After gubernatorial debates this week largely talked about other issues aside from New Jersey’s business and economic policies, a panel featuring New Jersey hopefuls at the New Jersey Chamber of Commerce’s Walk to Washington on Friday focused solely on those topics.
And the range of responses from Sen. Jon Bramnick, former Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli and radio host Bill Spadea on the Republican side and Newark Mayor Ras Baraka, Congressman Josh Gottheimer, Congresswoman Mikie Sherrill, NJEA President Sean Spiller and former Senate President Steve Sweeney on the Democrat side were both narrow and wide, depending on the questions and the candidates.
With Rowan Institute for Public Policy & Citizenship Director Ben Dworkin running a tight time clock, here were the responses:
On how they view New Jersey’s economy:
Bramnick: “I serve on the Commerce Committee. I almost never see a pro-business piece of legislation. Everything my friends across the aisle do, in my judgment, is never directed toward business. So, if you want to change, my friends in the business community, you have to have two-party rule. At least somebody who can veto crazy regulations.
“Phil Murphy, I like personally, and I like the members of Democrats in the Legislature personally. But they are not pro-business. You need a two-party rule in Trenton or guess what? We’ll have the same conversation next year.”
Spiller: I think all of us can say that we are certainly much better off than we were seven years ago. We’ve seen that we’re meeting our obligations. We’re reducing our debt. We’ve seen our credit upgrades, which are all important. Right? That’s an important piece of it.
“But we still have remaining challenges, and it’s about making sure New Jersey is affordable for our residents and certainly for our businesses. We also know that on the horizon, as we lose the COVID dollars we’ve been receiving at the federal level, increasing challenges to our state. We’re seeing threats from this new (Trump) administration of even less funding coming in, for the services that we need, and of course, even these tariffs are going to put an additional strain on our businesses and certainly our residents as well.
“So, we know that the headwinds that we have in front of us, and it means that we’ve got to focus on the pieces that are the biggest cost drivers in this state.”
Ciattarelli: “Mediocre at best. Our unemployment rate is always worse than the national average. Our unemployment rate is always worse than Pennsylvania. Our unemployment rate is always worse than New York. We need to fix taxes. We need to fix regulations.
“Show me a state that doesn’t have a Department of Commerce – we are one – and I’ll show you a state that’s perceived as not being pro-business. And so, under Governor Ciattarelli, we will reestablish the Department of Commerce, and that’ll be responsible for being the point of communication for the business community. What we need to do to improve New Jersey’s economy and grow jobs, I believe we need to get rid of the corporate transit fee. And I’ll do that on the very first budget to take effect July 1, my first year in office.
“We’ll need to do what Pennsylvania is doing. They’re lowering their business tax from 10% to 5%. I pledged to do the very same thing here in New Jersey. Of course, we need less regulatory intensity in so many ways. I believe we can do that without screwing the citizens, consumer and taxpayers without doing irreparable harm to our environment.” 
Gottheimer: “Jersey’s a great state, but let’s be honest, it’s just too damn expensive for our citizens, for our families, and for our businesses of all sizes. We’ve got to do more to make Jersey more affordable.
“We need to cut property taxes and make it affordable not just for businesses, but for workers, right, for their healthcare, for their childcare, to actually make our state grow. Because we can’t continue to be the No. 1 out-migration state in the country if we don’t actually get more jobs back in and make it more affordable for people to live and to raise their families and to retire.
“And to me, that’s how you grow your economy and make it strong. Less red tape, lower taxes, more affordability, lower costs for people, and we can do this. We can run a more efficient state. This is possible. Other states have done it. Obviously, it’s ridiculous that Massachusetts has lower taxes than we do, and that Connecticut was able to lower their income taxes here. We should be doing that in Jersey, make it more affordable for everybody.”
Spadea: “We need to get government out of the way. That’s the problem in New Jersey. You’ve got not only the highest corporate taxes, but when you look at where we were just going back seven– plus years, where we had a $35 billion budget, now we’re looking at a $56 billion to $57 billion budget. We have an enormous spending problem.
“So, No. 1, we absolutely have to cut the corporate business tax and stop looking at job creators as villains. We need more job creators. We ought to have tax-free zones to rebuild our cities. We need to go to the business community and say we’re going to take a page out of the Democrat book across the river in Pennsylvania where (Gov.) Josh Shapiro is actually cutting the time down for all the fees and the registrations and the licensing.
“Free up our business community to do what our business community knows how to do way better than government, and that is create jobs, make products, and create an atmosphere of employment and progress.”
Baraka: “So, we always start with the CNBC list. New Jersey is actually 25 on the list. We found 49, conveniently, in terms of the place that’s most friendly to do business. The reality is there are states where the cost of doing business is higher than ours, and it’s higher on the list than us as well.
“So, the cost of doing business is not the reason that New Jersey is low on the list. The reality is regulatory is a problem. Budget is a problem. Taxes, housing, workforce, all the things that you think is not about business (is a problem). When we talk about immigration, that’s about business. When you talk about millions of people that are going be deported, the billions of dollars that we give to our economy and taxes and social security, that’s about business. When we talk about investing in Black and Brown and women businesses, that’s about business.
“You have to invest in small business. You have to grow incubators. We have to invest in a port, all the assets that we have. We have to invest in infrastructure. New Jersey is a logistics state. So, we have to lean on our logistics, lean on our workforce, lean on our regulations, and make sure we create an economy that’s important.”
Sherrill: “We have a lot of real gifts in New Jersey. We have one of the most innovative workforces in the nation. We have some of the most high-end manufacturing in the nation, things that are built in New Jersey that are built nowhere else in the world; the most innovative pharmaceutical companies in the nation, and yet we have challenges.
“While we have the workforce, more scientists, more engineers than anywhere else in the nation, it’s still by ZIP code where people get their training. We need to make sure that every child gets a great education to feed into the workforce that is New Jersey. We need to make it more affordable. That’s what I hear from business. And we’re not going to make New Jersey more affordable if we can’t make housing more affordable.
“And finally, we need to cut through that red tape in Trenton. We need Trenton to be a bunch of public servants delivering for people, helping people get to yes, finding those solutions, having a dashboard so that there’s transparency so when you want to build, you know where you are in the process and you’re not waiting month after month after month. These are the kind of things that can really continue to move our state forward.”
Sweeney: “You know, we can find whatever survey we want to show a result that we don’t like. New Jersey is an amazing state. We have the highest number of professors and scientists anywhere else in the nation. Industries are here because of our workforce. We have the most educated workforce in the nation. We shouldn’t forget that.
“Now we have issues. But we never point to any positives. We always find the negative. Look, the way you reduce cost is you reduce red tape. We need to streamline and make it easier for businesses to do business. But we’ve done a lot of things over the years where we’re very pro-business, and guess what? Because we want to focus on the negative, we never focus on the positive.
“And I agree with a lot of what was said up here. Housing is an issue. (But) New Jersey is the greatest state in the country, and I’m proud to be part of it.”
On their top initiative to grow jobs, attract businesses from other states and retain those in New Jersey
Sweeney: “Honestly, let’s streamline the process to get projects through quicker. We take way too long in the state of New Jersey. Projects take multiple years.
“But one of our huge issues here is energy. It’s a huge issue, energy costs. We want a clean economy; we want a green economy. But listen, we can’t get there with just a certain amount of energy. We need an all-the-above energy approach.
“I’m going to say something maybe others won’t. We need gas. We need pipelines. We need all-the-above. We need nuclear. You know, a few years ago, they tried to shut the nuclear industry down. Can you imagine where we would be? It was 43% of our energy if we weren’t able to keep it open.
“So, energy is another huge cost driver for manufacturers and businesses in the state. We need to bring that down by creating more energy in the state of New Jersey, not relying on other states.”
Sherrill: “The two things I hear most often are about affordability and red tape and bureaucracy from business. And so, again, we’re not going to make New Jersey more affordable if we don’t make housing here more affordable. We have got to push into that.
“And as far as red tape, there is so much we can do to create more transparency, to create this effort in Trenton to serve the communities, to serve the people here in New Jersey. A Business Action Center, we have that. I’d like to make it more muscular. A dashboard, so there’s transparency of where you are in the permitting process. Making sure that you have engagement, and you understand if you’re going to be able to move forward.
“I hear from businesses. They’ve developed outside our state even if they’re headquartered here because it’s too hard to work through Trenton. So, I think these are the real key things that we have to do, and I would piggyback on energy. The state that solves the energy of the future with all of the AI needs and data center needs is the state that is going to develop the jobs and be the most innovative state in the nation.”
Spiller: “One is workforce. We have to invest in the workforce immediately. That goes from high school to community college to college to put more people in the universities, create more talent, get more people out of these universities, and get them into the job market.
“Second is transportation infrastructure. After you create the talent, you have to get them access to opportunity, access to jobs. You have to invest in NJ TRANSIT, because right now it is a failure. You have to turn that around, obviously. I would say, you know, regulation is a part of that as well. Try to make it easier for us to do business, make it cheaper for people to do business, make it simpler.
“Lastly, I was saying we have to invest in small and mid-sized businesses in the state. That’s 100%. If we’re not doing that, we don’t see our future. We don’t see success. Twenty percent of the labor force in New Jersey is Latino-owned businesses. The irony of that is that the state actually contributes less than 1% of its resources to Black,Brown, and women businesses. And these are the fastest growing businesses in the state. So, we’re cutting off our nose to spite our faces.”
Spadea: “So the first thing we’re going to do is end the sanctuary state on Day One. And we’re going to free up billions of dollars that have been a burden on New Jersey taxpayers, individuals, and businesses for years now.
“No. 2, end the EV mandates and scrap the Energy Master Plan. The idea that we are not heavily investing in our energy infrastructure, which Senator Sweeney said, and he’s exactly right. Natural gas and nuclear are the future of New Jersey energy, and we need to be heavily invested in that.
“The other thing that we have to look at is we need a mindset change in New Jersey. I love New Jersey too, but we’re losing somewhere between $2.5 billion and $3 billion of adjusted gross income every single year. That puts the burden back on all of us who are digging in and staying. And the way we have to fix it is to change the mindset and look at tax cuts as an investment and get a return on that investment.
Gottheimer: “On Day One, it’s about jobs and affordability. We’ve got to grow the state. We’ve got to do everything we can to bring more jobs into the state, make it a better place for you to be able to grow your business in the State of Jersey and less bureaucracy.
“Anything we can do to make the approval processes faster so we can get not just more housing online but more jobs online, make it better and faster and easier to operate, and say thank you to the businesses who are in Jersey of all sizes to grow.
“We have an amazing legacy of life sciences and financial services and other businesses – and AI is the future. We need the energy to be able to actually operate and to get data centers. But also, every single sector is going to be affected by AI. We need to be ready for it so we can grow and be competitive. Those are the jobs for our kids and for our grandkids.
“And secondly, I’m going to be focused on how do we get taxes down? How do we make life more affordable for all our families, for middle –class families, for everybody, for getting property taxes down so people can afford to stay in Jersey and grow in Jersey.”
Ciattarelli: “I had the opportunity recently to sit down with leadership at one of our major corporations, and they said, ‘Hey, Jack, we’re not leaving, but we’re not expanding here. And the reason we’re not expanding here is because (the state is) not pro-business.
“So, the question is, what is the top initiative of the administration on Day One? It’s to make this a pro-business state. We do that by electing a pro-business governor who’s going to put in place a pro-business administration, who’s going to show up every single day and change our state departments from a police state and collection agency to partners. Right now, the business community does not feel like our state agencies are partners. They feel like they’re a police state and a collection agency.
“Again, we’ve got to eliminate on Day One the corporate transit fee. We have to do what Pennsylvania is doing, lower our business tax so we can compete in the region. And we also have to make it easier for small businesses to do business.”
Baraka: “If you’re going to be pro-business, you’ve got to be pro-people, right? And if you can’t afford your rent, if you can’t afford your job here, there are pressures that you’ve got to make more dollars. And you’ve got to get those dollars from your employer or other places, right?
“So, we’ve got to make sure that we keep that as our focus as we’re keeping our costs down for all of our residents, including our businesses. That’s a huge piece of it.
“But when we’re talking about that red tape and those other pieces that slow things down, it’s inconvenient in education when you talk about the additional paperwork. It’s frustrating. It’s for folks who don’t know what’s going on. And it’s the same thing in business.
“When you’re hit with those redundancies where you’ve got to do things over and over with different departments because they don’t talk to one another, and they’re still running Windows 95, and they can’t figure out how to take the forms that you’re submitting. These are the challenges that not only are not only wasting your time, they’re wasting your dollars. So, we’ve got to really make sure we’re focusing in those spaces.”
Bramnick: “We have to change the image of New Jersey. When you speak to businesspeople, people who are ready to leave this state, they don’t believe there’s hope for the future. You need an image complete makeover. I might even do a slogan in New Jersey, a place where everybody makes money, Day One.
“On Day One, you appear with business leaders, and you send a message out there. You go, guess what? Things are changing in New Jersey. We are going to treat businesspeople like first-class citizens, not third-class citizens.
“Right now, business is ignored, and regulation becomes paramount to my friends across the aisle. If we don’t change that image, no one will ever believe that there is hope for the future in New Jersey. We need to reduce the state income tax. We need to have more benefits for small business, EDA loans, and we have to make sure we win as Republicans. No harsh rhetoric, just positive rhetoric.”
If elected, would you support and continue the economic council recently created by Executive Order?
Spiller: Well, the short answer is yes. It is ridiculous that we talk about this as, you know, something that’s so special. We should, of course, be talking to folks.
“You know, I think I see all the time where, you know, well intended pieces of policy that are passed, we’re never checking in with the folks where the rubber meets the road in terms of how is it impacting? How is it, how is it working? How is it not working?
“Listen, I’m not going be the expert on every single issue. We’ve got to get the folks who are in the room having the conversations, making sure it meets our goals and doesn’t create obstacles along the way. That’s how I’ve led in every single space.
“I’m really proud of the work passing the first ever rent control in Montclair, but it was done with collaboration, getting folks in a room, having those conversations. Getting health care done, saving billions of dollars with that, entails getting folks together, talking about the issues, creating the plans, and getting things done.
“It’s frustrating when, again, you’re left out of that conversation not only in this space but in many others.”
Bramnick: “That executive order tells you everything you need to know about New Jersey. You have an executive order requiring you to meet with the business community and that is political nonsense right there. I’ll keep the executive order, but that shows you we’re in big trouble. They’ve got to be forced to talk to business leaders.
“That’s why I’m saying, you don’t need executive orders you need somebody that changes the image of New Jersey and people go, ‘You know, maybe I will consider New Jersey because they don’t have one-party rule anymore. Maybe someone will veto tax increases. Maybe someone will stop putting new regulations on business.’
“I started a business with a phone in my living room. I have 75 people working for me. And I had to do a recent handbook, all I kept hearing from the advisor, ‘Oh, did you know Jersey passed this, you’ve got to put that in the handbook.’ I said, ‘What?’ He said, ‘You know, you didn’t vote for it.’
“Every day there’s something you’ve got to add to your handbook because New Jersey’s out of control.”
Sweeney: “Of course, you know, Tom (Bracken, State Chamber president) worked hard on this for years and I’m absolutely fine with it. But you shouldn’t have to have one. We should be listening to each other, working with each other on a regular basis. I had that relationship with business and industry, even when we didn’t agree.
“One of the most important things that we actually really do need to do, we actually need to look at legislation that isn’t working the way we intended it to do five years later. Not to burden or slow things down, to make sure we’re actually accomplishing what is important, which is what we intended for it to do.
“But I’m also going to tell you, I’m not going for a race to the bottom. I think we should pay people well. I think this is a very important thing we do that we treat our employees with respect and dignity.”
Sherrill: “I think it’s great to have pathways for business to be in touch with government, to hear from individuals. That’s how I’ve always done my best work.
“So, for example, when NJMEP came to me and said ‘You know, there’s no good national supply chain database; so, as we are trying to build out manufacturing here in New Jersey we can’t trace the supply chain very well and we have to do that.
“I got to work, we built the national supply chain database, which is now being helpful to our manufacturing here in New Jersey. So those are the direct conversations that most help government deliver for people. And that’s the kind of governor I’ll be – somebody who is going to listen to people on the ground and then ruthlessly, confidently deliver for people here in New Jersey.
“The other thing I think we have to do is create other pathways for transparency. So, once again, people can see exactly where they are in the system so as they’re engaging with government, they know, are they getting their permitting through? Is it one –stop shopping? No closed doors. They can get to the government officials they need to make sure they get the services they need.”
Baraka: “In Newark we have what’s called the Newark Alliance and, as a result of that, we have 3,000 Newark residents. We raised the procurement levels from 3% to much higher than that, tens of millions of dollars in the economy right away. Because of the Newark Alliance, we have Mars Rigley that came to Newark, we have Hax that came to Newark, we have McKinsey that came to Newark.
“So, we meet with businesses all the time and because of our meeting with them we’ve reduced homelessness by 57%, street homelessness, because of those businesses.
“Because we meet with the businesses, we’ve attracted hundreds of more businesses to the city of Newark. We’ve created opportunities and jobs for the residents of our community. We’ve invested in affordable housing in the city because of our relationship with the business community through the Newark Alliance so this is something that needs to happen on a statewide basis.”
Spadea: “The short answer is no. I think the idea that we need an executive order to have a meeting with the business community is absurd and it’s sad that we’ve gotten to this point.
“What we need to do is stop empowering the lawyers and the lobbyists and start empowering business leaders. We ought to have a cabinet filled at the government with people that have started businesses. I have started businesses, I’ve run businesses, I’ve worked in corporate America, I’ve balanced budgets.
“The idea is to get like-minded people that understand what it means to sign the front of the paycheck involved in government. That’s what we lack, that’s what we need. If we’re going to start doing executive orders, I’m all in favor of that, but it ought to be to cut red tape, to end the high cost and high regulatory burden in this state.”
Gottheimer: “Sure. But I’m not going to sugarcoat this, right? The bottom line is our state needs help to grow. We’ve lost 15% of our public companies in the last decade. People can’t afford to live in Jersey, raise a family, to hire workers in Jersey.
“We’ve got an unbelievable education system, we’ve got incredible people, we’ve got amazing assets in our state and we’re just not capitalizing on them enough and we’ve got to bring everybody to the table. That’s how you solve problems. You bring everyone to the table, it doesn’t matter if you agree with them on everything, but you figure out together how you’re going to fix this thing. We can.
“We’ve got so much opportunity and potential, but the bottom line is we’re letting our competitors, the other states, kick our ass. And that shouldn’t be OK. We should fight every single day and that’s going to take all different ideas, including business leaders, including people, educators…everybody’s got to come to the table and figure this out and work together in how we’re going to grow our state and win.
“Because we’ve got to win. We can’t let Pennsylvania beat us. We can’t let Connecticut, or Massachusetts, or Florida, or any of these other states beat us. We’re Jersey, we’re the best, and we shouldn’t let these other guys eat our lunch.”
Ciattarelli: “I know the Chamber advocated strongly for the executive order and the establishment of the council because there is no economic plan here in the State of New Jersey. And that’s why Murphy did the executive order by council.
“I think, when we establish the Department of Commerce, it’ll work in partnership with the New Jersey Chamber to make sure there is an economic plan. I’m all about the economics of the State of New Jersey. I’m all about its tax policy. I’m all about its regulatory policies. And so, the goal from Day One is to make New Jersey a better place to do business.
“So, I’m not going to discontinue the work of the council, I’m going to have it work in partnership with the Department of Commerce, make sure this state is firing on all cylinders because, right now, it ain’t.”
On specific policies they would implement to support small businesses and entrepreneurs in New Jersey to ensure they can thrive in a competitive market and have access to affordable capital to fund their growth and operations?
Sherrill: “I’ve been talking about it again and again and again today, and that is better transparency, better access to the services of our government in Trenton, cutting through bureaucracy and red tape.
“And that’s why the Business Action Center is something I think we need to make more muscular. That should be your entre into all of the services that the state can provide. Now, there might be 10 different places you could go to, and as a small business, as you’re trying to start up, you don’t have the resources to deal with that. You’ve got to have better public service coming from Trenton so you can engage with that.
“The other thing I think we need to do is make sure that we’re creating programs for small businesses and for startups. So that’s why right now some of the federal legislation I have that I’d like to bring to Trenton helps to defray the cost of grocery store startups. Why? Because we’re trying to drive affordability. We’re trying to drive down the cost of food, and we’re also trying to drive grocery stores into some of the food deserts in our state.”
“That kind of thing can help us build out houses and neighborhoods as well.”
Sweeney: “Well, I was going to talk about how we were going to match federal credits for small business. But unfortunately, we have a circus going on in Washington right now and it’s terrifying. So, where we could hopefully rely on something, our federal government and this is not a criticism of either one of our people. They’re on the right side.
What’s going on is wrong. We need to help our small business. We need to find ways to – honestly, we we’re all going to say the same thing – reduce red tape. We’ve got to stop spending. We’ve got to stop raising taxes.
We’ve got to work with them just like we do with manufacturing. We created a manufacturing caucus, and we were very successful. It was labor management, you know, everyone was together getting it done. But, like I said, this question troubled me for one reason. Our federal partners need to help us expand small business.
“You can’t deal with it on your own. So, let’s pray for things to change.”
Bramnick: “So I walk around the walls of Trenton, and I bump into Tom Bracken and he’s walking around. He looked real lonely out there. The Democrats aren’t giving him time of day. You ain’t gonna be lonely anymore if I become the governor.
“So, my dad had a mom-and-pop store, eight employees. We had the store in Plainfield for fifty years. The czars of Plainfield, all right? Small business. Here’s what I say to Trenton: Leave them alone.
Stop putting your hands on small business.
“We passed bills that arguably could be applied to big companies, and they bring it down to everybody. Perfect example, they had a bill in the Legislature that said you can’t ask anyone what their prior salary was. I think, whoa. This was a Democratic bill. I can’t ask how much you need or how much you’re making because that violates some rule of law? This is what I’m talking about. Crazy stuff.”
Spiller: “I think we’ve seen the EDA has a lot of great programs that have been highly successful. As we look at those, we have to examine which ones have had the most return for the dollars that we put forward. And we’re going to have to invest smartly as we do that.
“We’re going to have less dollars, and maybe less federal dollars. So, picking those programs that we know have the biggest impact and certainly the best positive results is going to be important, but we’ve seen a road map there for success.
“I’m really proud to have served on the task force for our public bank. And looking at a framework there for how we create more capital than businesses, especially those starting up and looking to grow, they can utilize to get their foot in the door and begin.
“But I also think we have to be honest about some of the challenges, especially that we saw in the disparity study. When we said we want to see our businesses start to grow.
“We have to understand that right now that access for minority women-owned business, women-owned businesses is not there when we talk about government contracts, state contracts. And if we want to see that landscape grow, we’ve got to address those pieces and make sure we open those doors, create those pathways.”
Ciattarelli: “As a two-time successful small business owner on Main Street, let me say this: I think it should be much easier to set up a small business.
“I think it should be easier for small businesses to aggregate their purchasing power, to buy health insurance for their employees. I think the first $100,000 of business income on a small business should be tax-free in the first five years of existence. I think that the first $100,000 of payroll for a small business should be exempt from employer payroll taxes. I think there should be no tax on the gain on the sale of a family-owned business.
“I think for businesses that want to do business with the state of New Jersey, we’ve got to improve the procurement process. I think we have to meet the 25% set aside for small businesses. They’re supposed to get a certain percentage of state government contracts. We don’t meet that set aside right now. In fact, we do everything possible to get in the way of that set aside.
“So, these are some of the things that we can do to be really helpful to small business, who truly are the backbone of our economy. New Jersey is a small business economy.”
Gottheimer: “That’s right, our small businesses are the majority of our jobs in our state. My dad was a small business owner. It’s how so many people provide for their families and all the workers that are part of it.
“You know, we can have more transparency. That’s fine. But if you look at the transparency, what it’s telling you is that it’s screwing our small business owners. Right? Too much permitting. Too many layers. We’ve got to make this easier for people to operate.
“When people want to open a small business downtown, they should sit around one table and everybody should have to show up and say, here are our concerns. There should be a shot clock on when everyone’s got to respond to them so they can keep things moving and open the door for businesses and for jobs.
“I think we also need to give incentives to start small businesses in our state. For every job, you get $5,000 that you create and bring to the state because we only give incentives to create great paying jobs for other people, and we want to make sure that the bureaucracy doesn’t get in the way
“But also, we need affordability as part of it for the workers. Housing affordability. In my tax cut plan, we’ve got tax cuts for property, for rent, to help our seniors stay, to help job creation. We can do this.”
Spadea: “Senator Bramnick is right. Get the government out of the way. That is the most important thing that we can do, but, specifically, we’ve got to look at lowering rates.
“We’ve got a good program in the NJ BAIT program. We need to make sure that more businesses are taking advantage.
“We’ve certainly got to cut regulation. We’ve got to change the mindset as well with our young people and start creating more entrepreneurs that are coming out of high school and school. Why do we have so many of these kids focused on going to college when they graduate high school instead of getting into the trades?
“You know, we need more people that are driving the trucks and turning the wrenches and getting into a situation where they’re not six figures in debt, and instead they’re looking at the opportunity of a six-figure income.
But the most important thing we need, if we’re going to have any new departments in government, there’s only one: We need NJ DOGE. We ought to be on the phone with Elon Musk and say, whatever you’re doing federally right now, we want in”
Baraka: “First we have to empower the chambers, that’s for sure. All the chambers that we have, they do back-office paperwork for all the small businesses that are happening in the state that are growing, in the state. We have to invest in small businesses.
We have to be an innovation economy. We have to give credits and rates to small businesses for hiring more workers. Give them the opportunity to expand from city to city, as well. Make sure they have grants and taxpayers that go to bigger businesses, to go to small businesses for workforce development, for training, for opportunities to move to more, economically depressed areas.
“We have to treat small businesses like they’re big business. Give them that kind of respect and create an economy where we’re incubating businesses and it’s easier for them to grow in our state and make housing affordable. So, when you start a business, you’re not spending all your profit on the home that you want, the mortgage or your rent.”
