Job Creation
Job creation and Protecting Small Businesses in New Jersey
The solution for job creation is not an easy task and the answer is not to be totally found within the borders of New Jersey. However difficult the problem of establishing a job base may be, it is necessary to do so, and central to maintaining our standard of living and reinforcing our confidence in ourselves as a people.
There are certain definite things which can be done immediately by the Governor. I would implement the necessary measures to encourage new industry and technology to grab hold in New Jersey, by creating the necessary incentives for business to want to settle here or stay here. These incentives would include enterprise zones, tax deductions, and tax abatements. I am open to other suggestions.
We must encourage the development of clean technologies and alternate fuel possibilities for residential and business use as well as for motor vehicles. California has its Silicon Valley. New Jersey can have a Green Turnpike Alley. I would establish a small Division of Innovation and Ideas created and funded by New Jersey which will review applications for grants, to assist in launching new programs and connecting ideas with those entrepreneurs, and venture capitalists who could implement them, and with the university who could assist with its professors and students to develop them. The State of New Jersey through its University system would be utilized to do research as part of their contribution to our State which finances them. I want New Jersey to be a magnet for the innovation for the 21st century. The emphasis is to tap new ideas and innovations and give them exposure and evaluation, and a chance to be realized and marketed.
The creation of jobs through public financing as is being done on the federal level, is an effort of mixed blessings. Some temporary jobs are created, but more debt is incurred as the taxpayers pay for those public sector jobs. Better, that the private sector create the jobs, and the tax base.
The question of jobs must be seen in a larger context than just in our State of New Jersey. Pretend for a moment that our nation is a skyscraper. The weight of the present economic conditions are placing an inordinate amount of stress on the outer walls of our structure. In normal times, the building would have internal columns of support which would take and help distribute the weight. Pretend these inner columns of support are the private sector jobs, many of them the manufacturing jobs that have left and gone overseas. These jobs provided stability to the society by creating work, wealth and taxes, thus a higher standard of living. They are gone now, so the nation, our building, is being held up by the outer walls. Now, after bailing Wall Street out and others, generating more debt and obligations to the Wall Street Bankers, who created the economic problems, the federal stimulus to create public sector jobs has put more pressure on the outer walls. This situation has caused our Nation to incur even more debt to keep those walls up. The problem however, is that the outer walls, because of all the increased pressure are collapsing inwardly. While in past times the internal columns of private enterprise was there for support, with millions of jobs; today there is nothing there. With the increased weight on the outer wall, due to increased public spending, the forecast is grim indeed if the situation is not reversed shortly. The pressure on the outer walls will cause the walls to collapse inwardly. The structure will implode, and come down on itself.
The North American Free Trade Agreement was approved by Congress in 1994 on an expedited manner before the legislation was even read by many congressmen. This trade agreement and others has been a direct attack on the sovereignty of the United States and the standard of living of the middle class.
Independent Presidential candidate Ross Perot accurately predicted the whooshing sound of countless jobs being sucked out of our country when the debate over these treaties was conducted. In the end, and true to form, a spineless Congress pushed a fast track resolution, caved into the financial interests and allowed themselves to be bought out. There was a price for their vote which they sold, and that betrayal has cost the United States its manufacturing base, and standard of living.
The Federal Government is responsible for major legislation which is crippling our country. In the 1970’s, the then prosperous United States was the biggest creditor Nation in the world. Today, remarkably we have become the biggest debtor Nation. How could this happen?
In the 1960’s the United States fought a War in Viet Nam to allegedly halt the spread of communism. Over 55,000 American soldiers were killed and hundreds of thousand wounded. Today, thanks to these trade agreements sponsored by Wall Street Bankers which encouraged through tax incentives, United States corporations to go over seas, our manufacturing and technology base have been crippled and stripped. Communist China, a brutal dictatorship without the concept of freedom, and which uses child labor, slave labor and prison labor in their products is the recipient of our corporate enterprise and our creditor Nation now and we, the so called proponents of “freedom” are the debtor who owes the totalitarian communists trillions of dollars. How could this happen?
How could a world class economy number one, the envy of the world, in a class by itself, be brought to its knees in such short order, and by whom?
This is our context we must work within to understand what we can do or should do as citizens of New Jersey. The reality is, if you buy a computer, you may be talking to someone in the Philippines. If you are hooking up phone service you may be talking with someone in British Guyana. The jobs have been outsourced to the detriment of the Nation.
Let us be clear here. There is an economic and political war that is being fought, not announced, but ever visible between the Nation State and the transnational corporations and their financiers. The Nation State has become expendable….to be sacrificed on the alter of the world financial interests for the sake of those interests. The plan which these interests have announced is to regionalize the world by breaking down the borders of the Nation States; and to undermine the standard of living through increased debt of those Nation States. The loss of jobs and good paying jobs is symptomatic of the plan taking effect. What else is symptomatic is the lowering of the standard of living of the middleclass which will eventually lead to its elimination if not reversed. You can not be free, if you can not earn a living which allows you to support your family and improve your lot. The situation in New Jersey and the United States can not be improved unless the middle class is empowered. The middle class will not be empowered unless they empower themselves. When that happens there will be jobs for all.
