New Jersey Rep. Josh Gottheimer and eight other conservative corporate Democrats in Congress are trying to upset President Joe Biden’s plans for enacting a multitrillion-dollar domestic program that would invest in long-neglected American needs.
Gottheimer, a member of both the Financial Services and Homeland Security committees, is one of Washington DC’s most prolific fundraisers, raking in more than $21 million in campaign contributions in less than three terms in Congress.
Much of that money comes from Wall Street, which has showered money on the renegade Democrat, and almost 20 percent of his first campaign fundraising haul came directly from other Clinton White House alumni or from major donors and operatives with close ties to the Clintons.
Gottheimer is demanding that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi post the bipartisan infrastructure bill before it votes on Biden’s Democratic budget.
After Gottheimer, gave an interview with Punchbowl’s Jake Sherman about his strategy, New York magazine’s Jonathan Chait called his reasons “nonsensical” but in fact, he is just not telling the truth about his intention to extend a tax break to the richest people in America.
Alexander Sammon, a staff writer at The American Prospect, also had trouble making sense of Gottheimer’s attempts to sabotage the Democratic agenda.
Gottheimer’s real motivation for derailing Biden infrastructure package is that he wants the budget bill to restore the state and local tax deduction (SALT) that was limited to $10,000 in the Trump tax cut law.
Gottheimer has said, “No SALT, no dice.”
SALT is a deduction on the federal return for state and local tax payments. Since the vast majority of American taxpayers do not itemize their tax returns, it has little impact on normal people.
The deduction is limited to $10,000 so most New Jersey homeowners who do itemize can write off the average property tax bill of $9,112, but a small segment of those folks are rolling in dough, and these one-percenters want to keep their money and make hefty campaign contributions.
Property-tax bills have risen by roughly $1,350, or just over 17%, since former Republican Gov. Chris Christie’s first full year in office, including the time Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy has occupied the job.
All of the top 10 municipalities with the highest average tax bills—Tavistock, Millburn, Mountain Lakes, Tenafly, Demarest, Glen Ridge, Rumson, Alpine, Essex Fells, and Princeton— have prices of about double the statewide average residential value of $330,578, but in half of them the typical home is worth more than $1 million.
Property tax bills are high in communities with high property wealth because such places value high-quality government services and are willing and able to pay for them.
In other words, high property tax bills that result from high home values thus do not necessarily constitute a problem but Gottheimer is fighting to cut taxes on the rich.
The only real reason for his rebellion is satisfying the greed of wealthy campaign contributors, but avarice is something that has really worked well for Gottheimer.
Gottheimer became the first House member in New Jersey history to surpass the $10 million cash-on-hand mark when he finished the second quarter of 2021 with a $10,033,321 balance in his campaign coffers.
Gottheimer, a former speechwriter in the Clinton White House, unseated seven-term Republican Congressman Scott Garrett in 2016 in New Jersey’s 5th Congressional District, which steadily become more Democratic since mapmakers gerrymandered the area in 2012.
Gottheimer, a conservative Democrat who flipped the district in 2016.
Gottheimer arrived in Washington at the same time as President Donald Trump, and the New Jersey Democrat voted with the fascist buffoon more than any other congressional Democrat, which helped undermine attempts to impose restraint on Trump’s cruel immigration, unfair tax and dangerous foreign policies.
Gottheimer voted consistently with Trump on a wide range of issues, including border wall funding, JCPOA, and the Iran War Powers Resolution.
Despite being elected as part of an anti-GOP wave, Gottheimer voted with Trump on 55 percent of the roll calls in the 2019-2020 session and 77 percent of the time in 2017-2018
The renegade cabal that Gottheimer is leading has threatened to oppose Biden’s fiscal blueprint unless the House first approves a $1 trillion, 10-year package of road, power grid, broadband and other infrastructure projects that’s already passed the Senate.
With unanimous Republican opposition expected to the budget resolution, Gottheimer’s nine rogue Democratic votes would be more than enough prevent its passage in the narrowly divided House.
That spending plan, largely financed with tax increases on the rich and big business, comprises the heart of Biden’s vision for helping families and combating climate change and is progressives’ top priority.
Perhaps best known for consistently voting with Republicans more than any other Democrat in Congress, Gottheimer sided with the Republicans on issues from immigration to abortion.
Gottheimer voted for Family Savings Act of 2018, H.R.6757, a bill to grant separate legal rights to unborn children for the first time in the tax code, laying the legal groundwork for religious extremists who have long sought to legislate an outright ban on abortion.