On The Record | Former state Sen. Ray Lesniak

Here are some highlights:

• “What Governor Murphy is doing is throwing gasoline on it and creating a political war”
• “When the Governor says we have squandered $12 billion of the tax incentives, he’s wrong. He’s using fake math. ”
• “Governor Murphy is using fake math. Let’s use Amazon as an example, which Governor Murphy supports. We offered Amazon $4 billion of tax incentives. Governor Murphy would say ‘Well, you know what, we squandered $4 billion because we gave Amazon a 4 billion dollar tax incentive.’ That’s only one side of the equation. If we would have attracted Amazon with those $4 billion of tax credits, we would have gotten $16 billion in the treasury and 50 thousand jobs. He’s not using the figure that would have been gained if that incentive had attracted a company like Amazon to locate in the state, make employment in the state, or keep businesses from leaving the state.”
• “It’s a false narrative. It’s false math. Because without the tax incentives, he’s not including the money that we’re paid by the companies because they were attracted by tax incentives.”
• “I don’t have a dog in this fight. My only interest is that the economy of the state of New Jersey has benefitted from it and to stop the gas lighting, stop the false narrative, talk about public policy, end this political feud which I call a food fight.”
• “Do you think this task force was formed by someone other than Governor Murphy? No. Unfortunate. Let’s get back down to business. Unfortunately I think the Governor has crossed the Rubicon in terms of his relationship with political figures.”
• “We’re trying to attract companies to do business in New Jersey and if we have a Governor that’s throwing around baseless allegations of criminal misconduct by businesses publicly without doing a private investigation and audits the way you should do. That’s going to sink us even lower in terms of the business climate when people want to make investments and create jobs.”