Property tax rebates have been around for years in New Jersey. But Gov. Jon Corzine said Wednesday budget problems have forced him to reverse the giveback policy this year.
Many homeowners are outraged.
If you were planning on getting a property tax rebate check, don’t count on it. It’s being cancelled this year for everyone except senior citizens and the disabled. The governor blames it on the bad economy.
“It hurts. It hurts them, but we don’t have the resources to be able to fund it,” Corzine said.
Rutherford resident John Lombardo said he sees the move as another tax hike. It’s $1,000 he won’t be seeing.
“I think it’s terrible because I pay a lot of money here in town for property tax and I think we should get something back. We always have,” Lombardo said.
One disabled senior, however, praised Corzine.
“When things look better he’ll look better. Right now everything looks bad,” Anngene Anthony said.
Last year more than 1 million rebate checks went out to households making up to $150,000 and the year before that folks making as much as $250,000. The governor said times are changing.
“We have to make tough choices. It’s not a choice that I like to make,” Corzine said.
It is a tough choice for the governor in an election year. He had initially proposed keeping the rebate checks for households making less than $75,000.
But Corzine said the tax rate is down because he’s put more money into education. Still, Republicans are quick to blast him and the Democrats.
“The property taxes in New Jersey are the direct result of the overspending in Trenton,” said Joe Caruso, a GOP candidate for Corzine’s office.
The governor said his cut could save the state more than $900 million but that his goal is to eventually restore the rebate program.
Corzine’s also cancelling the expansion of his pre-school program.
Lawmakers will vote on Corzine’s budget by the end of June.
(Source: WCBSTV)
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6 Responses
–do you think people in New Jersey heard about the recession (as optimists call it)??????
#1, are you perhaps referring to the Obama recession?
NJ’s taxes are high enough and Corzine keeps spending like Schwartznegger does in CA. There is a “revolt” going on in NJ where people and businesses have had enough and they are moving out of state.
Gov Corzine will see the next part of this revolt when he gets totally trounced in the upcoming election.
Go Steve Lonigan!!!
Thanks for nothing, Corzine. NJ already has one of the highest property taxes in the nation, and I for one, look forward to a little relief each year.
[Typical small minded liberal – he thinks that by keeping the money for the State, he will have more money for the budget. With a little wider outlook, he would surely realize a basic, fundamental, economic truth. Cutting taxes, and providing rebates, stimulates the economy. When people get that rebate check, they go out and spend it, keeping merchants and businesses in business and creating far greater revenue in the long run.
Your days as Governor are numbered, I hope.
Just as an aside, my home in Lakewood, which is assessed at approx 350K, pays about $7,000.00 annually in property taxes! My parents, who live in the heart of Boro Park, and whose home is easily worth double, pay far less property taxes than me…
#2- no offense Mark, but it was Bush’s recession.
Baruch ha-Shem the Democrats took over early enough so the Republicans have hope (the last time the Republicans messed up, it would be over 70 years before they returned to power-defined as a Republican president with a solid majority in both houses of Congress, from 1932 until 2001).
or we could argue it’s Wall Street’s recession, and Wall Street controls both parties….
4, thank you for your stanuch Socialist-liberal feelings but the point is that Obamanation is trying to spend his way out of this and THAT CANNOT BE DONE.
If you want to keep voting for the Obama and his cronies that is fine but those of us Conservatives out here will make darned sure that your vote is cancelled by people who really care about the country and THEIR money.
CLEAN SWEEP IN 2010!!!
#5 Thank you for your brainwashed response, very typical for your namesake. But before Obama tried to spend his way out of this, Bush tried to tax cut AND defense (read: war) spend his way out. There is nothing “socialist” about putting the blame for this on Bush’s expand/contract/conjure economic plans.
As for this NJ “tax rebate”, I never heard of a stupider idea. If you want to lower property taxes, then make the tax lower – don’t let the taxes stay high and then promise to give back. OF COURSE that’s going to mean the rebates will be a “budget balancing” item. Cutting the rebates is no surprise – it was a sure thing from the beginning. Especially since in the last few years it’s been a 10% or 20% rebate.
We need to move to a Free State.