The proposed FY 2013 budget continues the short-sighted policy of tax breaks for large corporations and the state’s wealthiest individuals paid for by working families through higher property taxes and cuts to services. In particular, the budget begins to phase in a tax break that will primarily benefit the top 1% of taxpayers and provide negligible benefit to working families. The tax cut will cost the state billions in revenue over future years and make it difficult to undo the damage done by years of painful budget cuts to vital services. 

As a result, the proposed budget short-changes working families in the present and fails to invest in the state’s future. To jump start this economy and bring the jobs the state desperately needs, New Jersey needs better choices that allow the state to maintain services on which working families rely and that invest in an economic recovery all of its residents may share in.