The newly elected governor of New Jersey, Phil Murphy, appeared on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" Wednesday to discuss his ideas for bolstering the state's economy.
"The big story of our election going forward is going to be the economy. We said the whole time on the campaign trail, 'we need a stronger, fairer economy that works for every New Jersey family,'" he said. "Underneath that it means that we haven't grown, we're profoundly unfair, and when it works, it works for very few.
When asked how "you get New Jersey to grow" economically, Murphy said, "You got to get back to basics. There's a couple of economies that we used to dominate. The two big ones are the innovation economy and the infrastructure economy. In the first case you can make a very credible argument that we were Silicon Valley before there was a Silicon Valley. Bell Labs, Thomas Edison, Alexander Graham Bell, pharma, bio. A lot of that edge is gone. That's because we have stopped investing into K-12, higher education, infrastructure, etc."
He added that New Jersey has "lost that economy" to states like Massachusetts despite their similarities, and that Bay State taxpayers accept paying a "premium" for the quality of life where they live.
"The question is specifically: can we deliver real property tax relief for the middle class in New Jersey," Murphy said. "Yes. That starts with not just growing the economy, with under funded public education in New Jersey in the Christie years by over $9 billion. Anybody who's watching, pull out your property tax bill in New Jersey, on average 53 percent of your bill is public education. That's where we can deliver real relief in addition to growing the economy."
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