New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie is traveling all over New Jersey to press for a state constitutional amendment to cap property tax increases at 2.3 percent annually.
In this challenging effort, he now has a vocal Democrat partner in Newark Mayor Cory Booker. “Escalating property taxes is eroding the quality of life for people in this state,” Booker declared at a recent appearance with Christie.
And Christie might seem to be on a roll given that he recently got his $29.4 billion budget passed through the Democrat-controlled legislature. But some speculate that the Democrats let Christie have his spending cuts in order to fight him tooth and nail on the property tax cap. “Property-tax reduction ‘is the beginning and the end of how voters will evaluate the Christie administration,’ said pollster Patrick Murray of Monmouth University in West Long Branch, New Jersey. ‘He knows that and Democrats know that. They gave him the win on the budget in the hopes of him losing on property taxes.’”