Gordon MacInnes, co-author of the policy brief, sees investment in higher education as key to creating better jobs.
With last week’s release of “Make Higher Education Affordable Again,” the first of an Invest in New Jersey series of policy briefs, the Trenton-based public policy group contends that state policymakers should turn their attention away from enacting new tax cuts to pouring funds into initiatives that will help drive economic growth.
“New Jersey for a variety of reasons has dropped the word ‘investment’ from its public discourse given the attention on tax cuts,” said Gordon MacInnes, the NJPP president and a co-author of the policy brief.
“We want to provide an alternative narrative to the idea that tax cuts are the most important thing you can do in a state that is struggling mightily to come out of the Great Recession,” he added.
MacInnes said that, with tax cut legislation backed by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie unlikely to see enactment in the current state legislative session that ends this month, there’s an opportunity to get state leaders thinking about how increased college affordability and an improved science research infrastructure could help fuel the state’s slow climb out of the recent recession. Passage of the Christie-backed proposal would deplete state revenues by about $1.6 billion annually, according to the NJPP.
“We’re close to the bottom in how well we’re rebounding from that recession, whereas in past recessions we led the pack. And that’s a big problem,” he noted.
“If you want to create better jobs, what do you do? One, you return higher education to the radar screen. It’s really dropped off the screen, and as a consequence it has not received the kind of attention, operating support and capital support that public higher education needs to maintain what it’s doing now and to address issues down the road,” MacInnes said.
