Phil Murphy wants to raise your taxes, and he isn’t shy about saying so. As columnist Charles Stile wrote in May, “no Democratic candidate has so openly campaigned on the possibility of raising taxes like Murphy...he’s a[n] old-school tax-and-spend Democrat.”
His campaign has publicly statedthat he plans on raising New Jerseyans’ tax bills by a whopping $1.3 billion should he become governor. But that’s just the tip of the iceberg - the devil is in the details.
For starters, Phil Murphy has advocated for instituting a “Millionaire’s Tax,” which could raise the marginal state tax rate on income above $1 million to as high as 10.75 percent.
In May, Murphy unveiled a plan to fix NJ Transit- a plan that would “potentially” have to be paid for by instituting a new tax. In fact, when Murphy rolled out his plan to fund NJ Transit, he didn’t even know exactly how much it would cost taxpayers. "I haven't added it up to the dime,” he said, “but it's a multi-hundred-million dollar proposition to get the state's operating assistance back up to par."
Murphy has also mulled a new tax on gun sales in New Jersey.
Not everyone’s buying Murphy’s plans. Even the New York Times sounded skeptical when it said in June that Murphy “is filled with big promises and occasional murky financing to back it up.”
In 2016 radio interview, Murphy talked about strengthening New Jersey’s economy by raising taxes - specifically “growing revenues, growing revenues.” And in a town hall in April 2017, he appeared to say that New Jerseyans need to just accept that the Garden State is an expensive place to live.
Said Murphy:
You come here, and we came to New Jersey, knowing that you pay a premium but that you got a rich basket of stuff back. So you felt like, you know what, it was at the end of the day I don’t like the premium, but it’s good value for money.
…
You’re paying a premium to live there, but you getting a lot of stuff back. And that to me is our objective.
One thing’s for sure: If elected, Phil Murphy has made it clear that lowering tax burdens for the people of New Jersey won’t be a priority.