president donald trump and what's special about this is understanding that he's the first president in well over one hundred years and certainly in many generations who has never been elected to public office before or had any background in the military that is a very unique thing to say about an elected american president and let's face it here in new jersey we are overwhelmingly democratic and so when he won there is so many new jersey residents who are very sad very passionate and still honestly in a state of shock so what i'd like to do is bring to you information coming from two lobbyist who have lot of expertise in new jersey politics and what goes on in trenton and we're very fortunate to have here today both probably to marco and sal and to ten and they're both going to explain to us what do they believe is the outcome in real life effect for new jersey residents not to mention the fact that we also saw you also on the ballot that was turned down of course it's really happened poe and helpful that question went on the ballot had to do with the gaming industry and barbara is a gaming lobbyist i want to know what happened i certainly thought it was a good idea to bring in casinos and more gaming to bring rare when you're in jobs but of course it was turned down only up to hear more about that myself so bo numerous and varied interests before various state government agencies and the new jersey legislative and executive branches welcome both of you thank you so much for taking time out of this very new changing almost chaotic environment tell me what's it like down in trenton right now so when i started jogging you know i think it's certainly a new political era for our nation there's been a lot of speculation about the future of governor christie in trenton i think he's rather enjoying the speculation because quite frankly it's right as he said he's going to continue his term and finish it out as we elected him to do yeah it is good and so i think that there's you know new year's is only halfway through our current legislative term so you're going to see and i'm going into twenty seventeen you know kind of an interesting time because we have in new jersey what will be the first post trump election  gubernatorial election in twenty seventeen as you know virginia and new jersey are the only states that have these off cycle actions so our twenty seven thousand new jersey politically is probably very interesting so when you say interesting i would like to start asking bar i think a lot of people are wondering if they were for it and obviously two more were against it what happened with that number one question their decision to elected officials with the gaming ballot please explain bax i think there's a lot of misunderstanding that led to that maybe forty five days the taj mahal and closed that was an extra three thousand jobs on what i believe was twelve thousand already lost with the closure of trump plaza but the closure of showboat with the closure of the former golden nugget or the hilton casino currently and when you see that kind of massive closure and you see the impact on a city that depended on  and the economic activity and people go to latics city who are low weekends for entertainment for shows for dinners you see the impact of clothes facilities especially long the boardwalk  and i think people got to the point where they said to themselves ok why would we add more if what we have is not working i also believe for many people it's just the timing with somewhat off you  going on so many competing interests you had the presidential election certainly dominating both and probably the new york media by as well as the philadelphia media by as you know new jersey we're stuck in the midwest sa very very difficult to get a message out other than that especially when you have pennsylvania which was a contested state for the southern part of the state of the state the other thing that's interesting about this is the people in the south and i am from a lot of county  it's devastated southern new jersey what has happened to a lot of city there are literally to meijer industries down there there is casino gaming with tourism seasonal tourism and then there's agriculture and all the by products of agriculture so you're trucking your produce brokers your food processing plants like campbell soup and candid and other than that that's really what makes up the bulk of industries in southern new jersey for those who don't travel maybe into philadelphia or north and when you see that many jobs lost it has a profound and significant impact on a whole region of of our state and i think people observed that people saw that people heard that and the timing was just off now i thought approving this bill would have helped to bring those jobs back i mean for example lot of those the typical thing is you hear that the you know in the gaming industry to see you know zero you have all the dealers and all the offshoot jobs are lost i thought it would have been great thing to provide other jobs to these people in those industries by opening other types of gaming but necessarily improve our situation here south of one ninety five so that's that was you know it compounds the problem head factor because you're just shifting you're not improving what's there so you're going to leave a ghost town of sorts as it make everything gravitate north and that was a big fear if you look at the demographic of people who come to a lot of thirty you will find that the majority right now comes from the new york metropolitan area it's not necessarily pennsylvania you have at least twenty six sites on the pennsylvania new jersey delaware in going up into new york border if you are in pennsylvania you can stop literally at the bottom of the ben franklin bridge sugar house and soon another one at the bottom of walt whitman then you have at the bottom of commodore barry harris all on the other side of the river so if you're coming west to east why ok so that being said we still have some amount of horse racing how's that going to be affected those are going to be affected it's already the impact is already been it's just horrible there's no other word suppliers it is a industry that although has a wagering component and you need a market place which is your racetrack what it does is it supports in the most densely populated state in the country that has lost fifty percent of its farmland in the last fifty years its ports the farming industries it says it would think that that supports a firm industry is usually you thinking of what you actually see in front of you the racing itself  and i think you know when you when you look at it in a state that the garden state and a state that has a long and rich tradition of that quine we have some of the best recreational  intricately tied together so when you have states like pennsylvania new york delaware maryland and i could keep naming them that have blended casino gaming in racing where they're the proceeds of casinos racing survive and then you don't do it in a state like new jersey and you leave new jersey racing industry on its own to survive with all that competition because keep in mind you can't restrict your horse population their owners their trainers their jockeys their drivers to say one state they are mobile and they will go where the most money the most opportunity the best type of racing is available and let me let me bring you to another area right now we're talking about a lot of jobs lost and how industries have failed and to a large degree i mean we're talking about all those casino closures that's a failing industry especially we're told that right here in new jersey well what happens people jobs they're having a thought of danger with losing their homes i mean as a foreclosure expression of help hundreds of families keep their homes i want to hear from both of you what you see in that realm so of course the impels is  housing is great but now we're talking about thousands and thousands of people losing their jobs new jersey is still in the top five reaction bilious top three of how foreclosure states in the country so what is going to be the trumps reaction or housing because i watched all three debates and i'm honestly don't remember saying anything about the housing crisis any of those three debates i don't think that they really discussed that as a specific issue if you those of us who watched the fed you know you just sense generally that interest rates are going to start increasing certainly you know bond rates have begun increasing since the president elect has been elected i think you're going to see perhaps a sharper spike because of his announced policies w which to this point have been you know the lack of detail has been pretty significant they'll be more but the suspicion is that you're going to see increasing how in interest rates over the next you know several months once you get started but what about the foreclosure market that's what i'm concerned i have every day several people contact me through whether it's direct kohls e mails i really have a ton of people in massive heard cern as to what this  administration is going to mean for example the ham program those an active march of two thousand nine hundred president obama is set to expire at the end of this month december thirty first and so this could be extended and that's the deadline for submissions well do you believe that donald trump will extend that do you think i don't have any reason to think that that's a priority in that administration or with this congress at this time so if it's not extended under the current president and congress i would suspect it's not going to be on the top of the list in the first hundred days of the truck presidency that's you know at least my expectation what you do find i think is that as interest rates go up you're going to perhaps in the future have a tendency for less foreclosures and keep in mind our current foreclosure crisis came about as a result of the influx or the the prominence of adjustable rate mortgages right and mortgage rates read at historically traditional loaves right as rates go up it's going to be tougher to borrow so people are going to be not buying more house than they could afford to be buying you know more appropriately sized homes so you might actually have less foreclosures going forward understandable but right now we still have people  homes where they haven't been foreclosed upon yet but in new jersey which is one of the few judicial states throughout the country of non judicial in traditional states for foreclosure we're one of the few judicial states which is one of the reasons not the only  one of the reasons that it takes on average between three to five years of nonpayment for the actual service sale how's that going to be changed and the ministration is really one of the ones one of the things because of course it's trickle down because it's not universal throughout the whole country but you jersey is unique in how long that process takes so the housing crisis caused you know cause the interest rates to go up and that say that slows purchasing a little   you know sort of a tightening up and shortening of new jersey's as you mentioned traditional foreclosure timeframes so you've seen improvements in new jersey now whether or not you're seeing that trickling down i can't speak to you could be very than that but certainly you've seen banks and public interest consumer groups work together to sort of shorten the amount of time it takes for foreclosures to happen in new jersey federal law is not going to change that that's going to be a state issue well i don't know  donald trump would do anything to help the homeowners because of course a faster foreclosure for new jersey homeowners in distress is actually worse for them i suspect would he would if you were here today i suspect what he would say is that what he's going to do to help people in financial stress is create more jobs well let's set are paying jobs that are not out so that my next question would definitely lead to how do you see that and changing the minimum wage federally and in new jersey well new jersey is going to the least  democratic legislature and democratic leadership in the state is going to advance the fifteen dollars minimum wage issue and twenty seventeen i don't know not jumping to fifteen dollars an hour and i know the proposal that next step in twenty seventeen or twenty eighteen so currently is to get to fifteen dollars over the course of the next several years so you have more significant increases again that's a new jersey initiative i don't think you're going to see that necessarily federally but certainly here in new jersey the democratic legislature and leadership will be advancing that in two thousand and seventeen expected perhaps to be on the ballot next november so my next question then leads to education yes we have one of the highest tax property taxes in the country without any ordering from anyone we also though have people forget this i think some of the best school systems than anywhere else the country boy we i do have pockets where people aren't happy with it but overall as a state so disparity we also have more school districts the most states most states don't organize the way we organize a petition well also there are so there's almost six hundred school districts their own governance each with their own and that's part of the governance each one with their own budget each one with certain types of kids that cost more money whether they have special education needs or are considered blow the poverty level so there's a lot of factors that go into the disparity between rich and poor urban and rural except are at because we have a state that's very different diverse what'll be interesting trump's appointment as the head of the sec the secretary of education nationally is a school choice advocate she is someone who promotes competition is part of the public education system in a state like new jersey that is very much entrenched into a traditional delivery of public education you're going to see tension because what is going to come down the way a policy in grants in money to support the states are things that going to support things like charter schools that tell us about how to hold on for the second i think a lot of people like an explanation as to what a charter school is i think a lot of people still don't understand that the charter school is a public school it is a public school that is with public school kids in it it is an alternative to what would be in traditional public school they were put into the law was put into effect to provide other options for that kid who might be a square peg that doesn't fit into a round hole or cookie cutter model that would come with traditional public school education not every public school suits a kid now someone like me who comes from a background where i believe a child should drive all education as opposed to an institution telling every child to fit into this cookie cutter model to me kids that extra option for the parent who can't afford the private prep school or the catholic school or the shiva it gives them an extra place to say to their kid who might be more directed to do something like dance or music or are you know what acrobatic something that is a typical in that every public school can offer it might give them another option of place so my question is why wouldn't the technology school that did have an accounting of the vote text which they now have listing of all the school systems in new jersey there and the top five percent or better of the top ten percent top ten or fifteen schools out of that many school systems and that's great i think the more options kids have to direct them toward a career as opposed to just give them a general education because that's the end goal as a parent the end goal is my thing gets a job if i'm going to invest in four years of college and in his case private school i want him to have a job at the end of that experience my child didn't have a job but does every child in the truth is that's one of the big problems right now how many kids graduate with a ton of debt a ton of you know just just obligations and then they give them the ability to make a living tavern in rich life to have the american dream i think we should start that earlier i think we should start that's would give them as many options as possible to get there instead and we have to get away from this states to consider vouchers which it doesn't mean vouchers potentially it's giving giving the parent the ability to take what would be their share of dollars that is tied to their kid and shopped around and find a school that the child fits best in the school that once the child so that could be parochial that could be private that could be home school and that is the thing that these vouchers would could help pay for a private education absolutely it's a flipside to that is that new jersey as you mentioned at the outset is a highly taxed state we're highly taxed because of our property taxes which pay for our public education system so when you start taking money out of the public at  public education system to to spend it through vouchers or through charter schools or other places you're taking money out of the public investment in their public schools and that's where the concern is for the people on the part of  what you know certainly pub you know public education advocates but also taxpayers right of course right so a lot of this is tied to if they do these reforms how does the effect come into play well there are no jobs they don't have to well first of all the state doesn't have to take any of the grants any of the incentives that the federal government offers to do these innovative alternative types of ways of providing traditional education new jersey's very much a  traditional education very rooted in certainly the teachers union is the most powerful in the country they don't they're they tend to be resistant to meijer major change and feel what's there should be improved rather than changed and so you know wolf we have a new governor come in this governor's a school choice governor so he would be receptive to what trumps doing if a democrat comes in and in twenty seventeen they can make the choice that not to buy into what the government  democrat so i'm a i'm a registered democrat i'm a local democratic official in my hometown and i play that role as we do personally and professionally that's you i am and i am from southern new jersey and i came up through republican  circles although i would say probably at this age after after so many years i vote for candidates i don't vote for parties but i tend to be i tend to lean fiscally conservative and socially more moderate like most of the republicans in new jersey but i love that we have both of you working so well together to get things accomplished and but bringing knowledge and is really key and i just don't mind i'd like to just segue back to one topping of cards to housing since we are talking about major hasan crisis still new jersey we have the new jersey home keeper's program if i would the memory serves me correctly are you aware of any of those details if they're going to be replenishing who needs to apply for for that type of assistance would do so through the department of banking and insurance may be a good way either through their website or if you're really having a hard time finding that information maybe calling your local legislator your local representatives either  senator or or state assembly member who can put you in touch with the right folks at the department i do believe it's easy to research but do you believe you know this is neither of yours x area of expertise but do you think something like that would be refunded because i think it's funded per but overall i think that you know that foreclosures are working their way through the system so from a funding perspective i think that it should be addressed i don't know what the plans are we why have we have one more budget cycle with this governor so i would expect you know pretty much what we've seen out of him in the past couple years i would expect one more year of that and then you'll get a you know perhaps a democratic governor in two thousand and seventeen with different priorities so it's hard to kind of see beyond this most immediate budget year and you have to cheat a lot of county differently because there is now a takeover of the latics city by the state which will change the whole dynamic of how things are done what incentive this will be done for the people there and you have to keep in mind it's  not just the city itself so one will impact the other so i think that generally what will happen is there will be a whole scale approach to that area somewhat apart from how they would approach it generally which may shift funding right quite right there's an acute distress in one particular region of the state that those funds would be directed there to address that problem so that we are running out of time so let me ask you this if you can each provide us selection americans kind of have to come together and give this president this is me the democrat on but i i think that for the for the better of our nation you know if you know whether we are pleased with the election results or not it's incumbent on us to continue to be involved productively  in the political process and to move forward from this point forward certainly speaking out against policies that we don't think are the right direction but by the same token working towards that next election and trying to bring back you know the type of policies that we in the only way you get something done is by working together and i encourage everyone to who was in active or had a lot to say but didn't vote please in the future vote exercise that  right this is going to be interesting i would say to everyone that so much of what president elect trump will do will probably be reflected in his choices for various cabinets so pay attention to that and we'll see what which direction it goes i'm sure it'll be very interesting right especially in the next few months thank you very much for having me on the show