NJBIA hires Buteas, or why NJ will remain last place in business climate

Year after year after year, New Jersey remains the worst place to start a business in America.  The worst business climate in America, the worst taxes, the worst regulations.

https://taxfoundation.org/publications/state-business-tax-climate-index/

A big part of the reason for this is the lack of a tough, no-nonsense pro-business voice in Trenton.  You can't win if you don't fight your corner.

What was once called the "business-lobby" in Trenton has become so hollowed out and so filled with accommodationists that it recently attacked the Trump/GOP tax cuts just to curry favor with the incoming administration of Democrat Phil Murphy.  What in the hell is going on when business attacks a corporate tax cut on behalf of a governor who has promised to raise taxes on millionaires???

Welcome to the new age of corporate cronyism.  Phil Murphy is a Wall Street capitalist, masquerading as a social justice warrior, who understands very well the uses of government.  There is a corporate model that has adjusted to an era of a declining middle class, permanent foreign sources of near-slave domestic labor, and the taxpayer-supported off-shoring of jobs; when legislation can be bought, winners chosen, regulation used to destroy competition, eminent domain used to clear a corporate path; when the income taxes of working families are used to subsidize the property taxes of rich corporations and their corporate favorites; when bailouts are provided to counter huge corporate screw-ups.

So the corporate community is adjusting too.  Going with the flow and getting in line to suck-up and earn rewards.

Of course, this is only an option for those really big corporations who play it crooked, hire insider lobbyists, make fat political contributions -- and fatter donations to the approved "not-for-profits" -- and who maintain the "right" points of view.  The remainder -- those 99 percent of business enterprises in New Jersey -- they aren't going to get in on any deals.  Not big enough.  What is big enough is the shaft that will be progressively forced up their bottoms.  More regulation (both real and "feel good"), more and higher taxes of every variety, and less freedom -- freedom to think, to speak, to associate, to earn a living, to exist outside of government or corporate favor. 

And so we come to a small concession to Governor Goldman-Sachs 2.0 by the former "business lobby" over at NJBIA.  Who can blame them?  As students of history, they know that even under Stalin a favored few capitalists prospered (even as most starved).  They want to represent "the favored few."

So who can blame them for hiring yet another organization Democrat.  This one as Chief Government Affairs Officer.  Fresh from the Murphy transition team, Democrat Councilwoman Chrissy Buteas is also president of the far-left Women's Political Caucus of New Jersey.  The Women's Political Caucus is an anti-traditional values organization that calls itself "multi-partisan".  Hey, they have a point.  In a world with 57 genders, why have just two parties?

Here's to another decade of being in last place!  And its millions of lost dreams.