By MARIELA SILVA

I’m a mom of two in Perth Amboy. My family benefitted from the Child Tax Credit. I’m calling on New Jersey to protect investments like these over corporate interests.

My name is Mariela and I live in Perth Amboy. I rent a small room with my two small children and my husband. We share a common space, kitchen, and bathroom with other tenants. We rely on my husband’s income to get by. But growing children eat more and grow out of their clothes so fast. I worry that if my husband doesn’t have enough work, we won’t be able to cover the rent or pay for our kids’ school needs.

For my family and the hundreds of thousands of others in New Jersey struggling to make ends meeting against rising costs, expanding the Child Tax Credit is a no brainer. It was empowering to hear Governor Murphy speak to our experience as working mothers in his Budget Address and his commitment to expand the program. The Child Tax Credit is a powerful tool to support working families like mine. The New Jersey program started last year, and it gave a small benefit that helped me to pay for my high blood pressure medication and groceries. An expanded Child Tax Credit would help us cover a month or two of our family’s most basic needs like rent and childcare while I look for a job. I am hopeful it will increase soon.

In that same address, Governor Murphy said he would let the Corporate Business Tax Surcharge (CBT) expire, putting vital funding for public services – like an expanded Child Tax Credit – at risk.

This tax is for some of the biggest businesses in the world, like Amazon, Walmart, and Bank of America. They make millions in New Jersey every year. This tax would not apply to small businesses.

When corporations don’t pay their share, families like mine pay the difference, in cuts to important public services like schools and transportation, even the Child Tax Credit.

This week, Governor Murphy repeated his promise to let the CBT expire. He has said time and again, “a deal’s a deal.”

What about the deal he made to working families like mine about a fairer and stronger New Jersey? Is New Jersey with the communities it serves or is it with Amazon?

The only promise our state must deliver in its budget is the promise of uplifting working families — not the largest multi-million dollar corporations. And I know we can – we’re seeing that will in the proposal to expand the Child Tax Credit. That willingness must be part of a larger backdrop of sustained investment and commitment in and to working class communities. It doesn’t work if we’re providing a benefit for the state’s wealthiest corporations, especially as billions of dollars of federal COVID state aid is ending.

I have joined Make the Road New Jersey in launching a petition calling for New Jersey to #FundOurFamiliesTaxAmazon. Last week, I joined fellow Perth Amboy residents downtown to share my story with dozens of other working moms, to talk about the proposed expanded Child Tax Credit and the threat that the CBT expiration poses to vital programs our communities need.

Working moms in New Jersey will not finance corporations. Working moms in New Jersey need leadership that will back them up so they can provide safe homes for their children and families.

Mariela Silva is the mother of two from Perth Amboy.