Jim Johnson Reveals Goals if Elected NJ Governor

Democratic Candidate for Governor, Jim Johnson, reveals why he’s running for Governor of New Jersey, shares why he believes more money needs to be going into the pension fund, and discusses the values of the Trump administration.

4/22/17 #106

 

 

 

 

Excerpt:

"Welcome to State of Affairs. I'm Steve Adubato. Coming to you from the Agnes Varis NJTV Studio. It is an honor and pleasure to introduce another major significant candidate running for Governor of the great state of New Jersey. We have Jim Johnson joining us, Democrat, running for Governor. How you doing Jim? I'm doing well. Good to see you Steve. You're running, why? I'm running because you know, I have, like you, I was born and raised in the state, and I feel in my bones, that something has been terribly terribly wrong. Our taxes are too high. Inequality is extraordinary. And we can't even get to our jobs, safely, whether or not we're in our cars, or in our trains. Things have to change. And what I represent, and what I'm prepared to do, is actually bring a whole different approach to governance in the state, that really puts the people first, puts them in the driver's seat, and gets things moving in the right direction in the state. Jim, one of the things we've done on State of Affairs, with every candidate we've spoken to, including Phil Murphy and Senator Wisniewski, excuse me, Assemblyman Wisniewski, and Senator Lesniak, on the Democratic side, is we've asked specifically on this pension crisis. Mm hmm. I don't know if it's 80 billion dollars or more, the unfunded liability. I mean it's in trouble. It's a real crisis. You know it. Specifically, what would you do to get the pension situation back on track after Governor Christie has made a significant 2.5, if you will, billion dollar commitment in this budget of a 35 billion dollar budget, a big chunk. Would you have put more money in a 35 billion dollar budget, state money into the public employee pension fund, more than Governor Christie? What I would do going forward is increase the payments to the pension fund. I think that there are a couple of things we have to look at seriously. We've made some bad judgements on taxes, and so I'm prepared to look at increasing, to a sensible level, our estate taxes. They were way too... Which ones? They are... our estate taxes. They were way too high. Estate? Estate taxes. They were way too high. They were cut down to zero. We need to get to an equitable level. I'm prepared to do that. Well hold on, before you go pass that, you would increase the estate tax? Well it's now... it's been... it was cut. That's right. Tremendously. In an effort to try to... the argument was, the rationale was... and Democrats and Republicans supported it. Not all. The argument was if the estate tax, combined with the inheritance tax, the so-called..."