company gave him publishing which is a medical publishing business in somerville and he's a certified certified public accountant who lives in hillsboro was a lovely family and i think one of the many things that you should watch the show tonight because hopefully in the near future you'll see jack as governor jack the relic of new jersey because he did run for the republican nomination in the last year and were unsuccessful he met a lot of people made a lot of friends and has a bright future should you choose well i always see you get in the public service one of three ways you do have a family member that's involved in it that wasn't the case with me you're inspired by somebody my parents generation were inspired by john f kennedy my generation very many of us were inspired by reagan moneyless were inspired by rock a bomb that's not how it happened for me either it would happen to me is the third way you get involved in politics i came home from c hall university with my m b a c p a the mayor of renton borough in somerset county and me to see it was a lifelong f he saw something in me and came in recruited me and it sounded very interesting and so i got involved in politics so as you as you were campaigning in the first couple of elections and now for the government what were some of the things that you that you noticed that people were talking to you about what was their main concerns one of these i've always loved politics the hand to hand the retail politics going door to door having town halls talking about the issues i've always had a passion for public policy i like problem solving i like challenges and i've always approached politics the way i've always approached my employees my shareholders my clients in business play it straight right because people in the state particular know b s when they've heard it and board and my reason for going to the state legislature seven years ago was to focus on the fiscal issues and i think if you go around this state when you ask people would bother the most about new jersey it's the fiscal issues particularly property taxes school funding the pension crisis and what it all means to the cost of living in new jersey so i've always found it a very very fascinating journey and fortunately i've always been well well received by the by the voters that's good so one of the things that we'll get into those issues you know because this is go be a long interview so make yourself comfortable looking into those issues and a little bit i think one of the things that most of people don't know about is that when someone decides to run for elective office or you know gets elected or decides to announce that they want to run for you did you know last time around you have to support your family and your oscar shout a lot there's a lot of hours out there and you're meeting people and you know getting your face known so you take us through a little bit about the last campaign that you went  through because people are fascinated by the concept of how do you get into you know running for governor and what is it like out there right and by the way i'm so glad you bring that up because my public service has really been made possible by the sacrifices of my family particularly my wife there are a great many times that you're not home but one thing i always try to do is balance things that work for me as i always say as a father for you only get one chance to be a dad so there aren't too many games or plays or school activities that i've missed that  create those lasting memories that just last a lifetime for you and your children but it is a fascinating journey i think once you make that decision that you're going to run for public office the last part of that decision making process is sitting down with the family and making sure they understand completely what it is you're getting yourself into and the gubernatorial campaign of last year is a whole different ballgame in the past year campaigning in one town then i campaigned in twenty one towns and i was a summer security freeholder when i was a state legislator i represented fourteen towns including princeton but running for governor five hundred sixty five towns twenty one counties and eighteen hour days for six straight months the but i had the full support of my family the full support of my family and that makes it a hell of a lot more fun i'll tell you and fact they're coming with you a great many times and i found that a great experience for them the other thing they need to prepare themselves for is the fishbowl environment and when you become a candidate for governor you're being looked at from every different angle and i'm ok with that because i think the more people get to know jack generally the more culpable they may be in my candidacy and my ability to serve them as an elected official so fascinating journey from beginning to end certainly it didn't turn out the way i had wanted where we were very disappointed with the outcome but we weren't disappointing our effort and i always my wife and i have always taught the kids there is one thing worse than family it's not given it your best effort when i look back at the gubernatorial campaign we gave it our best ok well that's all we can ask for so we can as work and trying is is half the battle sometimes you know so when you're out there at the very chicken dinners and the various events and  know shaking the hands and you know kiss in the babies or you know doing things that you have to do what type when you when you've given the same speech multiple times how can you make it fresh first of all you have to believe in it if you believe in it it's a lot like sales i mean if you believe in your product or you never get tired tell that story right and so i didn't run into that challenge where ever became rote because i believe in my vision on how to fix new jersey and so every single time i was in front of a new group i would say to myself you have one chance jack this is it don't get bored ever with what you're doing don't let it become wrote this is a new audience has never heard of you before and they've come here tonight to hear what it is that you have to say that gets me charged up i want to meet their expectations so i just love telling the story over and over again and there's different aspects of the story it isn't just in my case the five point plan on how to fix new jersey's fiscal crisis i would love telling the cheddar  reli story of how my grandparents came here one hundred years ago and how my parents met and how they were both middle class hardworking people in fact between my parents there was but one high school diploma and i went on the tell the story how it made the paper one day that i told the story of between my parents there was one high school diploma and the next time i saw my mom after she read that newspaper article she was very upset with me she said do you really have to tell that aspect of our family story people will think run educated and i would say mom that's a great american story you and dad worked hard provided your four children with a wonderful middle class life and i think it's worth telling and she said to me will damage if you're going to tell that story makes you tell everyone i'm the one with a high school diploma got and i have to she lectured me about that i would phase that into my my stump speech and people loved it and i would love telling it each and every time so i think you have to believe in yourself and you have to be you have to be jersey up in somerset county about one hundred years ago and it's a great great american story how they worked hard and my grandfather became one of the largest water main contractors for the water company and was very very successful and my parents been wonderful they've been wonderful role models always set the right example in terms of hard work integrity honesty and as i would often tell when i was on the stump there's nothing they would do for their neighbor their community their state or country by you had some thoughts about candid trump before you became president trump and you talk to lou that that on the on the election trail and i just want to see what your your takeaway has been for the last year at the federal level with the with president he's our president he won fair and square and i'm a citizen first i want my president to succeed i want my governor to succeed whoever they are once the election's over and i think that this is still a very very different ball game than anything donald trump has ever done before he certainly smart and i think  are very very good in terms of what it is that's bothering the american people what it is that needs to be fixed in this country his style sometimes is what rubs people really really wrong so what i've tried to do is separate trump the person from trump the policy i think the policy ideas are good ones what i have done the the corporate tax reform the way he did it not necessarily what i've done the income tax reform the way that he did it not necessarily what i go about immigration the way he's going about it not necessarily but at the same time those are all important issues as is straight and and our relationships with foreign entities and countries how would you have gone about it well first of all i would have phased in the corporate income tax reduction over to a three year period i would have gone from thirty one percent down to twenty and i think that many of our fortune five hundred companies are multinationals which means a great deal of their business comes from international sources and we do well internationally on the business front when they're stability in the world and you know who provides that stability the s military someone has to pay for it so if the corporate income tax in this country is a little higher than other countries i'm ok with that because those corporations should realize they have to pay for a police force that polices and stabilize the world and that's the u military so but at the same time the corporate tax rate did need to be reduced from thirty five percent that was too high the only i would have done is not only phase it in over a couple years from thirty five down to maybe twenty five i would have also had a one time exclusion for them to bring all those international profits back home at no penalty and they could have had like an eighteen to twenty four month window to do that because that was also a major sticking point with our major corporations so the only thing i would have done differently but the tax reform plan i think that this plan is probably good for maybe three and a half to four out of five new jerseyans right but when you consider the fact that new jersey is dead last in nation terms of what we get back in federal income tax dollars so when you compare the amount of federal income tax dollars we all sent to washington d c right through our payroll taxes and compared to what we get back for various projects we're dead last the nation where we did with people may not understand that you know so this use your c p a background you know why we did less well i i think that yeah i think one of the reasons might be is because we are an affluent state are there are pockets of poverty in the state you bet those there are and they need to be addressed but we are considered an affluent state as is new york but and because we are we don't get our lion's share i believe of what we should in terms of federal funding i'll give you a perfect example that when you think about what the new jersey economy means to the economy of this region the metropolitan area and when you think about what the metropolitan area economy means the national economy we should get that gateway project for a third rail tunnel under the hudson funded by the federal government i mean ted kennedy got the big dig funded on the boston harbor that's for the federal government we need a gateway project funded so those are some of the things that i think that are painful for us so the tax reform to me because we subsidize the other forty nine states because we're dead last  there should have been a tax reform plan that was good for five out of five new jerseyans not four out of five new jerseyans and and i also would hope that the president would think twice about funding the gateway project with his new infrastructure proposal that he talked about in the the union and i think also he needs to think twice about our feelings on offshore drilling here in new jersey when you think about what the jersey shore means to our state economy i want to actually that would be one too many right and we need to think about that so those are some things where i wish the president would be a little more sensitive to new jersey ok immigrant actually form the the gateway project offshore drilling for oil about immigration to as a fix new jersey to immigration is very very important to new jersey we're a small business economy and i think immigration is reform is long overdue in this country we keep talking about it we've been talking about it for decades right we're a country of immigrants and i don't think we should be soft i don't think the answer is to create sanctuary cities and sanctuary states i actually think that that encourages illegal immigration but we need an immigration policy that works one of the things that i learned in and that's the fascinating thing about going around the state is gubernatorial candy what you learn when i went into south jersey and i met farmers i met one farmer who peppers to converse tomatoes one hundred thousand dollars of crops rotted in his fields because he had no one to pick the crops so we need the right kind of immigration policy that works for the country and for new jersey we need ok now we have a new governor in new jersey governor murphy he's inheriting a lot of what governor christie left behind challenges right now property taxes property taxes and property taxes and how we address and it's broken for two reasons one is the way we fund schools in the state right we can no longer afford to have five percent sixty percent of the state funding for schools go to five percent of our school districts we've been doing that for forty years now i just read in the wall street journal where nork is finally experiencing that spillover from new york city and is going through a revitalization period it's radio base reached sixteen billion for the first time in decades right if you take the average school tax rate on your property tax bill in the state and apply that to sixteen billion north gets close to starting to be able to pay for its own schools and yet here is what gov murphy is going to do i'm sure of it he's going to increase state funding for the new york schools even though nork is experiencing a revitalization and should be able to pay for its own schools the way your hometown of cranford does the way princeton does the way hillsborough does fred and so that's what i'm fearful of with his policies that they're really not going to do the kind of things that need to be done to put new jersey on the right path so property taxes need to be fixed they'll never be fixed until we come up with a new and fair school funding formula and the other part of that equation isn't addressed the five hundred sixty five towns and the five hundred eighty school districts that kind of fragmentation that kind of duplication is driving property taxes higher we don't need a police force and every one of these little towns it just doesn't make economic sense and so these are the kind of things we need to address but i haven't heard that kind of talk from candidate murphy nor if i heard it just yet from governor murphy i want to be successful but when i listen to his rhetoric all through the campaign against with daniel right i was wondering what state he was living in because there were just promises that can't be kept to say he's going to fully fund the school funding formula we need a fair school funny phone not fully funding the current formula when he says that we're going to fully fund the pension which is in terrible deficit it's just not realistic when he says he wants to make community college free it's just not doable when you say thirty cents when you say you want to have a new millionaires tax write one percent of our filers in new jersey pay forty percent of the taxes i mean how much more topheavy do you want to get with our top rates and now when you factor in trust reform plan they will flee well that's the question they will see people going to pennsylvania and other states in order to avoid some of the you know you know it's interesting because people don't realize that how different it is from pennsylvania pennsylvania has a three percent flat tax our top bracket is eight point nine seven which is nine percent right so the difference between three percent and nine percent if you have a million dollars of income right it's the difference between thirty thousand taxes and ninety thousand taxes sixty thousand dollars difference in income taxes and then you throw the trump plan on top of it these people are going to go to pennsylvania you know the funny thing is that we've talked about property taxes for probably since we were born in new jersey and no one's really come up with the answer yet right we've all talked about how much pay too much in taxes right but we still stay here in new jersey because when new jerseyans you know we love the parts of jersey right right and this is where you know we grew up where we were born our jobs are and we just love it here we are low crazy but we love jersey writers and we haven't forgotten we do put up with that we do put up with  some of the taxes but there are things that we look at we say you know what we want to make sure that love transmitted to future generations coming down the road you know so the question is how do we go about it we talk about it we talk about we what we need to do but how do we go about really getting property taxes just using pennsylvania's in the sample you know can we get it down to a level of does have to go down the three percent right because we have other benefits in the state that has always doesn't have that's right so there are other things that we can do to work toward and how we get there so a couple different things one is you need political leadership that's willing to commit political suicide you need political leadership that's willing to be a one term governor one of the greatest disappointments i had with the christie administration is eight years went by and all they continued to do was fund a flawed school funding formula they just continued what we've been doing for the past three decades right in the jersey cities in the hoboken is in the norks we need to see new school funding for that that will bring property taxes down across the board  consolidation consolidation right and that proved a better quality of products with regard to law enforcement and over ninety million dollars savings over ten years seventeen in one thousand mayors voted no they were going to go ahead with  and everyone loves home rule the other thing that we need to do which is really we don't do enough of the property taxes are terribly high in the state they are number one the country we hate as consumers when price is high and quality stinks not the case here in new jersey the price is high too high and it needs to come down here's the good news the quality of service you're getting in the vast majority of our minister valleys is excellent we've got the highest high school graduation rate in the country that says something about our public schools right right our rescue squad services our police services our fire services our streets are paved our streets are plowed the quality of service in the vast majority of our new jersey towns is excellent right and so we don't just want to lament that property taxes are high we do need to fix that and i gave you some examples on how we can do that but let's all celebrate that the quality of service in new jersey is phenomenal that is it is for them they just came out with an education in the ratings of the public schools in new jersey compared to other states and even with the recent basically public education new jersey took a hit this last couple years in the christie administration you know if and buts about it right you know a lot of cuts to public education but yet in  recent recent results of many polls came out and showed that new jersey was number two in the nation as far as what it provides to all students and moving their education forward you know both on the career college career and vocational readiness and so and that's with a fabulous teaching staff and a lot of fabulous professionals that we have in new jersey so you know i think to the point lou that you know this is one thing that we never seem to talk about publicly you'll hear a great many people say they're moving to pennsylvania for lower property taxes but a great many i'm don't have any confidence in the public school system then up and up paying out of the other pockets and their kids to private school so you do have to make that  balance cause new jersey has a lot of things that other states don't have through i'm not going anywhere that's why i was running for governor we're not looking to play the six month in a day game by moving to florida scape this tax or escape that tax i want to stay here i want to fix it but i was trying to balance square miles about five thousand people four thousand of which were italian and everyone knew each other and it was one of those types of situations where literally and you hear the story often but literally you left the house at eight o'clock in the morning and you didn't come home till five o'clock at night as a child and your parents didn't know where the heck you were they just knew you were ok right and so it has the red river going right through i can't tell you how many summer days i spent swimming and fishing in the river and playing ball on the various ball fields and it was just a great place to grow up a great place to grow up and glad my parents settled there and after reading which you go after so went through the public school system there and then went on to seton hall got my bachelor's degree i was very fortunate when i graduated with my bachelor's in accounting they offered me a fellowship so i went full time for my masters degree at night and did research assistant and teaching assistant and mistreated assistant during the day with the university came back came back home two years later with my master's and my a and and lived right there with mom and dad for a little while before moving out and my wife and i got married start having our own family started out right and raritan yes and a two family house that i owned right across street from the house my father was born in in sunday dinners she does not but we have sunday brunch at her ok yes some traditions have to continue yes and in our house we bake army balls we don't fry and it's gravy not sauce that's always a big thing about it but doubt that that's important to know if you're watching everybody understand that most people understand if you don't come to jack's hatfill the story of the difference but anyway so it's good getting to know you as a person jack because a lot of people don't see the personal side of the you know the politician or of the individual all the time who don't know you and you know we're going to continue this conversation and it's two part series so we're going on and we talking about specific issues who know whether they be taxes or for housing or education you know next week as we continue and so you know hold tight and you know we'll continue our discussion a little bit so i'm lugosi thank you for watching we hope that you watch next week as we continue our conversation with jack to rally who will be talking about the various issues that affect you on an everyday basis and please tune in because it's going to be important and it may be something that will predict the future as to what will be good for new jersey and where we need to go and what vision we have to make in new jersey more competitive and more affordable for everyone until then i'm the goldstein saying have a good night stay healthy stay active stay focused and i'll see you next week another edi