Issue Position: Reducing Tax Rates, Cutting Regulations, & Repealing the Garrett Tax

Issue Position

When you add up our local, property, state, and federal taxes, one thing is clear: Our tax code is a mess and it's crushing our residents and pushing dozens of businesses out of our state -- taking jobs and dollars with them. We have the third highest corporate tax rate in the world; twice as many US companies have moved overseas to escape our high taxes in the last ten years than in the twenty years prior.

First and foremost, we need to cut unnecessary spending and waste, close loopholes, reduce our deficit, cut the debt, and pass comprehensive tax reform. Like President Reagan and Speaker O'Neil did in 1986, we need to draft a new tax code that lowers rates, encourages investment, keeps jobs here, brings new companies to the state, and repatriates corporate dollars stuck overseas.

Second, I want to keep dollars with our citizens and companies, not the IRS. But until we cut our taxes altogether, we must fight to bring more of the tax dollars we send to Washington back to New Jersey -- dollars for basic needs like grants for our schools, clean water, fire trucks and infrastructure.

Unfortunately, we are one of the top tax-paying Congressional Districts in the country, and, despite that, we are among the bottom in what we get back. The result is the Garrett Tax -- the difference between what we pay in taxes and what we get back from the federal government. Right now, we get back $.33 on every dollar we pay in federal taxes -- less than half the $.68 average for the rest of New Jersey and substantially less than the $4.22 West Virginia and other states get. When you add it all up, the Garrett Tax is costing us $14,000 a year for every person who lives in our District.

The result: we're stuck paying more in state, property, and local taxes to close the gap of what we're not getting for our federal dollars, because Scott Garrett is failing both to lower tax rates and bring more money back to our communities.

Simply put, our district has become a welfare provider for lower-tax paying states. By refusing to fight for us, year in and year out, Scott Garrett is letting our tax payments go to other states that are happy to take our dollars to buy their fire trucks and improve their schools. We continue to lose out.

It's time we repealed the Garrett Tax, started getting back more of what we send to Washington, and passed comprehensive tax reform to close the loopholes and lower our rates.

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