Michael Symons

@MichaelSymons_

TRENTON – Gov. Chris Christie erroneously says in an interview with CBS airing today that he doubled a tax credit for the working poor in New Jersey.

Christie tells “Face the Nation” moderator John Dickerson, in an interview taped Saturday after the governor spoke at an anti-poverty summit in South Carolina, that he doubled the earned income tax credit. The portion of the interview about poverty wasn't broadcast on television but was published as an excerpt online.

Christie made the same claim three times at the Kemp Forum on Expanding Opportunity held Saturday, in a group panel discussion with Jeb Bush and Ben Carson conducted by House Speaker Paul Ryan.

Christie actually increased the credit by 50 percent, not 100 percent, as part of the current state budget adopted last June, increasing the average benefit from $420 to $630. And that came after he cut the credit by 20 percent in his first year as governor, then vetoed legislation that would have reversed that cut four consecutive years.

Legislature quickly approves Christie tax credit boost

“The fact is that in New Jersey, we’ve doubled the earned income tax credit because what I want to do is to value work again, to reward people for work,” Christie said on CBS.

“There are people in my state who say to me, ‘Well, Governor, staying on all the government programs, I make more than if I went out and got a job.’ Well, that’s why I doubled the earned income tax credit, so those people would decide to go out there. They’re going to be making more money working than they're going to be sitting on their couch,” he said.

(Click here for a link to an excerpt of the CBS interview.)

Christie campaign spokeswoman Samantha Smith acknowledged in an email that the correct increase is 50 percent.

New Jersey’s earned income tax credit equaled 25 percent of the federal credit when Christie took office, but the governor and lawmakers cut it to 20 percent in 2010, Christie’s first year in office, in a cost-saving move designed to help resolve a structural budget deficit.

Christie then vetoed legislation that sought to restore the earned income tax credit to 25 percent in 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014. Along the way, Christie began calling for the credit’s restoration only if it was done in conjunction with broader income tax cuts.

Democrats in 2014 began pairing the EITC with an income-tax hike on the rich. In vetoing last year’s millionaires’ tax proposal, Christie rewrote the legislation into a plan to raise the earned income tax credit to 30 percent. The Legislature agreed to the changes the same day Christie announced them.

"I said all along that the reason for the cut in that was because of a lack of revenue. When we've been able to have more revenue now, we now have the opportunity to be able to do it," Christie said in announcing the plan to boost the tax credit last June.

The earned income tax credit is available to families with incomes up to $52,427, depending on the number of children in a household, and single adults with incomes up to $14,590. It touches roughly 524,000 households in New Jersey, with the benefit from the increase averaging $240 but possibly reaching $600 for the poorest workers.

Christie vetoes hikes, seeks tax cut for working poor

The cost to the state budget from the credit’s expansion is expected to be around $120 million a year, bringing total state spending on the program to around $360 million.

Around 596,000 New Jersey taxpayers claimed the larger, federal earned income tax credit last year. Those credits averaged $2,315, amounting to $1.4 billion in credits.

Roughly half of the states provide their own earned income tax credit, tied to a percentage of the federal credit. At 30 percent, New Jersey’s is larger than everywhere except Vermont and Washington, D.C.

Michael Symons: (609) 984-4336; msymons@gannettnj.com