Income and business taxes addressed

A 10 percent income-tax tax cut for every working New Jerseyan will help families keep more of what they earn. It will make us more competitive with other states to attract more new jobs to New Jersey.

Lower tax rates will relieve overburdened middle class families. They'll keep job creators here. They'll begin to bring us into a more competitive situation with our neighbors in the region.

Now personal income taxes, of course, are not the only excessive burden that has been foisted upon our citizens by government. Property taxes have been just as bad. They grew by 70 percent in the decade before I was elected, in some cases driving people out of their homes, even out of the state.

The property-tax cap we enacted is beginning to work. We're finally starting to win the battle. We're beginning to bring property taxes under control.

To help those senior citizens and middle-income families hardest hit by property taxes, the state has long had a property-tax rebate program. Now last year, we were able to double that property-tax relief over the prior fiscal year. Senior and disabled homeowners with incomes up to $150,000 received double the benefits of fiscal year 2011 - and they received it directly as a credit on their property-tax bill. No more gimmicky checks from Trenton politicians at election time using borrowed money to try to buy your vote. Non-senior homeowners with incomes up to $75,000 also saw their property-tax relief doubled over the prior year.

In this budget, in addition to maintaining the benefits of the 2 percent cap, we are maintaining direct property-tax relief at last year's increased levels. There will be no cut in property-tax relief in this budget.

Our business-tax system is also a key to job growth. So last year, I introduced eight pro-growth tax reforms that would make New Jersey more attractive for family-owned businesses, for small businesses, and for job creation, and I thank the Legislature for passing six of those eight reforms in the past year - joining me in an investment of almost $200 million in pro-growth tax relief.

This year's budget continues that phase-in of tax-cutting, job-growth initiatives, and we must continue to keep faith with that promise. In its second year, we make a commitment of $350 million - halfway to a total of $700 million that these measures will provide, when fully phased in, of pro-growth, small-business tax relief. Small business has been the number-one source of new jobs in New Jersey and in America. And these cuts will make us more attractive for small-business job growth.

We also have avoided overly optimistic assumptions about revenue. These will only get us in trouble in the future as they have in the past. And we have held the line on spending. We remain below fiscal year 2008 levels. We are maintaining fiscal discipline by cutting wasteful spending.

We have been down the road of high taxation. It didn't work. The result was high unemployment, higher taxes, and low growth. The result was families leaving New Jersey. We have left the dark times of lost jobs worsened by overtaxing, overspending, and over-borrowing. We will not return to the path of higher taxes under any circumstances. Not on my watch. To do that would risk stopping the New Jersey Comeback in its tracks.