[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 163 (2017), Part 11]
[House]
[Page 15881]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                               TAX REFORM

  (Mr. GOTTHEIMER asked and was given permission to address the House 
for 1 minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. GOTTHEIMER. Madam Speaker, I rise today because I came to 
Washington to cut taxes for the residents of north Jersey. Our taxes 
are simply too high.
  This morning, at The Heritage Foundation, the Speaker claimed that 
the rest of the country is propping up New Jersey. That is backwards. 
Currently, New Jersey pays in so that States like Wisconsin can cash 
out.
  New Jersey is already a grand subsidizer of other States. We are one 
of the top 3 percent taxpaying districts in the entire country and at 
the bottom in what we get back. We need to change that.
  New Jersey only gets back 33 cents for every dollar we send to 
Washington. New Jersey residents get $3,076 less, as this shows, than 
what they pay in. West Virginia, for example, gets $4.23 back for every 
dollar it sends in.
  New Jersey is not America's piggybank.
  Our one saving grace has been the State and local property tax 
deduction: the ability to deduct those higher State, local, and 
property taxes before we have to send in our tax checks every April. It 
allows us to avoid double taxation. Eliminating these State and local 
tax deductions will cost New Jersey an average of a $3,500 tax increase 
per resident. Property values will go down more than 10 percent.
  So I am fighting to remove this tax hike provision from the tax 
reform bill that can hurt our businesses and our citizens.

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