By Nick De Gregorio

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In 2007, I left Bergen County and joined the Marine Corps. After nine years of service and a few more in school, my wife and I finally moved back earlier this year. There really is no place like home; with a newborn daughter, new job, and plenty of work to do around the house, it’s nice to be close to our family. But I do have one question: where are all my friends?

Millennials are leaving New Jersey in greater numbers than any other state in the country. And who could blame them? With the highest property tax rates in the US, buying a house in New Jersey is a financial near-impossibility for a young person who also happens to be seeking employment in the state with America’s worst tax climate for businesses.

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Unemployed and living with mom and dad is no one’s definition of the American Dream. We should not be surprised that our kids are fleeing, or that our economy happens to be growing at a slower rate than any other state in America except for Hawaii.

Thankfully, our story is not all doom and gloom. For all we do poorly, New Jersey’s education system was recently ranked number two in the nation. But this silver lining only bolsters the case that our state needs drastic change. We are squandering our most valuable resource—our highly-educated children—by failing to facilitate opportunity and affordability for them at home.

Our kids’ education is largely why we (reluctantly) agree to pay exorbitant property taxes. But when we fail to foster economic growth and increased demand for labor here in New Jersey, we are effectively subsidizing other states by giving away our expensive, qualified workforce to those who paid nothing toward its development. Our high taxes already subsidize the rest of the United States; for every New Jersey tax dollar that goes to DC, we get less than 82 cents back. We cannot afford a millennial brain drain when we already pay so much toward fixing other states’ issues without implementing solutions for our own.

Fortunately, the solution to our out-migration problem is clear. The US Census Bureau’s most recent data shows that Washington, Texas, Colorado, and Virginia are our nation’s greatest recipients of millennials leaving other states. There is nothing mysterious about why these states are coming out on top; a recent study placed them all in the top five for best business climates in the US. Compared to New Jersey, these states are superior in nearly every measured category: infrastructure, economy, technology and innovation. But it is unsurprisingly cost of living, cost of doing business, and business friendliness where New Jersey lags disastrously behind.

These are our critical shortcomings, spelled out in black and white. And yet, with the answers to the test sitting right in front of them, our elected officials are still managing to get it wrong.

The Trump Administration’s decision to cap the State and Local Tax deduction has only added to our already-enormous tax burden. In response, members of Congress like Josh Gottheimer have been utterly ineffective in their hollow attempts to combat the SALT cap and give us a fighting chance to retain our millennial workforce.

Meanwhile, Governor Murphy is adding fuel to the fire by spending money we don’t have. In his first budget, the governor oversaw tax increases of over $1 billion, and over two budgets, spending is up over $4 billion with no end in sight. We are now taxing the rain to keep up with the runaway spending that has forced our kids to run away.

Perhaps instead of inventing more taxes that hurt job creators, Governor Murphy should propose lowering our state’s corporate income tax rate, which is the third-highest in the nation and the main reason companies like Honeywell and Mercedes-Benz have packed up and taken their high-quality jobs to low-tax, low-regulation destinations like North Carolina and Georgia.

So, where are my friends? They left, along with the jobs and affordability. And that’s a shame, because it doesn’t need to be this way. It’s a shame because we need them.

Call it Marine Corps stubbornness, but my wife and I have decided to stay. Bergen County is our home, and home is always worth defending. It’s not about us anymore, it’s about our 2-month old daughter, her proper upbringing, and a refusal to let our elected officials mismanage that away from us.

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Nick De Gregorio served nine years as a Marine Corps infantry officer and is a veteran of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. He is a recent graduate of Georgetown University’s MBA and International Relations programs. Nick lives with his wife Emily and their newborn daughter Siena in Fair Lawn. Follow him on Twitter @NickDeGreg_NJ

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