NJCA Statement on Governor Murphy’s State of the State Address

Trenton– New Jersey Citizen Action released this statement today following New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy’s State of the State address.

“In the past year we’ve seen sweeping changes that will greatly benefit women, children, workers and families,” said Phyllis Salowe-Kaye, Executive Director of New Jersey Citizen Action. “We’ve set New Jersey on the path to a $15 minimum wage, while establishing an equal pay law that will further help reduce discrimination against women in the workplace.  We’ve seen free tuition expanded to community colleges throughout New Jersey and passed legislation that will help our student loan borrowers dig themselves out of our $43 billion student debt crisis. To further protect New Jersey patients from destructive federal policies we’ve enacted a law that will establish our own state health care exchange. And we’ve greatly expanded and improved New Jersey’s paid family leave program. We commend Governor Murphy, our friends in the State Legislature and all the New Jerseyans who fought successfully to enact these badly needed reforms.

“Despite these considerable accomplishments our state continues to suffer from a massive revenue crisis. Without more revenue many of these reforms can’t be implemented properly. Without a properly funded state budget New Jersey can’t finance other critical priorities such as public pensions, affordable housing, transportation and infrastructure and could face a financial crisis at the next economic downturn.

“For this reason, we commend Governor Murphy’s continuing commitment to a Millionaires Tax and to ensuring our corporate tax incentive programs have hard caps and robust oversight. We urge the Legislature to work with the Governor on these financial and budgetary reforms to ensure the wealthiest state residents and the wealthiest corporations pay their fair share in New Jersey. We also applaud his commitment to establishing an Office of Health Care Affordability and Transparency in the Governor’s Office to reduce consumer health care costs, make health insurance more affordable, and improve price transparency. Finally, we urge the state to put new revenue to work in innovative ways, such as through a public bank, which will help provide for communities and critical projects that suffer from underfunding. Enacting these reforms will enable us to continue to progress towards a New Jersey that works for everyone, not just the wealthy and the politically connected.”

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New Jersey Citizen Action is a statewide advocacy and social service organization that fights for social, racial and economic justice for all while also meeting the pressing needs of low and moderate income New Jerseyans through education and direct service.