- She's back by popular demand, Michele Siekerka, President and CEO, New Jersey Business & Industry Association.

Good to see you, Michele.

- Great to see you, Steve.

- We are gonna put up your website and talk about a whole range of business issues and also plug the fact that "New Jersey Business," the publication that NJBIA puts out, is our media partner.

Michele, let me ask you this.

The governor, Governor Murphy's budget, $54.3 billion budget, legislature passes it as well, governor signs it.

What do you like about it?

And then we'll talk about what you don't like.

What do you like about it?

- Yeah, so what we like about it, first and foremost, is that we have the sunset of the corporate business tax taking place at the end of this year.

So December 31st, say goodbye to the extra surcharge that we had on New Jersey's corporate business tax, which is 2.5%, which made us not just the largest corporate business tax in the nation, but an outlier by very much.

CBT, corporate business tax, will go down to 9% on January 1.

That puts us the fourth most expensive in the nation.

So still not as competitive as we would like to be, still a lotta work to do here, but definitely a move in the right direction.

- Stay on that, Michele.

- And Steve, there's also some other corporate tax reform I know we'll get to.

- Can we do that?

But before we get to that, there are some in the Democratic Party and some on the left, progressives, liberals, and I don't mean that in a negative way, it's just those who identify in that way, "Hey, what are we doing ending this surcharge?

We need to keep that going.

Why are you benefiting the wealthy?

Why are you benefiting the corporations?"

And there was pressure on Governor Murphy not to sunset the corporate business tax.

Is that an accurate description, Michele?

- Oh, there was so much disinformation around this.

First of all, let's talk about the corporations that create tens of thousands of jobs here in the State of New Jersey, our largest companies.

Let's talk about the need to keep New Jersey competitive and ensure that we do not invite another corporation to leave the State of New Jersey, right?

Competitiveness matters.

Cost of doing business matters, right?

These are real jobs.

And you know, Steve, you hear me say this all the time.

I'm so tired of this corporate greed, corporate welfare.

How about, these are the job creators.

We create livelihoods, right?

Let's celebrate the job creators.

Let's not continue to demonize them.

- Is there anything else about the budget that you like other than the sunsetting of the corporate business tax?

- There is some other very complex corporate property tax reform that we achieved in this.

We won't go into the detail of it because it's really nitty-gritty.

But suffice to say that, again, there are some relief areas where we will now be much more competitive with our neighboring states on some very complex taxes.

We also like the fully funded pension.

That's very important.

That's a debt that we need to take care of.

We like the debt defeasance that we see in there.

And we like the investment in infrastructure and higher education that we see in there.

- Michele, let me follow up on a totally different issue.

Maybe it's not totally different, but it is the issue of property tax reform.

Governor Murphy, many of the Democrats, talk about property tax reform, tax credits.

The StayNJ program, okay, in an effort to keep people, seniors, in New Jersey.

If you are a senior and you earn less than $500,000, in January of 2026, and if I'm wrong, you'll tell me, in January of 2026, you'll get up to a $6,500 property tax credit, which is a good thing on a lotta levels.

But January 2026, it happens.

That does help the business community because businesses own property, correct, Michele Siekerka?

- Unfortunately, that's incorrect, Steve.

It is true, New Jersey businesses pay approximately 50% of the property taxes.

However, they are not part of this program.

In fact, they're not part of ANCHOR either.

You know, the ANCHOR program is the other property tax, and let me say this, relief program.

None of this is reform.

It's relief, okay?

Reform is when you in and you change the rules from the beginning on how you tax, all right?

That's reform.

- That's not semantics?

- No, no, 'cause relief is like we're throwing a lifeline.

We're throwing money at something.

Reform is when you go in and you change the system.

The system needs to be changed.

And neither of these programs do that.

Look, I am all for keeping seniors here.

Please, okay, I'm not gonna say that I'm not supportive of this money back to senior community, right?

I don't wanna see seniors leave.

However, it's a check, that makes it vulnerable.

It's a credit, okay, right?

It makes it vulnerable.

When the money's not there, it's not gonna be there, okay?

And you said it, January 2026.

You know what January 2026 is?

The beginning of the next administration in New Jersey.

- So Governor Murphy- - Okay?

- Will not be in office?

- Correct.

(laughing) - Coincidence?

- You look at the timing and you can draw your own conclusions.

- So but, Michele, when you say, you know, reform is what we need, be more specific as to what is one action that needs to be taken to have our property taxes more, to be reformed versus relief, as you said, "Here's a check."

- Absolutely.

- "Only if we have the money," go ahead.

- We need to go back and look at how we fund education in the State of New Jersey.

Because the vast majority of property tax falls on how we fund education.

And until we are willing to sit down at the table and go back to how we fund education, K-12 education in New Jersey, we will never, ever start the pathway to true property tax reform.

- Be more specific.

Are you saying that having property taxes be the primary source of how we pay for public schools is a problem, the problem?

- It's a large part of the problem, absolutely.

- Where would the money come from?

Where should the money come from?

- Well, that's why we need to sit down and we need to understand comprehensively how we can fund education in the state so that we can have true reform.

- Interesting.

Complex stuff, no easy answers.

Can we try this one?

I'm curious about this.

You and I were just talking during a quick break about the Jersey Shore.

They were taping this toward the middle back end of July 2023.

It'll be seen a little bit later.

Business at, even if this is seen in August, September, business at the Jersey Shore, talk to us about it.

- So I hear very good things.

I'm fortunate enough to have a home down the Shore, so I am boots on the ground.

And trust me, I ask the business owners down there, "How's it going?"

The mixed bag I hear is, number one, activity is great, right?

We absolutely, we've got our J-1 workers, the visa workers, here, right, to supplement the workforce, right?

So that's good.

The workforce this year looks pretty strong, so that's good.

You know, stores are open and things are happening, right?

But what we do hear a change in is that, at the Shore, we don't have as much turnover on weekly tourism.

People own their homes, and they're staying there and they're not necessarily renting their houses to the extent that they did before.

And therefore, you're not having every week, a new family come in and then spend that money on new T-shirts, new sweatshirts, eating out every single night, right?

When you're living there, maybe you're eating out a couple of nights a week, you're buying one or two shirts for the season, right, you're doing your shopping, but not like when it turns over every single week.

So there's highs, there's lows.

The weekends seem to be busy.

I gotta tell you, during the week's a little quieter than I've seen in the past.

And I think that has a lot to do with a lotta people who own their homes aren't necessarily renting out their homes like they did in the past.

- We've got a minute left.

People use the term business-friendly.

The governor has, many times, we'll book the governor again for an interview in the next couple months.

What does it mean to be quote, truly "business-friendly" in your view?

- Well, listen to what the business community needs and then try to address that.

Business-friendly is slow and steady progress toward things and no shocks to the system.

It's allowing predictability so that businesses can make investments in the long term.

It's about long-term planning and understanding what drives up the cost of business from, as I say, the boots on the ground.

I think we lack some of that here in the State of New Jersey.

In fact, we lack a lot of it, because we are the most expensive state to do business in.

We're very happy recently.

Look, our economy's doing very well in New Jersey.

Let's celebrate that.

We had some good rankings recently that we're excited about.

But within even those good rankings, we're still recognized as not a very business-friendly state.

And I think we need to listen more closely to the needs of the business community.

- That's Michele Siekerka, President and CEO of New Jersey Business & Industry Association.

As I said, we will have the governor back, Governor Murphy, and he will make the case as to, as he sees it, why New Jersey is very business-friendly.

Thank you, Michele.

- Thanks to much, Steve.

- Stay with us, we'll be right back.

- [Narrator] Think Tank with Steve Adubato has been a production of the Caucus Educational Corporation.

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