The only game in town?

Government agencies are seen as monopolies. There is no LWD 2.0, no Son-Of-The-Division-Of-Employer-Accounts. Who ya gonna call? Not UI Busters. You must belong to our unemployment plan, report and pay what and when we say and if you don’t like it your only choice is to elect legislators who may or may not change the law. Yeah right, like that’s going to happen. (I know, DI and FLI have a private plan option, but that’s mainly a perk for the already affluent, not a problem for employers.) We have no competition, we are not a business, we are government. Businesses need to make a profit, we don’t. “It’s good to be the King!”

Right?

No.

We have plenty of competitors and many of them are beating us. We are not competing for profit, we are competing for taxpayers.

We will always have the local businesses. Mom and Pop will always be looking for a shop on the corner. Ronald knows that we need a McDonalds every 1.7 miles. We will need local places to buy food, get or nails done or shop for a 239” HD TV. End all those places will have to do business with us on our terms. They need to be here.

But every day we hear from taxpayers who are fed up with us and the high cost of doing business in NJ. The state of Pennsylvania is less that a mile away over the Trenton Makes Bridge and they and Gov. Rendell are making an effort to get businesses to move over there and bring their taxes with them. And because PA is not in debt as bad as NJ they are able to make it attractive. My son lost a job recently because a big financial firm with one of those beautiful Princeton campuses is moving to downtown Philadelphia. That is obviously not as great a geographical site but PA made the deal so financially attractive they couldn’t refuse and NJ couldn’t match the offer. Delaware has always been the most business friendly state and New York, well, is New York, still the capital of the world. So a lot of those people we talk to on the phones do have options.

But even more importantly, we live in a global economy where information is the currency and where you set up your computer servers is of little consequence. These businesses can operate as easily in Indonesia as in Princeton. We have more amenities but they will make a bigger profit in Indonesia and profit is their reason to exist. We are losing these taxpayers.

Fewer Taxpayers = Fewer Jobs = Less Revenue for Us = Fewer Jobs at LWD (and the rest of the NJ government.)

This part of the country is not growing, people and business are moving away. And that means eventually even those businesses that must stay here (Mom and Pop, Ronald, food stores, nails salons and 239” HD TV shops) will be smaller, further apart, employ fewer people and only sell 193” HD TVs. And we will need fewer State Employees.

Want to keep your job? Help those employers that are here now. Give them good service. Make them HAPPY to be here. NEVER give them another reason to want to leave. We need them. I need them. You need them. We are not the only game in town any more.

We also have to look at the bottom line and that bottom line is $$$ from taxpayers even if it is not profit. If we cannot reverse the trends (as well as work to attract new businesses) NJ government will either shrink or go further in debt, or both. You can help.

Option 1 – (SMILE) “Employer Accounts, how can I help you?” (mean it and then do it)

…so we don’t end our careers saying :

Option 2 – (GROWL) “Sri Lankan Tax Collection, wadda you want…”