Ways to Help Prevent NJ Residents from Leaving the State

Steve Adubato and Assemblyman John DiMaio discuss raising taxes on millionaires, and ways to keep people from fleeing New Jersey, rather than lose them to more affordable states.

4/28/18 #210

 

 

 

 

Excerpt:

"We are pleased to welcome Assemblyman John DiMaio from the 23rd legislative district, a Republican, he is the Assembly Budget Officer. Good to see you Assemblyman. Steve thanks for having me. Describe your district geographically. Well I represent 2/3 of Warren County, about 1/3 of Hunterdon, and a smaller portion, 77,000, in Somerset. Tons of Democrats huh? Well there's enough! I'm joking! I have a lot of Democratic friends and my... some of my neighborhood's up there I know pretty well. Well let's just say this. You've represented your folks well, but we're not having you because of the district you represent, you are the chief point person when it comes to fiscal issues on the Republican side. I heard you on NJTV news where we get much of our information, I heard you saying, "This budget that Governor Murphy has proposed is not good for the state of New Jersey," particularly because of the tax proposals specifically around taxingmillionaires? Make the case. Well listen, first of all, 2.7 billion dollars in spending is twice what the entire budget went up during the Christie Administration. You mean an increase in the budget? An increase in budget.In one year versus the eight years of the previous governor. That's aggressive. 1.7 billion dollars in tax increases is also aggressive. And listen, when we raise taxes on higher income earners, people like David Tepper leave. David Tepper, a billionaire who is a... excuse me, a philanthropist who's given a lot to others, left? Well he went to Florida. He claimed it was for better weather. How about no taxes there? No income tax? No income taxes at all, and that was north of 100 million... and sometimes I hear stories, maybe close to 200 million dollars a year... You mean what we lost? ...that we lost. Right. And that has to be made up by the rest of us, meaning all the way down through the income tax scale, so you know, it sounds great to tax millionaires, but the reality is we like to keep our higher income earners here, because they pay the greater share of the state income tax. Sure... Assemblyman, and by the way, excuse my allergies, it is allergy  season, my voice, but here's the much bigger issue, some people say in order to fully fund the public schools based on the formula that was passed, in order to get the pension situation under control, the public employee pension situation, which is grossly underfunded, an 80 billion dollar unfunded liability, in order to do the things the governor wants to do, you need to raise taxes on those who have the most. It sounds like a logical argument to many. Why is it not to you? It sounds like an easy argument, but where..."