[INSPRATIONAL MUSIC STING] - Hi, everyone.

Steve Adubato.

We are honored to have the Honorable Speaker of the House, the Speaker of the Assembly, Craig Coughlin with us.

Speaker Coughlin, great to see you.

- Nice to see you, Steve.

Thanks for having me back.

- Your candid opinion about New Jersey's fiscal health in 2025, is?

- We're in good shape.

I mean, we have work to do, but overall, we're paying our bills.

You know, making full pension payments, something that hasn't, year after year after year, which hasn't been done in decades.

We've contributed more to school funding than ever before.

We still have a healthy surplus to make sure we can help weather some storms.

And we're focused and continue to have the kind of relief for New Jersey taxpayers that we have been striving for.

For now, there's $4.3 billion in the budget for property tax cuts, in terms of ANCHOR, in terms of Freeze, and the new program, Stay NJ, which I think is gonna be a transformative.

- There's money for that, Mr. Speaker?

- Yeah, it's in there.

- There's money to pay for that?

- There's money to pay for that.

- Well, let me ask you this.

With all the uncertainty in the federal government, and again, this is the end of March, we don't know what's really gonna happen, how concerned are you about federal cuts to state governments like New Jersey, who ultimately serve communities and people in the state?

Frankly, how can you be that confident knowing all the uncertainty going on in DC?

- You asked me, the question was, what is the state of New Jersey's finances?

And I said that we're sewer sound.

You know, we have some challenges.

We have a structural deficit, but we're gonna work on that.

You know, we have done things like cut costs before last year.

Relatively unnoticed.

We cut about $400 million out of the budget once the legislature had it, basically paid for things we added back in, but I'm incredibly concerned about what's gonna happen at the federal government level.

Right?

2.2 million people take advantage of Medicaid in the state of New Jersey.

A huge cut to that would be devastating.

Education funding.

We know that the Department of Education is being dismantled.

- That's right.

- And what about everyone whose children and the students who have their dreams tied to things like Pell Grants, how's that gonna work?

What about special needs kids?

You know, much of that money comes from the federal government.

And so, you know, those kind of things.

And personally, as you know, Steve, I've made the cornerstone of my speakership the fight against food insecurity.

- That's right.

- So if we're gonna talk about SNAP cuts, then again, those are things that are gonna be really detrimental and candidly that they're just bad.

They're wrong, they're not bad policy.

They're just morally wrong - To what degree do you think, Speaker Coughlin, most people understand the real impact on people's lives of they're cutting this, they're cutting the fat and the federal government, they're getting rid of waste, fraud and abuse.

And there is, the waste fraud and abuse.

Abuse is there, but to what extent do you think people understand that real lives are at stake here?

- Well, I think everybody understands it a little bit.

And then everybody understands this a lot when it comes home to roost.

Look, I said to you, we cut roughly $400 million outta the budget last year.

I'm not opposed to cutting government spending, having a surgical approach to eliminating things that are duplicative or unnecessary.

That's all good and fine.

But that's not what we've seen in Washington, right?

I mean, we had literally had Elon Musk walking around with a chainsaw that signified he was just gonna cut the hell out of.

That's not the approach I would take and that's not, I think is what's good.

So do people understand that?

Yes they do.

When at some point for all of us, things are abstract, right?

They're like, "Hey, okay, they're gonna cut money, but good, great."

You know what I mean?

But when the now comes and their daughter who's gonna be a doctor, doesn't have a Pell Grant, has struggles to try to figure out how she's gonna get to the next semester of school.

When your father or your grandfather no longer has the Medicaid benefits they need, when your next door neighbor's kid is food insufficient, you figure it out, because they're, you know, hanging around your house and you're making sure that they get something to eat.

In those cases it becomes really real, and that's what I worry about.

- You know, when we talk about government layoffs, right?

And look, Governor Murphy has, there's 6,000 less people under than when Governor Murphy started.

Okay, so it's not about the notion of being opposed to reducing workforce and cutting spending.

Those are things that I embrace when they're right and when they're good.

But when you just lay off a whole class of people and that's when it comes home.

You know what I mean?

Because so many New Jerseyans are just one or two paychecks away from going from food donors to food recipients from pantries and things like that.

And I don't mean to be overly dramatic, but it's true.

Right?

And with the cost still going, you know, inflation has come, it's now leveled off, but frankly, it was leveled off by the way, it was leveled off on election day in 2024.

But so with all of those things, added cost, losing your job, that can be a real hardship for people.

Quick question on childcare.

We have an initiative that we're involved in that talks about the importance of access to affordable quality childcare.

The graphic is up for first 1000 days policy coalition.

Here's the question.

With the new governor, there'll be a new governor in January, 2026, Where does the importance of childcare fit into your agenda, Mr. Speaker?

- Well, it's critically important, right?

It is particularly important for young families.

We've invested in it.

There's money in the budget for it.

But I can tell you how important it is because I now have two precious grandchildren, right?

They're about two years old.

My wife cares for them a couple of days a week.

And then they have, you know, somebody else who cares for 'em the other days.

All of my children and their spouse's work.

Their family life would be different if they had to pay for five day a week childcare.

It's expensive.

It's really expensive.

And, you know, on some level you understand that because you want our most precious assets to be in a place that is the best it could possibly be.

But having childcare and letting parents be able to fulfill their dreams and careers to let them be successful, which helps us all.

By the way, we are all better off when everyone is successful.

If every New Jerseyan could achieve the best that they're capable of, we'd all be really better off.

So childcare matters an awful lot.

- The Speaker of the Assembly, Craig Coughlin, joining us once again to talk about some critical issues and the Speaker will be back with us in a few months, giving us an update, not just on the budget, but a whole range of other issues as the entire state assembly is up for election in November, 2025, as there'll be an election for governor in November, 2025.

Mr. Speaker, thank you so much.

- Thanks for having me, Steve.

Appreciate it.

- You got it.

Stay with us, we'll be right back.

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