Exclusive Interview with Josh Gottheimer, Running for NJ Governor, at Fried's Restaurant in Lakewood

grab make me work hey how are you nice to meet you good to see you what's your name e feder hey Josh see here how's everything give him some CH and some kigle [Music] so guys I'm sitting here in fre with Asin s Herman from Jackson and Josh gotimer running for governor New Jersey wow what an honor thank you so much for coming by now Josh let me ask you a question yes sir probably I'm not so familiar in politics I'm just you know running around town trying to help businesses trying to help people as much as they can I'm sure that's your goal your focus in the future hopefully when you win let me ask you a question what can you tell us what's the benefit of having you in office well first it's great to be back in Lakewood I come here a lot so I love coming uh and it's a it's a Rowdy Thursday night everyone's out having a good time um and for me you know before we get the Passover uh it's good to see everyone out and I want to focus on a couple things when when I'm Governor everyone in Lake would you know that I'm going to focus first and foremost on getting taxes down getting property taxes down we're we're going to get income taxes down we got to make life more affordable uh utility bills are too expensive we got to make sure we do more about the roads and for Education which to me is the most important thing about how we take care of our kids uh in a lot of states and including in New Jersey 2-year-olds three-year-olds uh four-year-olds get a get free educ ation that the state is doing if you're in public school but not in uh in religious schools and I want to make sure that everybody gets access to a free education at that age and so we're going to do that and bring that here at Lakewood where there's not enough support overall we got to do more we got to do a lot for Lakewood and by the way when I'm Governor you should know we're going to open an office a governor's office in Lakewood really yes wow you don't have to call for the grand opening for grand opening video going come for the grand opening video you're you're going to be filming it amazing where which location picking locations ready I'm I'm sure there's probably some realtors in Lakewood that are going to help us find absolutely I'm doing that as well oh good fine now let me ask you a little bit of tricky question okay this I did not you did not prepare for this question if it's so simple just you know to lower the taxes on properties and lower the taxes and other stuff why isn't the governor doing it right now well let's just say that my focus I put out I'm the only one running uh who's put out a tax cut plan for the state and a lower tax plan to focus not just on child care costs as we talked about but also making sure we take utility bills down on the tax cuts this is how we're going to lower your property taxes by 15% give seniors a rebate uh if you once you turn 70 every year after and help cut middle class taxes and give renters a rebate as well first we're going to have to grow the state we need to get more jobs in we got to really help our small businesses and that's the real key here in New Jersey you got to get more jobs and we we keep losing people I know not in Lake but other parts of the state we're losing a lot of people we're losing a lot of jobs New York really hoses us and what happens is if you work in New Jersey but for New York Company New York keeps all the income tax right it's several billion dollars a year in my plan we're going to get a billion for minimum back to the state for people getting income taxes in New Jersey secondly we got to run the government more efficiently in the State uh it's not running the way it should and other states have become much more efficient and they've done efficiency reviews I'm going to order an efficiency review on day one we could save 5 to 8% on running the state just better and smarter uh we got some tax cheats we're going to go after and um we got to get more money back from Washington historically New Jersey has not been the best at getting money back federal tax dollars back to Jersey so we're going to do a lot better job Rhode Island gets 48% back more than we do that's ridiculous amazing amazing one more question I want to ask you yes you know the traffic in Lakewood is you know I just I just had some of it I don't know if the issue who's responsible if it's at the township sometimes they blame it that the state has to come in and you know certain roads belong to the state that's say Route 70 where I live or let's say uh some roads that connect from Tom's River to Lake where they say it's a state's responsibility sometimes it takes it can take forever we get responsibility roads that need to be widen and fix is that something that the governor can help us yes depending upon the road some roads are of course local some our County I'm going to focus from the beginning on a plan to actually deal with traffic in Lakewood cuz I've dealt with it myself and I come here we got we got to do better and people like just go a few miles it could take a very long time you got to get your kids to school we know what that's like got to get to work so we're going to have to we're going to fix it and no more delays no more excuses amazing amazing all right any other questions T any other questions we got to go eat oh yes you got to go eat all right thank you so much thank you um Josh was a pleasure meeting you have a great and next time I hope to meet you in the office at your grand opening your office in Lakewood I'm Ready the governor's office in Lakewood it's coming all right thank you thank you