In addition to the "debate" on the federal level about the wealthiest Americans and corporations getting a free ride off We the People while just about everyone else is sacrificing what little they have left, there are three huge lies that seem to stick around way longer than they should about Americans and taxes. I'll put all three to bed right now with three simple facts:
The rich pay a lower percentage of their income in state taxes (at least here in NJ but also in many states) than everyone else.
It is these last two items that have really been in the forefront lately and a lot is based on the completely farcical selective focus on personal income tax. The excuses and "proof" is laughable - that more money is paid by the top 5% (duh, they have 90% of the total income and wealth), that lower income Americans don't pay federal or state income tax or whatever else. But of course, that doesn't take into account the following:
Property tax
Social Security tax
Medicare tax
Sales tax
Cigarette tax
Hotel tax
Non "tax" taxes such as tolls, ATM fees, parking or meter fees, etc.
Even taking the last few out of the mix, a recent 50 state study showed that in almost all states, the top 1% and 5% pay a lower share of their income in taxes, and the lowest 20% paid a substantially higher percentage of income in overall taxes - even when the income taxes are taken out of the equation.
Here in NJ, just taking sales, property and income taxes, the lowest 20% pay almost 11% of their income in state tax, while the top 1% (with an average 2007 income in excess of $2,250,000) paid under 7.5% of their income in state taxes. This is the lowest of any bracket (lowest 20%, next 20%, next 20%, next 20%, next 15%, next 4%, top 1%) and substantially lower than nearly all of the other brackets.
Couple this with the debunked lie that Governor Christie and his right wing ilk like to repeat about taxes and the little to no impact they have on people leaving a state, and you have those poor mistreated, misunderstood and unfairly picked on super rich crying about stuff that is a steaming pile of thousand dollar bills lining their pockets at the rest of our expense.
A letter arrived for me yesterday in the mail from the Office of the Governor. Not sure I ever received one of those before (not even from Governor Corzine, though that might have been nice). So, I didn't know exactly what to expect. Was Christie looking to appoint a Democrat to a high-profile administration post? Commissioner of Labor perhaps?
Um, no.
"I've found that all politicians like to talk, but fewer actually take the time to listen. Thank you for joining me in Fair Lawn and giving me the opportunity to listen to you, your friends and neighbors and to learn a little more about what makes our State so great."
Naturally. While the state upends employee pensions and health benefits, squanders our broadcast television coverage, slashes spending on women's health, decimates aid to cities, and eliminates valuable programs up and down the state - surviving the budget axe is Christie's ongoing political propaganda campaign.
As if paying for Christie's campaign tourtown hall meetings weren't enough, the state gets to pay for follow-up letters to attendees. There's a fine line between government and politics, but they are supposed to be separate. I find it hard to call either the town hall meeting itself or this letter "government" when they feel so much more like politics.
There was a time when the ultimate source of pride in this country was being an American Citizen. It was an awesome thing, and we had free mandatory public education so everyone could be better citizens. We had public meetings and parties so people could be better engaged as citizens. Being an American meant being a CITIZEN in bold italic capital letters. Nothing superseded it.
But things started changing around 1980 or so with the Reagan Revolution as the concept of citizen was discounted. This reached its pinnacle during the roll up to the Iraq War as countless American citizens were demonized and attacked as traitors for not supporting a war of choice against a country that had not attacked and could not attack us.
Something had to take the place of being an American Citizen as the ultimate sign of patriotism and righteousness. Some tried "real Americans" but that just smacked of moronic stupidity. Others tried, "middle America" but that left out the majority of Americans living on the coast.
What took root was "Taxpayers" which came to symbolize everyone we were trying to serve. Why do we have to cut the benefits of public workers? The Taxpayers deserve it! Why do we need to eliminate medical care for the elderly? The Taxpayers deserve it! Why do we need to get Obama out of the White House? The Taxpayers deserve it! Why do we spend $10 million investigating Clinton's use of his privates? The Taxpayers deserve it! Why should we deny marriage equality? The Taxpayers deserve it!
And it goes for both sides of the aisle. Seemingly rational Democratic legislators start saying we need to protect Social Security because the Taxpayers deserve it! End the Iraq War why? The Taxpayers deserve it! Eliminate bargaining for public sector unions? The Taxpayers deserve it! (Yeah, I'm looking at you Sweeney. And your well-funded 2013 primary from a union member who understands how important bargaining is.)
But there is a massive flaw that makes the use of "Taxpayers" even more moronic than "real Americans." At least "real Americans" implies there are "unreal Americans" out there to fight.
But anyone who buys a tire for a car, a gallon of gasoline, takes a paycheck from an honest employer, rides an airplane, buys a house, buys a book, goes to the movies, or engages in any other of a billion different actions and transactions is an American Taxpayer.
In fact, you don't even have to set foot in the United States to be a taxpayer. A Saudi Arabian can own 100% of a company operating the United States, meaning they pay taxes here. A French citizen who never left Paris could export wine, and is now an American Taxpayer. That Mexican coyote sneaking illegal aliens into the United States and gets a hotel room for the people he pays to treat them like shit is an American Taxpayer.
And you know who else is an American Taxpayer? The school teacher Chris Christie demonized the other day as screwing over American Taxpayers. The state union worker who Steve Sweeney just demonized as sucking at the teat of American Taxpayers! All of these people who the right and "left" have demonized as screwing over the American Taxpayers are American Taxpayers!
But I'll take it one more step, and the saddest thing about what I am about to lay out for you is that it is not taking my argument to the illogical extreme. It is not reductio ad absurdum. It is simply a plain hard fact -- something sorely missing in our public and political discourse today -- that the following people were not only American Taxpayers but also New Jersey Taxpayers:
Abd al-Aziz al-Umari
Ahmed al-Ghamdi
Salim al-Hazmi
Nawaf al-Hazmi
Majid Muqid
Khalid al-Mihdhar
Hani Hanjur
These seven men at one time or another paid New Jersey and United States sales and income taxes, gasoline taxes, excise taxes, property taxes, and any number or other fees or taxes.
And on September 11th these seven men boarded airplanes and flew them the fuck into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and thanks to some courageous passengers an empty field in Pennsylvania.
So the next time some moronic politician wants to tell you that we are doing something for the taxpayers, don't let them use that rhetoric to shut you down. Just remind them that everyone is a taxpayer, even those who hate this country, and you don't want to justify political actions in a way that supports the terrorists of 9/11.
We need to go back to talking about American Citizens, about citizenship, about engaging in public life as an American. These are things that Americans and immigrants can aspire to and desire. It is hard to be a good citizen. It takes work to be a citizen. You have to sacrifice to be a citizen. You have to give up evenings with your children to be a citizen. You have to waste vacation days at work to be a citizen.
All you have to do to be a taxpayer is buy a Snickers bar.
New Jersey's seventh legislative district has traditionally encompassed the "River Towns" on the Route 130 corridor. But the legislative redistricting has put Republican Moorestown and Mount Laurel into that district.
Singleton was the Chief of Staff to former Speaker Joe Roberts and is currently President of New Jersey Carpenter's union, serves on the Turnpike Authority and Burlington County Bridge Commission, and is a trustee of Rowan University.
I had a chance interview Singleton prior to tonight's meeting of the Mount Laurel Democratic Club, where he spoke to the party faithful. In this four-minute video, Singleton talks about the state budget, marriage equality, jobs, and shared sacrifice.
Watching "National Small Business Week" and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's "small business" summit unfold over the last two weeks, real small business owners like me can only watch and wonder.
We wonder if the bankers and insurers who drove the global economy off a cliff really believe they can steal our identities without anyone so much as commenting. We wonder whether due diligence exists in any large-scale institution, as our representatives at every level of government, in the mainstream media, and even in academia allow yet another corporate fraud to go unchallenged.
Well, this small business owner, with 9 employees and a 33 year old woodworking company, isn't about to let them get off scot free this time.
Make no mistake, the U.S. Chamber's "America's Small Business Summit" is a carnival of big business spin bought and paid for with millions of dollars corporations have taken from average Americans. Those usurious credit card interest rates, debit fees and penalties average Americans fork over every day, those outrageous health insurance premiums, or for that matter the tax breaks, abatements and subsidies big companies wring out of state and local governments - these all pay for the distortion and misrepresentation that was on full display down in our nation's capital. And all in the name of "small business."
The companies who underwrote this snake oil show are big corporate brands. Just take a look at the lists of sponsors. Some names that will jump out at you are Sam's Club (a subsidiary of Walmart), Travelers, FedEx, AFLAC, VISA, AT&T, Raytheon, Google, Microsoft... if it sounds more like "Multi-National Corporations Week," that's probably because it is.
But wait, there's more! Thanks to the Citizens United decision, corporations that once had to figure out clever ways to evade election laws and flood the halls of Congress and state legislatures with wheelbarrows of cash can now do so with impunity. This week in Washington, DC is no exception. It's all about rolling back new banking regulations, like swipe fee reforms. And by all means let's do away with the first health care law actually designed to help small businesses (instead of insurance companies). Corporate cash in politics, who's afraid of that big bad wolf?
Why, you might ask, are the traditional business lobbies more interested in fronting for big banks and big insurance than in supporting policies that will actually help small businesses? Well, you could start with the fact that the insurance industry secretly gave the U.S. Chamber $86 million in 2009 to fight against health care reform. Indeed, the bulk of the Chamber's budget that year came from a very short list of anonymous big money donors.
So where are the real small business owners? We're holding the fort at our businesses, hanging on, struggling to weather the storm of the economic devastation wrought by Wall Street and the other sponsors of the sideshow in DC. On Main Street, the "let Wall Street run free" rhetoric now spewing forth in the name of small business is an insult. Tight credit, laid off customers, shuttered local plants, nonexistent local banks (replaced by Citi, Wells Fargo and B of A) are the real threats to Main Street, not swipe fee regulation.
On Main Street, we have each other's backs, we care about the condition of the roads, our schools, and our health care system... because they are ours. If corporate America has its way, our kids will go to corporate schools, our roads will be leased to corporate operators and our health care system, well, that's already been bought and sold and bought and sold again in corporate deals that leave critical community institutions, from the family practitioner to the community hospital, in critical condition.
It is time we take our country back for sure, take it back from Walmart and Raytheon, Halliburton and Citibank. Let's tell the big corporate players we see through their con. You can't invoke small business if you're a giant corporation, you can't call yourselves American if you evade your tax obligations with offshore corporate headquarters, and you can't fool us any more. Main Street is onto you.
Governor Christie is using his taxpayer-funded political rallies to promote his reverse Robin Hood agenda.
According to the Star-Ledger's Megan DeMarco, Governor Christie is once again twisting the facts by taking credit for the slow but steady Obama economic recovery. The governor is claiming that the unexpected increase in state revenue, reported at yesterday's Assembly Budget Committee meeting, is due to his economic policies. This completely ignores the fact that the country as a whole is starting to see the impact of the economic stimulus.
Hopefully the mainstream media will not simply reprint the governor's lies and talking points, but will provide a critical analysis of why our state's economy is lagging the national recovery.
Check out this thought provoking nugget by Jeremy Rosen via today's Courier Post which explores Governor Christie's casual borrowing of taxpayer money for personal expenses:
Sure $2,488 is a relatively small amount of money to owe, especially for a millionaire governor with $159,156 in his campaign coffers.
But what if everyone had the right to owe the state, penalty free?
One set of rules for Chris Christie, another set of rules for everyone else.
I'm going to Trenton on Friday to support the unions. Why? I've never been a union member. I'm retired on a fixed income, so taxes matter to me.
This nation is at a crossroads. The Koch-funded Tea Party is undermining the very foundations upon which America is based - the tenet that, as Benjamin Franklin so eloquently put it, "We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately."
America's best economic times were when the unions were the strongest. Fair wages help the economy; safe working conditions save lives and reduce health care costs, and standards of quality that are recommended by unions help consumers.
Markos Moulitsas ("Kos") posted a diary today entitled "Barack Obama's marketing fail." It points out how some of the mainstream media are twisting the results of the recent Deficit Commission announcement to pin the blame on the president for proposed cuts to social programs.
New Jersey Democrats are also failing at the marketing of their message to the mainstream media. Case in point: today's Philadelphia Inquirerarticle on how Pennsylvania governor-elect Tom Corbett hopes to emulate Chris Christie.
The Inquirer is one of the more politically balanced newspapers around. Its editorial page is slightly left-of-center, but it has carried far right columnists like Rick Santorum.
In its reporting on what our governor has done with the budget deficit, the Inquirer states:
Because Christie plugged that budget hole without raising taxes, he raised enough eyes round the country to catapult him from Jersey pol to national figure. (emphasis mine)
In discussions with several of my friends, it is clear that this is the common wisdom - Christie has cut taxes. Democrats have to do better in debunking this falsehood. According to the Home News Tribune, when you take into account the deferral of the homestead rebate, this year's property tax bill will average out to a 23.5 percent increase. And of course, other taxes and fees such as the NJ Transit fare increase are rising faster than inflation.
It's ironic that Barack Obama, who lowered taxes on the middle class, is getting a bum rap from the mainstream media, while Chris Christie, who tells seemingly credible lies, is getting the royal treatment.
While "nanny taxes" generally aren't that large in magnitude, they have proven to sink a candidacy for Attorney General, they have proven to be an embarrassment to many a public official and are more along the lines of "its' only a small thing I'm stealing, so who cares?" than anything else.
When Governor Christie released his 2009 tax returns recently, I (a tax guy) decided to see if there was anything that jumped out at me. And while most of it looked relatively straightforward for a family who will most certainly benefit from the tax cut that Christie handed himself and all others with more than $400,000 in income, there was one thing that did jump out at me.
Since I'm a payroll tax guy by trade, I noticed something odd on the Schedule H - Household Employment Taxes on his Federal return as it relates to state unemployment taxes. Now, you may remember the state unemployment fund as the fund that was raided by prior Governors from Whitman through McGreevey, only to be stopped and reversed by then-Governor Corzine. Due to Corzine's efforts, a tax rate increase on all NJ employers was stopped for at least one, if not two years.
Governor Christie, by the way, allowed that tax increase on all employers to occur, but it looks like he is at least reporting that he is able to pay at a state unemployment tax rate of 0%, when that rate isn't possible or permitted by NJ State Law. Even if in the best possible situation, there would still be some level of taxes paid (see pages numbered 29 and 30), which would impact the amount of Federal Unemployment taxes Christie would have to pay as a "household employer". Simply put, if there were no state taxes paid, then (1) that is not permitted by law and (2) would impact the amount of Federal taxes, if only slightly.
Here, as it was when it was it was Kimba Wood under Clinton or Obama's appointees, it should hold true for Republicans as well. If this is an error or oversight by Christie's accountant, so be it - although the line on the return where "taxes paid" should be entered, there is a "0% rate" written in - so this wouldn't be a mere oversight as there is no such thing as a 0% rate in NJ. If it isn't an oversight, then New Jerseyans should realize that, once again, there is a separate set of rules that Chris Christie imposes on everyone else (under "the rule of law") and a separate set of rules that Christie abides by on his own (called "ignoring the rule of law because of your power or position").
Medford is a town in Burlington County, and it's as Republican as you can get. Assemblyman Scott Rudder hails from there, and Chris Myers (John Adler's opponent in 2008) is its Deputy Mayor. Last year, Chris Christie carried the township with 60% of the vote in a three-way race.
So why at a public meeting this week were township residents clamoring for a tax increase?
find out below the fold
"The problem was not that Americans lived beyond their means but that their means had not kept up with what the larger economy could and should have been able to provide. The American economy had been growing briskly ... but a larger portion of the economy's winnings had gone to people at the top.... The central challenge is to rebalance the American economy so that its benefits are shared more widely." - Robert Reich: AFTERSHOCK (Alfred A. Knopf - 2010)
Brescia:The Cost of Inequality substantiates this lack of balance. Inequality in NJ can be viewed in terms of 1) our poverty rate: 8.7%; 2) differences in our median household income: Whites: $47,036, Black: $29,293 and Latino: $35,744; and 3) the difference between the median income of the three above groups and the State median income of $64,470, suggesting a number of individuals with a disproportionately high income. In comparison with other states NJ fares worse, but not significantly so because these disparities have become widespread throughout the U.S.
(continue reading below)
It's no secret that New Jersey's tax system is regressive. When looking collectively at the state's income, property, and sales tax, the lowest income group pays 10.8% of their income to these taxes, while the highest wage earners pay 9% of their income in taxes. After federal deductions, that gap widens, with the lowest wage earners paying 10.7% of their income to taxes, while the top earners pay a mere 7.4% of their income.
Here's the problem: New Jersey's income tax is constitutionally dedicated to property tax relief. So when we take in less money from the income tax, we further shift the tax burden onto the middle class. This will result in a reduction in funding to our public schools (after all, the property tax is the primary source of education funding in New Jersey), as well as an increase in property taxes at a time when many are struggling to simply feed their families and make ends meet.
The numbers are mind-numbing. As of June 2009, the state's pension systems faced unfunded liabilities of $45.8 billion. That number assumed an annual 8.25 percent return on investments, an actuarial standard that many experts are now declaring as unrealistic. In the past decade, the pension system averaged 2.56 percent a year, not nearly enough to keep pace with projected costs.
More pessimistic assumptions about rates of return peg the pension system liability as high as $173.9 billion - not to mention some $55 billion in unfunded health care costs.
Experts and officials have begun to say it more clearly: There is no way New Jersey will ever be able to pay for the promises it has made to current and retired workers.
Let me tell you a story:
Back in the '90's, Jim Florio played a little actuarial game with pensions and the state budget. Christie Whitman was happy to play along when it was her turn to (not) lead, especially since she had a booming market to help. Of course, when the market tanked, everything turned to dreck, but by then she was in Washington. Jim McGreevey did little to help; Jon Corzine, to his credit, made some contributions, but backed off when things got really bad. Now Christie won't pay anything into a system he says is "broken."
Everyone who knows anything about our pension problems knows this part of the story; now let's add something else:
Governor Christie appeared on the Sean Hannity Show last week after the budget passed and it was the usual love fest. But I was more interested in how Hannity helped Christie lie about his budget some more. Check out this question and response from Christie's appearance Wednesday night:
HANNITY: You know, look, $70 billion wealth leaving, $11 billion budget deficit. All right? So - there's always those people that make the argument that the only way that you're going to increase revenues is to increase taxes or increase fees.
You resist that. So then the question is - and I'm a supply-sider, but I want you to explain it in your words. How do you increase revenues? How do you close that budget gap if you can't raise taxes?
CHRISTIE: Well, it's pretty simple...
Notice I emphasized the "or increasing fees." Because as if it's not bad enough he's continues misleading saying his budget won't increase taxes, when story after story shows that is absolutely false, even he has admitted people will pay more in fees. From his Budget Bill signing the other day, Zach Fink got the first question at about 20 minutes in this video:
Fink: Democrats have characterized some of the revenue raisers as amounting to a tax.
Christie: Well they're not a tax. I mean you know, they're user fees. In the main those things were users fees and the folks who use government ought to be paying for it.
We've already written about the words games this administration is playing to not admit they are raising taxes. It becomes that much more simple to do when you flat out lie about doing it before select audiences. Here's a little video mashup I made of the situation:
Retweet? @CoryBooker - do you have comment for @BlueJersey on ACLU charge of Newark transparency issues? - http://bit.ly/aSKiqg --- promoted by Rosi (link's corrected, thanks MJ)
Two weeks ago, amid news of layoffs in Newark, the City and its taxpayers took yet another financial hit: a high dollar verdict for a former police officer mistreated by the Newark Police.
A jury awarded Darren Nance $600,000, finding that the Newark Police had racially discriminated and retaliated against him.
Once lawyers tally up interest for this verdict, legal fees for his attorneys, plus the two private law firms hired to defend Newark, this case will likely cost millions.
Most cities rely on insurance to cover misconduct-based payouts, but Newark is deemed too high risk to qualify for a policy. Instead, these payouts come out of the pockets of Newark taxpayers. And for every case like Nance's that goes to trial, many others settle out of court behind closed doors.
It is difficult to know, therefore, the full financial impact of police misconduct on Newark taxpayers. We're also left in the dark about the details of the misconduct at the center of those cases, and whether the officers involved are sanctioned.
This is a shame because lawsuits - especially settled ones - can reveal dangerous practices in a department. And when individual officers are openly held accountable for the misconduct, it can deter others from engaging in similar acts.
To determine how much police misconduct cases cost Newark, and shed light on the underlying abuses, the ACLU of New Jersey has combed court databases, City Council minutes and other public records to find settlements.
We found that since January 2008, nine lawsuits by Newark police officers against the City were settled, with the settlements totaling $1,696,503. These cases primarily involve discrimination and retaliation.
Lawsuits from officers are just the tip of the iceberg. In that same time period, Newark awarded at least 23 payouts to citizens filing lawsuits over mistreatment ranging from false arrest to death in custody. Those, too, come with a hefty price tag - $766,617 from the 18 cases for which we have settlement amounts.
More cases are coming through the pipeline. We have identified 27 pending cases ordinary citizens have filed against the Newark Police since January 2008, and seven more filed by employees.
And there are likely others; since information about these lawsuits is not publicly disseminated or maintained in a centralized placed, we couldn't find every case filed against the Newark Police.
The costs go well beyond finances, of course. Lawsuits aside, police misconduct jeopardizes community safety and erodes the trust officers need from community members to effectively protect and serve.
But money matters, too, especially during a budget crisis. If the money Newark spends to defend and compensate for police officers' mistakes went towards reforms instead - training, technology, and resources for police - it would save money, lives, and public confidence in the long run.
The ACLU-NJ has an unwavering commitment to both government transparency and sound police practices. For the public's benefit, starting today, the ACLU-NJ will publish "the dirty dozen" of these cases on our website - representing some of the most egregious claims of discrimination, retaliation, beatings, and internal affairs corruption. We will release one a day for the next twelve business days. Many of these settlements have never before seen the light of day.
Darren Nance, however, got his day in court. He started his career as a Newark police officer in 1989 and encountered racism in the department after just a few months on the job. He spent the next seven years fighting for his rights, until the Newark Police fired him in 1996.
The jury verdict for Nance, along with these settlements, demonstrates that justice for police abuses can indeed come. But it also demonstrates a disturbing pattern: we see the abuses described in Nance's complaints from 15 years ago repeated in the settlements and pending lawsuits of today. The ACLU-NJ, which turned 50 this year, has fought the same kinds of abuses against Newark Police since our founding; change is overdue.
The only way to prevent the same mistakes, the same wounds, and the same payouts from the same stories is root out their sources. Otherwise, the citizens of Newark will continue to pay for bad apple officers who engage in abusive conduct and for managers and elected officials who fail to fix the underlying problems.
Promoted by Jason Springer: Check out Hank's take on the tax cap and other budget issues. What are your thoughts?
The governor spoke before a joint-session of the state Legislature today and reiterated his desire to see a constitutional amendment be placed on the ballot that would limit tax increases to 2.5 percent -- or, barring that, a state law that would do the same.
Gov. Chris Christie calls it tax relief, but it really is nothing more than an abrogation of executive and legislative responsibilities and an admission of failure.
On News 12, their Kane in your corner segment took a look at the Governor's budget and put it to the truth test, see which promises he kept and which ones were broken.
It's amazing to watch the Republicans make up words to hide their tax raising after years of decrying tax increases. It's even more amazing to see many in the media carry their water as they do it. The new editor of PolitickerNJ takes a look at these words games:
Several bills sponsored by Republican lawmakers seek to raise fees on various functions in an effort to balance the budget. Each Democratic legislator who rises to speak on the bills makes a point of calling the revenue a "tax" and chiding Gov. Chris Christie for going back on his promise not to raise taxes.
In defense, Republicans continue to repeat the mantra that the budget includes no increases in broad based taxes, but instead cuts $4 billion in spending without turning to income tax hikes.
See the GOP wants to argue semantics and play word games, rather than focus on the obvious impact of their actions. When faced with people pointing out the fact they're raising taxes, we get this:
Republicans counter the charge, using terms like "user fee" and "filing fees" to describe the charges.
Just because the Republicans say it doesn't make it true. Rosi highlighted yesterday all the increases people will be paying for as a result of this budget. Now Christie is saying they're just user fees because people use the services. The bottom line is whatever words you use to describe it, people will be paying more and the media needs to stop letting him get away with saying anything different.
Chris Christie said many many a time that he would not raise taxes. And yes, this was a transparent promise that very few (outside of some of the hardcore conservatives) took seriously in any way. But when he first was sworn into office and raised "fees" or increased charges for the same services, cut property tax rebates and did a slew of other things that would result in tax increases - the cat was out of the bag.
It wasn't "raising taxes". It was "raising CERTAIN taxes" that was the issue. On others who were out of favor in Christie's class warfare, it didn't matter if you were paying more for less (like public transportation, for example) or if you were getting less in tax rebates - it was part of the not-quite-so-shared sacrifice. And when the millionnaire's tax was introduced and promptly vetoed, Christie said the following:
"Now is not the time for more of the same. Ultimately, another tax increase will punish the state's struggling small businesses and set our economy further back from recovery."
Ahhhhhhhhhhhh, and there is the rub. It isn't JUST another tax increase - it is a tax increase that Christie knows will hit him and his cronies, so therefore, it must be vetoed. Now fast forward to this draconian budget and even his fellow Republicans have called this budget full of tax hikes.
So now we know that Christie was pushing his fellow Republicans to vote for his tax hikes. It was just a matter of which tax hikes he wants - on everyone who isn't super duper rich. And when he tries to say how "fees" aren't taxes and how he won't raise taxes, he is either lying or leaving out the words "on the super wealthy" after the words "I won't raise taxes".
Either way, Christie's true colors of a bully and a liar are showing through, yet again.
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