Today marks the start of a weekly blog on the two candidates running for governor of New Jersey. Phil Murphy is the Democratic candidate and Kim Guadagno is the Republican one. So now I will take a look at both of them. This will be a series of blogs over a number of weeks as there is a lot of information to evaluate.
I will start will Phil Murphy, he has no political experience, wants to establish a state bank, per his website “New Jersey currently deposits billions of dollars in state revenues in Wall Street and foreign banks — which overwhelmingly do not invest in New Jersey’s communities. Phil will take that money out of Wall Street and put it to work for New Jersey — creating jobs and growing the economy — through an innovative new public bank to make critical investments in our state and its people. By using state deposits to finance local investments, the Public Bank will support billions of dollars of critical investments in infrastructure, small businesses, and student loans — saving our residents money and returning all profits to the taxpayers.” As far as I can see there are no state owned banks anymore, they died off a very long time ago and the big problem for me is that it would become an easy source of funds for the legislature to tap. This would make our financial situation even worse than it is now.
Next he talks about growing and protecting the Middle Class, “Raising the minimum wage, mandating earned sick leave, and expanding the Earned Income Tax Credit. Ensuring equal pay for equal work and establishing a child and dependent care tax credit to ease the burden on families struggling with the high costs of care.” Raising of the minimum wage has been taken care of by a constitutional amendment, we have some paid for sick leave and as for the Earned Income Tax Credit there is a very real question of whether we the taxpayers could afford it.
Then he talks about bringing the state government into the 21st Century, “Updating government technology to improve the “customer experience, Systematically reviewing all federal grants to fight for every federal dollar and Streamlining permitting processes and handling applications in a timely manner.” I at least not disagree with these ideals for a better public serving government system.
So Mr. Murphy’s economic ideals certainly do fall within the standards of a Progressive Liberal Democratic candidate and I feel that the state bank idea is a very bad one from an economic viewpoint and it would turn into a political patronage pit.
Next week I will continue with more of Mr. Murphy’s ideas on fixing this state.
That is my opinion- Jumpin Jersey Mike
