Of course Christie wants to cut income taxes rather than property taxes. As governor, he has more power to do that while any substantive changes to property taxes would have to come from the individual municipalities. Until New Jersey can move to a stronger county-based government and get rid of all the small town governments - including schools, fire departments, city councils, etc - property tax change will not happen.

Let the state fund the public schools 100% by raising the income tax instead of using property taxes to fund them. That would lower your property taxes at least 50%. If you are retired or on a fixed income the higher income tax will not affect you.

Let's put it up for a referendum, right under the marriage equality question.

New Jersey has the HIGHEST Property Taxes IN THE NATION...And it is high time something were done to change that and lower the rates...by a LOT...And the only way that Property Taxes will go down is by getting control of the Spending in the School Systems...Close to 60% of my taxes are labeled School Tax...That is egregious and absurd...And yet, no matter how much money is funneled into the black-hole of School taxes/spending, it is never enough,...The beast just wants more. The biggest problem, as I see it, is that to much money goes into the bureaucracy and not enough gets into the classrooms...To many school districts with to many principals and superintendents and the retinue of non-teaching staff. Consolidate Districts, eliminate duplication of departments and services, and eliminate/retire excessive Principals and Superintendents and anyone else who does not actually teach.(see Pt.2)

(Pt.2) And it is also time to break the back of the Union so that the non-effective and lazy teachers, which are coddled and protected, can be terminated. These are some of the steps that must be taken for Jersey Property to come down...I applaud Gov. Christie for what he has so far tried to do...in spite of the vilification which he has had to deal with due to the Union and the NJEA and all their lies about how "Christie hates children" and how "Christie eats children" and other slander.(I have seen the posters in some of the NJ schools where I work with as a contingency Instrumental Music Instructor)...But not enough has been done and Christies "Caps" still allow for Property Taxes to increase...The wasteful spending in the NJ School Systems is the first place to start...And, BTW, I DO NOT mean with Educator's salaries or money going to the classrooms...Start with the Bureaucracy and the bureaucratic duplication of services and departments.

RE...Comment by DidUReallyJustSayThat regarding Abbot Districts...
YES...Another good point and reason why Property Taxes, due to School taxes/expenses, are so high...
It is bad enough that it costs the taxpayers approximately $17,000/year per student...which is ridiculous!...But the 31 Abbot Districts get almost $21,000 per student ...approximately 22% more than other students...WHY!?!?...Although key proponents of the measures "express optimism that continued spending will eventually help advance students performance", middle and high school students have NOT improved. The program, in spite of all the money being flushed down the toilet, has not helped and has been characterized as "a huge failure". Just one more waste of taxpayer money which the Gov. needs to tackle and eliminate...Eliminate Abbot Districts and eliminate the wasteful spending.

about time NJ had a plan to make itself more competitive with PA, CT and NY with regard to income taxes.

I guess it is pretty clear by many of these comments that NJ has the highest Property Taxes and the least attentive voters in the nation. Whitman's 10 percent per year income tax cuts were the beginning of the dramatic rise in property taxes because the first thing she did was to take money from Municipalities. To get the Towns to swallow it she gave them "Pension Hollidays" that had to be paid back. Christie took the same path and began by cutting aid to Municipalities and Schools. He gave back a fraction and now wants to once again cut Income taxes after taking up to $6000.00 out of the pay of State and Local Employees. What is that thing about fool me once?????

Cutting income tax 10% avg $140 per household. 10% income tax cut ($140 avg) sounds much better then cutting property tax avg. $5,784.00 cutting it to $5,644.00. His speech at the convention "I cut income tax 10%" or I cut property tax 1/25 of 1% tell me what sounds better ?

Don t forget he cut school aid most places 25-35%, this year he will increase school aid. Not by as much as he took, you will hear at the convention how he cut taxes by 10% and increased school aid by 10% never hear what he took away. He is also counting on a strong economy for the next 6 years, if it slows just a little we will need to borrow more money for this (joke) tax cut

The right answer is: Please make whichever tax cut will leave the most money in my wallet. I suspect that the reason that "Property Tax" is getting 95% of the votes in this poll is because our property taxes are clearly, absolutely, positively INSANELY HIGH by anyone's measure, whereas our income taxes, while certainly high, are not so clearly and unjustifiably astronomical like our Property Taxes.

What I don't understand is this: How is it that EVERYONE seems to agree that there is much too much wasteful spending on school administrators, and yet the situation doesn't change? What is the correct mechanism for us to change it? Someone please tell me, and I will do my part, and I hope others will do so as well.
We live in a democracy, not a monarchy. So we, the taxpayers, should somehow have the ability to get things changed when we are not happy with them.

Cut both property and income tax by instituting a motorized tax. They have it in Virginia and property taxes are very reasonable. This way people who live in apartments but own cars, trucks, boats, etc.. anything outside the dwelling with a motor also pays a tax on that item that goes to the state. Of course the tax would be proportionate to the item being taxed. New Jersey should really look into it.

Why would we think adding another tax is a good thing to do? Let's reduce taxes across the board - income and property tax - and phase it in over the next 7 years.

The problem of high income taxes could be easily fixed by deporting the judges who gave us Abbott ruling to North Korea, where they clearly belong, and appointing individuals who uphold the Constitution and the law rather than "fairness". As for property taxes, kill affordable housing and teacher tenure, and the problem will solve itself within a few years.

If we get Property tax reductions, what will be the result? The local school boards will raise their budgets accordingly and we will be back in the same hole, funding the increased school taxes.

As long as school boards can submit their own budgets and exceed the caps, just where will the money to pay come from? Guess.

The issue with the burden of excessive School taxes is the disportionment of tax dollars going to schools in Newark and other poorly performing districts, with the more affluent communities subsidizing the poorer districts.

Christie knows this. It is easier to ask for property tax reductions than it is to hold down local taxes reflected in the school board budgets.

Good point, the BOE budget process is corrupt and needs to be subject to an independent review. Here in Bernards when the aid got cut by $800k a year or two ago, the BOE threatened all sorts of mayhem, but when push came to shove, nothing got cut which when you think of it means there is all sorts of slush in these budgets.

Have an independent audit and review done by real firms and I would think we could find at least a 10% cut in expenditure easily.

Property tax relief without a doubt. I pay almost $7,000 / year for property taxes for a 50 x 100 lot and 58% of that goes to the schools and I don't have any kids in school.

Property taxes are a farce to begin with. Why do I pay taxes on something I already own????? Just another way of legalized robbery by government, and the more they take, the more they want.

You are all whining about your property taxes and where should the money come from for improving our athletic fields and our schools, how about you ask the important question......why are the corporations in Parsippany paying so little in taxes. Why are the millionaires in NJ paying less tax than the working class? YOU are the 99...join the movement....unify and fight for yourselves........

NJ has no women representatives in the US Congress. Disgraceful.....and DeCroce was seated in the NJ Assembly on nepotism AND voted against a minority civil rights issue...NJ WAKE UP!!!!

Nothing like class warfare, sickening.

Actually I would rather see them roll back the sales tax. Trenton can do nothing to lower property taxes other than give aid back to the towns. And where would that money for aid come from? From our taxes of course! So that would be just giving in one hand and taking it back in the other. Lowering the sales tax would also benefit everyone.