Senator Sarlo on Ways to Increase Economic Growth in NJ

Sen. Paul Sarlo, (D) - NJ, Chairman, Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee, examines Governor Murphy’s economic vision and ways New Jersey can promote economic growth and expand opportunities.

1/12/19 #232

Excerpt:

"We are pleased be joined by State Senator Paul Sarlo, Chairman of the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee. Good to see you Paul. It's always good to be back with you Steve. Well is it good to be talking about the economy in New Jersey as we're ending 2018 going into '19? Let me ask you something. Governor Murphy has a plan, innovation in the state of New Jersey, your colleague in the Senate, Senate President Steve Sweeney, talks about getting spending under control in the state government. Are they the same thing? Is it all of it? And when you talk about the economy, is that state spending? Is state spending the economy? Is it all together? Listen, I think it's a combination of things, quite frankly right? You only can tax people so much, and you can't tax your way out of these problems. You need to grow the economy. You need to get creative and grow the economy. So I applaud the governor for looking at different ways to help grow the economy. Some of this innovative... Clean energy? Clean energy. Some of the innovation, some of the incubator space. Yes. High tech. Yes. The stuff that's happening in other coastal states. What does that have to do with tax policy? Oh, it doesn't have to do a lot to do with tax policy. It's about encouraging folks to come here and make investments. Okay. And help grow the economy. But at the same time, you need to control spending, on the healthcare and the pension side. And we need to find... Are you talking about public workers? Excuse me? When you say, "We need to contain costs on healthcare..." We need to find ways... "...and pensions," you're talking about for public workers? That's correct. We need to find ways to become more cost effective, and look at that. In combination. So that's some of the things that the Senate President has been talking about. And we had a bipartisan committee, the Path to Progress which evaluated shared services, evaluated some of the Cadillac plan... Explain that. Shared services between local governments? Shared services between local government, county governments, among each other, and across the boards of different... So okay, so... ...counties. My hometown of Montclair, we have our own police department. I believe Glen Ridge, the next town over, has their own police department. Should hypothetically... listen we don't know anything you don't know. Montclair and Glen Ridge have a discussion, "Hey, let's share services around police." Is that what that means? Listen, very difficult, probably, to do police. But there's a lot of other services, including garbage... Some examples? ...collection, including Board of Health, animal control officers, a lot of other things that go on in..."