Chris Christie on Corporations

Overhaul ridiculous tax system so companies stop leaving

"Secondly," he added, "we would pass a national energy policy, and one that takes full advantage of all of the resources that we have available to us to help grow our economy and make the world a more peaceful and stable place."

"And the third thing," he said, "is to reestablish American leadership around the world."

$2.3 billion small business tax relief package

And we have better targeted them to areas of our state that need investment most. And the verdict is in--and the early returns from the economic opportunity act show that it is working to attract and retain businesses. In total, our pro-growth policies and streamlined economic development efforts have brought in over $12 billion dollars of new public and private investment in New Jersey in these last five years.

The fact is that, the deeper they look, the more businesses like what they see. Companies have chosen New Jersey as a home for expansion.

Continue small business tax relief: no return to tax-&-spend

And let me make this point clearly and unequivocally. Despite the challenges, I will not let New Jersey go back to our old ways of wasteful spending and rising taxes. We will deal with our problems but we will continue to do so by protecting the hard earned money of all New Jerseyans first and foremost. We will not turn back. Look at all of those things some called impossible, that we have made a reality.

• A real 2% property tax cap
• Interest arbitration reform.
• Pension and health benefit reform.
• Teacher tenure reform.
• $1.3 billion in new capital investment in all our universities for the first time in 25 years.
• A ground breaking teacher contract in Newark that finally acknowledges merit pay.

Casino regulators keep working during government shutdowns

Cut business taxes by $600 million annually

Christie ran a no-tax-hike pledge and the idea was to introduce the new millionaire's tax after he took office and force him to sign it, breaking his word, which of course Democrats would use against him.

It didn't work, he didn't sign it. His critics claimed he'd cut taxes for his millionaire friends. It was a lie. The tax rate had not changed since Christie took office.

At the same time, Christie and the legislature cut business taxes to the tune of $185 million the 1st year, growing to more than $600 million in cuts annually by the 5th year, to encourage expansion and job creation. Democratic efforts to raise taxes on millionaires also continued in Christie's 2nd year, ending with the same veto.

Shame the bankers out of greedy bonuses, but don't regulate

A: Greed. And because no one wanted to tell anybody the truth. I think we got ourselves in this mess because some people in the financial industry became incredibly short-sighte and greedy and we had government officials who refused to say no.

Q: A lot of bankers have been bailed out, and then the first thing they do is award themselves massive bonuses. Would you have stopped that?

A: I probably wouldn't have done anything different to stop them to do that except to use the power of the bully pulpit as president to call attention to it and to try to shame them into doing something different. I don't believe in that kind of heavy-handed regulation where we're saying how muc you can pay people. But I do think that what really caused the problem was not so much the high-pay, was just the incredibly risky securities spreading kind of like a cancer that really caused the incredible downturn that we had in 2008 and 2009.

Bring back "Trenton makes, the world takes"

OpEd: Don't pick winners & losers? Picks "critical" sectors

Governor Chris Christie's New Jersey Economic Development Authority favors specific "business sectors critical to the State's economy."