Well, at least Brandon McKoy is showing his true colors. As reported by the Wall Street Journal, the New Jersey Policy Perspective (NJPP) president panned the recent passage of a new economic-development incentive program: “We’re in a moment of economic weakness and we just said ‘we’re going to reduce our revenues.'” In other words, McKoy’s answer to NJ’s economic woes is to tax businesses to the max. Never mind that NJ has the worst business tax climate in the nation for the 7th straight year. Never mind that large employers like Mondelez are planning to leave the state.
McKoy doesn’t care about these facts because he sees private sector businesses as important only insofar as they provide tax revenues to fund public sector spending. What sort of public sector spending does McKoy advocate? Education and transportation, of course. Both with work-forces made up of large public sector unions, including the NJEA.
Recall that the NJEA is a major donor to NJPP ($695,000 from 2013-17), so what’s good for the NJEA is good for McKoy and NJPP. NJPP frequently manufactures “research” in support of the NJEA’s policy positions, so it looks like McKoy is again dutifully speaking up for the NJEA’s priorities.
This is what we have come to expect from McKoy and NJPP, and once again McKoy has delivered for his NJEA patrons.