NEWARK, NJ—The former president of the New York City Economic Development Corp. spoke ill of the Garden State's amped-up tax-incentives program at a conference here Thursday - drawing quick rebuttal, of course.
Seth Pinsky, who headed the organization during the administration of Mayor Michael Bloomberg, told the gathering at 2 Gateway Center, "I actually think it's not a good sign for a jurisdiction when the headline attraction for that jurisdiction is its tax incentives."
Speaking at the 2014 New Jersey Office Boom! conference, the now RXR Realty LLC executive said that states and cities need to invest in infrastructure and seek to attract a talented workforce in order to remain competitive, according to a report in The Record.
Ted Zangari, who chairs the real estate department at the Newark law firm Sills Cummis & Gross, countered Pinsky's argument and stressed that there is a need for incentives due to the intense competition that exists for jobs and economic growth.
"It is naive to think that we can just all join hands globally or regionally and just attract businesses to New York and New Jersey," Zangari said. "It's every landlord out for itself. It's every state out for itself. There is a border war. I wish we didn't have to give incentives. The reality is we don't have enough jobs to go around this country, and every state is suffering under the weight of debt and deficits and they're all competing." See story in The Record.
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