New Jersey’s broad based taxes are out of control. We are drowning in a sea of property taxes, income taxes, and sales taxes. We need to move away from these broad based taxes in favor of user fees. A user fee is simply a fee paid for a service that is actually used. Funding services in that manner will result in some services being performed by the private sector rather than by government. That will make government smaller, and enable us to cut those taxes. It will also give individuals the power to save money by not paying for services they don’t want or don’t need. The rate of the income tax can be stepped down in tandem with each reduction in the size of government until that tax vanishes. Then we can get to work reducing the sales tax.
Marijuana
This is an issue of personal freedom. Whether or not marijuana is good for anyone is irrelevant. Every adult should have the right to make his or her own choices as to what to ingest — be it alcohol, marijuana, nicotine, or cherry pie. Let our drug laws continue to protect children, but let adults have freedom of choice.
Gay Rights
A marriage equality law is needed in New Jersey to allow same sex couples to marry. This is a civil rights issue. All New Jersey citizens should enjoy the same rights. Such a law would not require any religious denomination to recognize or perform such marriages, but it would allow them to do so. Civil marriages would be available to all as a matter of right.
Throwing ever-increasing amounts of money at failed school districts is not the answer for improving the quality of education throughout the state. A series of NJ Supreme Court decisions dating back to 1966 has dictated the imposition of sales and income taxes in the name of fulfilling a state constitutional mandate to provide a "thorough and efficient education" for all New Jersey children. Currently, private and religious schools are at a competitive disadvantage with public schools. Senior citizens, people without children, and parents who home school their children or pay tuition are unfairly burdened by school taxes. We need a constitutional amendment to remove impediments to the creation of a competitive and innovative climate in education. Vouchers can be a useful transitional tool.
Housing
We need a creative solution to the decades long quest to create affordable housing in New Jersey. The state must enact legislation to supersede local zoning ordinances, removing zoning barriers which currently prevent owners of single family homes from converting them to two family homes and the owners of two family homes from converting them to three families. This will solve the affordable housing crisis not just for people renting the new units, but also for the home owners, many of whom might be senior citizens, who will now be able to remain in houses that had become too large and too expensive for their needs. This will solve the affordable housing problem without the expenditure of any tax dollars.
Gun Rights
I regard the first ten amendments to the Constitution as a package deal, and regard an attack on any one of them as an attack on all of them. I regard the right to keep and bear arms guaranteed in the Second Amendment as no less important than the right to freedom of speech and religion guaranteed in the First Amendment. Those who use guns in the commission of crimes should be punished severely, but the state should not prevent its law-abiding citizens from exercising their constitutional rights.
Patients' Rights
New Jersey needs a law that would allow medical marijuana to be legally grown or purchased when prescribed by a doctor. We have many people in New Jersey suffering the effects of cancer, multiple sclerosis, glaucoma, and other ailments. The humanitarian and compassionate thing to do is allow them legal access to a drug that could help them. I also favor parental choice regarding childhood vaccinations.
