Kristian Stout's campaign website highlights the following issues:
Outrageous Levels of Taxation that Drive Our Residents Out of the State
Property taxes are the master lock binding together many of the problems we face. Thanks to constant spending increases and no appetite among career politicians to actually cut spending, the cost of living in New Jersey — whether you rent or own — had gone through the roof.
And on top of being the most taxed state, we are consistently ranked as one of the worst states in which to start a business. Our legal and regulatory environment has grown together into a dense thicket of expensive red tape.
We need representatives who are serious about reducing the burdens that have driven over 2 million residents and over $18b of taxable income from the state – income that, if returned, would generate tax revenues that could be used to relieve our property tax burden.
Unfair Education Funding that Hurts our Schools, Kids and Teachers
The largest share of property tax expense in our district comes from education spending. To be frank, the state has fallen down on the job of supporting the schools in our community. And the answer is not more taxes, but a fairer distribution of the education funding we already have.
There is no reason that the towns in our community should be suffering punishingly high tax burdens when places like Jersey City are funded well beyond what they need to efficiently educate their students.
We need to rethink all the components that go into our school funding formula, but a fairer distribution of that money would go a tremendous way toward both easing our property tax burden as well as getting our kids and their teachers they resources they need.
Incumbent Politicians Who Take Us for Granted
For over a decade and a half we have "enjoyed" a one-party monopoly dominated legislature. And the result of such a unilateral government is entirely what you would expect: the same players move through the ranks, getting appointed to office and rewarded with campaign cash for dutiful service to their party.
The Democrat majority is not concerned about us. They don't believe we will ever vote them out, and so they feel comfortable mouthing platitudes while allowing business as usual to continue. This has got to stop.
Until we let professional politicians know that they work for us, and that we will vote them out of office, they just won't take us seriously. They have voted in their own interest for over fifteen years. Now it's time to elect people to the legislature who will vote in our interest.
