Making NJ More Affordable and Attractive for Business

Senator Steven Oroho (R) – NJ, 24th Legislative District, and Steve Adubato talk about the challenges making NJ more affordable and attractive to invest in, the benefits of municipal consolidation and thoughts on President Trump’s time in office thus far.

12/15/18 #231

Excerpt:

"State of Affairs is pleased to welcome Senator Steven Oroho, who represents the 24th Legislative District, which is where Senator? Up in the northwest corner of New Jersey. It's got all of Sussex County, eleven municipalities in Warren, and Mount Olive in Morris. Senator let's talk about this fiscal policy... It's the largest in the state. Yeah. Yep. And the folks there are just as concerned as everywhere else in the state about tax policy. Mm hmm. We've talked to you many times before, and you've talked about, "Hey our tax policy doesn't make sense in the state." What does that mean? Well first of all, we put so much of the burden on residents as opposed to, you know, not putting a burden... more of the burden on out-of-staters, like, for example... we talked about the Transportation Trust Fund. Right. And right there, we had a major tax restructuring, and people were annoyed at the gas tax, understandably. But quite frankly, it was all going to property taxes. So what New Jersey... you know, unfortunately for years, on a bipartisan basis, both Republicans and Democrats, was to debt, spend, and hide. And it was raising debt. Sure. Spending, you know, out of control for things, and it was hidden, because, like, in the Transportation Trust Fund, it was all falling... the debt all falling on the backs of New Jersey residents, and going... falling to property taxes. Unfair? Very very unfair. Very unfair. Let me ask you this. As we talk about tax fairness, we've had Governor Murphy on, when he was a candidate, we'll have him back in early 2019, to talk about fiscal policy in the state. The governor has talked about New Jersey being the innovation state, and looking to attract folks to come here. A great state for innovation, a great state to do business. How could you possibly be against that? No, I don't think anybody's against that. What's the challenge? The challenge is, how do you make the state affordable or competitive for capital? We had Amazon. It was looking as... As of... we're doing today, I don't want to date ourselves, we're doing... Jacqui, what's the date? I know we're doing it in the middle of November. It looks like we lost that deal? Yeah. What does that have to do with this? Well, first of all, it's companies who want to invest capital to have a decent rate of return. And capital is like water. It follows the path of least resistance to success, and the cost of government, and the tax policies, all have a factor in whether you're competitive to people who want to invest capital. And..."