SMALL BUSINESS DISGUSTED AS GAS TAX HIKE PASSES ASSEMBLY

TRENTON (June 28, 2016): The following statement may be attributed to Laurie Ehlbeck, National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) New Jersey state director regarding the late night activity in the Assembly last night:

To say our members are frustrated would be a gross understatement. They are fed up with business as usual in Trenton where lawmakers play economic shell games with their tax dollars just like they have done today. Instead of focusing on making sweeping structural changes to our transportation trust fund that would reduce costs and solve our funding issues for the long term, lawmakers played their favorite card and raised the only tax in the state that doesn’t break national records. 

What happened last night to the small business sector, as well as taxpayers throughout our state should not be underestimated. Our elected officials took a giant economic step backwards last night and demonstrated that they lack the imagination or the creativity necessary to turn this state around. New Jersey is already home to the worst business climate in the country and what happened last night merely solidifies our role as the worst place in the nation to remain in business.

So much time and energy has been spent in recent years on debating correcting the transportation trust fund issues but in the end we have an unoriginal plan that provides a Band-Aid fix for funding instead of a solution that would have required actual strength and leadership. The small business community has been let down by policy makers in Trenton again, there’s no way around that.