Sen. Menendez attends Woodbridge business seminar

by Sergio Bichao on Jun 13th | Email

U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez speaks at a Woodbridge business seminar Monday. Photo: Jason Towlen

WOODBRIDGE, NJ — U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez, D-NJ, hasn’t given up trying to close tax loopholes used by oil companies to keep more than $20 billion in profits each year.

While the legislation to end the oil-company subsidies failed to pass the Senate by eight votes last month, Menendez and other Democrats continue to push for the reform that some critics have said would do nothing to lower gas prices.

The revenue, however, would be sorely needed in Washington, where annual budget deficits sparked a new debate about whether to raise the nation’s $14.3 trillion debt ceiling by August to avoid a potential default and economic crisis.

Menendez spoke Monday morning at a business development seminar hosted by the township of Woodbridge and attended by business representatives, former Gov. James Florio and elected officials from elsewhere in the state.

The annual event serves as a pep rally for the township’s development opportunities and comes at a time when the shrinking private sector has pushed the unemployment rate to more than 9 percent last month — among the highest levels in 25 years, according to federal jobs figures.

U.S. Sen. Robert Menendez and Mayor John E. McCormac at a Woodbridge business seminar Monday. Photo: Jason Towlen

Menendez said temporary tax incentives for research and development and for capital investments by small businesses “should become a catalyst for a long-overdue fundamental reform of our tax code that is deficit neutral, but also lowers rates across the board and simplifies the process.”

“At the end of the day, if we are going to have shared burdens, then shared burdens means everybody,” Menendez said afterward. “If we are going to talk about asking the middle-class families to do more, we should ask ‘Big Oil’ to do more.”

The state’s junior U.S. senator described meeting with Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and the then-Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson in 2008, when they briefed key members of Congress about the need to eventually bail out banks.

“He (Bernanke) looked at me and said the most chilling thing I have ever heard in 38 years in public service,” Menendez said. “He said, ‘Senator, with all due respect, if you and your colleagues don’t act in the next two to three weeks, we will have a global financial meltdown.’”

“I tell that story because we talk about coming out of a very deep recession, and, in fact, where the nation was at that time was on the verge of a new depression,” Menendez said.

Menendez praised Democratic Mayor John E. McCormac for overseeing the growth and openings of about 80 businesses in the township in the past four years, and added that he has high hopes for the rest of the country.

“I am convinced that this country that went to war twice to beat fascism and Nazism and succeeded, a country that put a man on the moon and created a technological revolution … is a country that is going to meet this economic challenge and create greater prosperity ahead.”