'the status quo machine politician.' If she prevails in the primary, Fulop said, 'Jack Ciattarelli's biggest talking point is going to be 'four more years of Phil Murphy.' 'You like your taxes? Four more years of Phil Murphy. You like your energy bill? Four more years of Phil Murphy.'' Requests for comment from Baraka's and Sweeney's campaigns were not returned. Sherrill campaign spokesman Sean Higgins disputed the claim that Sherrill would be a weak general election candidate, and highlighted the electoral histories of the three men criticizing her. Baraka and Fulop won elections in towns that have nonpartisan municipal races, while Sweeney lost his bid for reelection in 2021 to a Republican whom Sweeney vastly outspent. 'Mikie has actually beaten Trump Republicans election after election — while the mayors have never faced a competitive general and Senator Sweeney famously lost to a MAGA Republican,' Higgins said. Asked to respond to Fulop's complaint that Sherrill is a creature of the political establishment, Sherrill said, 'I think most people would find that a really odd statement coming from Steve Fulop.' Sophie Nieto-Muñoz contributed. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
Yahoo
6 days ago
- Business
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Federal judge blocks Trump's funding freeze over congestion pricing
U.S. District Court Judge Lewis Liman on Tuesday barred the federal government from withholding funds from New York over the two parties' congestion toll dispute. (Sophie Nieto-Muñoz | New Jersey Monitor) A federal judge temporarily blocked the Trump administration's effort to freeze federal funds to New York over its congestion pricing program Tuesday. Judge Lewis Liman's temporary restraining order prevents the federal government from withholding — until at least June 9 — federal transportation funds from New York because of the city's congestion pricing tolls. The order also bars federal authorities from moving to rescind approvals for congestion pricing or otherwise terminate the program until that date. U.S. Secretary of Transportation Sean Duffy in February moved to rescind approvals awarded to congestion pricing, saying that the program had exceeded the authority granted under a congressionally created program and that its rates were set to meet Metropolitan Transportation Authority revenue targets rather than to reduce congestion in Manhattan. The MTA promptly sued Duffy, his department, and other federal regulators, alleging the secretary lacks the authority to unilaterally rescind federal approvals for congestion pricing, which charges $9 for cars crossing into the tolling zone, with far steeper rates for heavier vehicles. Congestion pricing tolls are set to rise to $12 per crossing in 2028 and $15 per crossing in 2031. They are charged on top of tolls levied by the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. During peak hours, car drivers with an E-ZPass pay $16.06 to enter New York through one of the Port Authority's crossings. There is a separate federal lawsuit filed by New Jersey that is also seeking to end congestion pricing. It remains ongoing. SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX
