Jack Ciattarelli falsely frames Trump’s budget law as a tax cut for New Jerseyans

New Jersey Republican gubernatorial nominee Jack Ciattarelli supported President Donald Trump’s budget package this summer and is now attacking his Democratic opponent, Rep. Mikie Sherrill, for voting against it. However, while he and the New Jersey Republican Party claim the law is a large tax cut for most New Jerseyans, experts say it provides minimal benefit or even higher costs for working families and significant savings only for the state’s highest earners. 

H.R. 1, the 870-page budget package passed by the Republican majorities in Congress and signed by Trump in July, will cost New Jersey about $29 billion in federal health care spending over a decade, according to a KFF analysis. The cuts, according to an estimate by the minority staff of Congress’ Joint Economic Committee, will result in 363,330 New Jerseyans losing their health insurance coverage. It cut hundreds of millions of dollars in federal support for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) in New Jersey, according to the state Department of Human Services. 

Other provisions of the law make permanent the individual tax provisions of Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which mostly reduced taxes for wealthy individuals while increasing them for millions of working families. It also extends a limit on how much New Jerseyans can deduct of what they pay in state and local taxes on their federal tax returns. The unpopular SALT cap was set to expire in 2025; the law revives it, temporarily raising the cap from $10,000 annually to $40,000 for anyone earning under $500,000. The cap will now reset to $10,000 in 2030.

Ciattarelli and other Republicans falsely call the revived SALT cap a tax cut for New Jersey.

“Shame on any Republican across the country that doesn’t support this,” Ciattarelli said of the budget bill in a May 22 radio appearance on “The Dawn Stensland Show.” “To not allow New Jerseyans to maximize the state and local tax deduction on a federal tax return is just wrong. This is really great news that it’s been quadrupled. I wanted full restoration, but something is better than nothing, and I’d be calling every one of our 14 members of the Congress — the two U.S. senators, the 12 House members — to make sure they’re voting yes on this. And if they’re not, I’d be letting the people of New Jersey know that they’re not.”

“As for my opponent, Mikie Sherrill, if she were elected nothing will change,” Ciattarelli said in a July campaign video. “Just look at her record: Sherrill voted against quadrupling the SALT cap.”

“@Jack4NJ is cheering on Trump as he permanently extends the SALT cap and gives huge tax breaks to billionaires. It amounts to taking money out of the pockets of Jersey families to give to the ultra-wealthy,” Sherrill wrote on X on Aug. 20. “Jack doesn’t serve us, he serves Trump and the extreme MAGA agenda.”

The New Jersey Republican Party has repeatedly criticized Sherrill on social media for voting against the law. “Thanks to @POTUS’ bill, New Jersey families will take home $10,000+ more per year — but Mikie Sherrill voted against this opportunity. Why? Because she cares more about the elite agenda than the people of New Jersey,” it claimed on Aug. 20. “New Jersey Republicans fight FOR you — Mikie Sherrill fights AGAINST you.”

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office and Congress’ Joint Committee on Taxation released an analysis on Aug. 11 predicting the lowest 10% of earners will lose $1,200 annually due to the bill; those making $43,000 or under will see a net decline in household resources; and those in the highest 10% of earners will get an average increase in resources of $13,600. Those in the middle will get somewhere between $800 and $1,200 in added resources — well below the $10,000 promised by the New Jersey GOP.

Neither the Ciattarelli campaign nor the New Jersey Republican Party responded to requests for comment for this story.

Nicole Rodriguez, president of the nonpartisan nonprofit organization New Jersey Policy Perspective, warned in a July 3 press release that the law would devastate New Jersey families: “The bill delivers massive tax breaks to the wealthy. The top 5 percent of earners in New Jersey — those making more than $471,200 a year — will receive 33 percent of all tax cuts, totaling more than $5.1 billion. But the bottom 20 percent of earners will receive just 1 percent, or about $167 million. This is a deeply unfair approach that benefits the rich while shifting risks and costs onto everyone else.”

“While billionaires get nearly $300,000 in tax cuts, working families get $160,” said the advocacy coalition For the Many NJ in a July 3 statement. “ While the wealthy celebrate, 16 million Americans lose health coverage.”

Sherrill voted repeatedly to raise or eliminate the SALT cap and sponsored a 2023 bill that would have raised it to $100,000 for the tax years 2018 through 2025. As a gubernatorial candidate, she has proposed an array of tax cuts for New Jersey families, including expanding the state’s child tax credit and earned income tax credit, as well as creating a back-to-school sales tax holiday. 

Sherrill’s campaign website lists in its “Tax Relief” section the intention to “Close tax loopholes and crack down on ultra-wealthy and corporate tax cheats who get away without paying their fair share — and pass those savings on to working families.”

A July Fairleigh Dickinson University poll found that 61% of likely New Jersey voters opposed the Trump budget law, while 27% supported it. “You might imagine that voters in New Jersey would be thrilled to get even a temporary increase in the SALT deduction cap,” said Dan Cassino, the poll’s executive director, in a press release. “But that doesn’t seem to be enough for most people to get past the parts of the bill that they don’t like.”