By Matthew Garofalo and Joshua Sotomayor Einstein

The City Council of Jersey City has set a date for the final vote on a proposed 1% payroll tax on businesses of all sizes in Jersey City. The tax, which will amount to 1% of any businesses total payroll excluding the wages of Jersey City residents, is now set for a final vote on November 20.

The expected revenue from the tax is being used to fund the school district after a series of Democrat-led statewide changes created a funding shortfall of $170 million for the city's schools.

As Republicans of Hudson County, we believe that this tax is misguided and harmful. A tax increase has the potential to cripple any small business as well as drive any large-scale investment to other cities.

Low margin businesses like convenience stores and restaurants, which are historically minority owned, will feel the most pain from this tax. Business owners in Jersey City are being punished for the fiscal mismanagement of the City Council and Mayor Steven Fulop.

There are two root causes to the cities current funding problem. The first is that the City Council and Mayor Fulop have yet to take any meaningful steps to tackle the massive pension liability the school district faces or examine the wasteful spending that is rampant in the schools. These two issues should be thoroughly examined before Jersey City business owners are forced to foot the bill.

The second reason for the city's funding problem is the generous tax abatements the City Council and Mayor Fulop have given to developers. Tax abatements are essentially one-off tax deals that are given to developers in exchange for building in Jersey City. The problem is that unlike normal property taxes, none of the revenue from these deals goes to the school district. The revenue from tax abatements goes directly to the city's budget where the Mayor and the City Council can choose how to spend it.

Tax abatements are supposed to be used to incentivize development in blighted areas, instead the City Council and the Fulop administration handed them out generously to developers in areas of Jersey City that were already highly attractive and developed.

It is fundamentally wrong that the Mayor and the City Council lavished developers with lucrative and unnecessary tax abatements and are now asking the business owners of Jersey City to cover the costs.

Jersey City's schools need proper funding, but we believe that this needs to come through responsible fiscal policy and not regressive business taxes. The Hudson County Young Republicans are calling for the City Council and the Mayor to reject this tax. Our city, its residents, and its businesses simply cannot afford it.

Matthew Garofalo is a Jersey City resident and chairman of the Hudson County Young Republicans. Joshua Sotomayor Einstein of Hoboken is the NJ GOP State Committeeman representing Hudson County.

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