Governor Chris Christie and his Morris County neighbor, the Fox News Channel’s Neil Cavuto, co-hosted a business creation panel on Thursday at the Rutgers Business School in Newark:
Christie and Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno met with 20 executives from companies with at least a presence, if not their corporate headquarters, in New Jersey. They ranged from Direct Success Inc., a fast-growing pharmaceutical marketing company based in Wall, to Johnson & Johnson and IBM.
The goal: Generate ideas to help New Jersey turn the changes lawmakers have made to improve the state’s business climate into real-life job growth.
Once a center for innovation, New Jersey watched as powerhouses such as Lucent Technologies Inc. faded after the high-tech bubble burst. Its job growth during the past decade didn’t keep up with the slow-growing national economy. And the recession took its toll.
Even now, 20 months after the recession ended, the state’s unemployment rate is 9.1 percent and employers are cautious.
Christie’s solution: Cut taxes to ease the burden on executives and corporations. Reduce red tape. And tout those reforms every chance you get on business-oriented outlets such as CNBC or Fox Business Network.
Don’t underestimate the power of these CEO sessions, Save Jerseyans. More is going on here than just tokenism, tea and talking. With a pro-business guy like Chris Christie back at the reins in New Jersey, business leaders can finally proceed with confidence in making improvements, hiring new employees, expanding their physical plants, buying new equipment, etc., as (or if?) the national economy stabilizes. And why can they do this with confidence? Because they know that Governor Christie won’t subordinate the private sector’s needs to the public employee unions’ demands!
Predictability is important in the business world from the smallest flower shop to the largest tech firm, and believe me when I say that no sane businessman wants to work in a place where hostile taxes and regulations are imposed every time the CWA or NJEA memberships don’t feel like absorbing a higher health insurance contribution rate:
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OiGj9zIbuvE
