Mayor Spiller, Are You OK with Closing Montclair Schools for the Rest of the School Year?
March 4, 2021Your Tax Dollars at Work: Once again, the NJEA Spends the Most on Lobbying. By Far.
March 10, 2021Kudos to Garden State Initiative for hosting a panel on NJ’s business climate; kudos to Assembly Appropriations Committee chair John Burzichelli for participating and listening; and kudos to the NJ business leaders for telling it like it is. (And thanks to ROI-NJ’s Tom Bergeron for covering it).
Some important quotes:
- Business owner John Boyd:”New Jersey is a very expensive place to do business. [T]here’s a common denominator among states attracting corporate investment and jobs today — states like Florida, Texas and the Carolinas. These are states that hold the line on taxes, hold the line of regulations and operate with fiscal discipline.
“We see New Jersey, unfortunately, continuing this game plan of more borrowing or taxing and more [government] spending. That’s led to a historic outmigration of people, wealth and business.”
- Christina Renna, Chamber of Commerce Southern New Jersey: “If you’re looking to create a business in New Jersey, especially here in South Jersey, it’s impossible not to look at Delaware and Pennsylvania, which have considerably lower tax rates across the board,”
- Entrepreneur Joe Colangelo:“I’m meeting with the [Miami] mayor in two weeks. He’s saying, ‘Come here, tell me your business and we’ll help you with introductions, zoning’ … it felt so good.
“It’s so great to get that feeling as an entrepreneur, because we feel like we’re in an abusive relationship with our [New Jersey] government half the time.”
There you have it, New Jersey. These NJ business leaders are confirming what the Tax Foundation has found for seven straight years: NJ has the worst business tax climate in the nation. That’s why people, businesses, jobs and wealth are leaving NJ.
And why does NJ have such high taxes and borrowing and government spending? Because deep-pocketed, taxpayer-funded special interests dominate our political system. These are the public-sector unions like the NJEA and CWA who use taxpayer dollars to buy influence in Trenton and then lobby every year for more government spending and higher taxes.
So we taxpaying citizens and businesses are funding the same special interests who use our tax dollars against us. They, and the politicians they support, benefit. The rest of NJ loses. It’s time to stop taxpayer funding of these special interests.