TRENTON — New Jersey has sharply increased the number of tax breaks and grants awarded to businesses under Gov. Chris Christie but has little to show for it, according to a report released today.

The report issued by New Jersey Policy Perspective, a liberal research organization, found that the state has awarded $2.1 billion in tax breaks since the start of 2010, compared with $1.5 billion for the preceding 10 years.

The incentives — primarily tax breaks and grants that are reimbursements for what workers would have paid the state in income taxes — "have not borne fruit," the report said.

"When it comes to subsidies, New Jersey is a gambler and the businesses receiving grants are the house," according to the report. "The bet the state is making is that the net benefit to the state’s economy resulting from the subsidies will be more than enough to offset losses in state revenue. It remains to be seen whether that’s a winning bet for the gambler, or if the bet falls under the rubric of a long-standing Atlantic City truism: the house always wins."

The period of the drastic increase in subsidies corresponds Christie’s term as governor, although the Democrat-led Legislature has also worked to loosen regulations in an effort to attract businesses.

As recently as last week, Christie said the aerospace company Lockheed Martin would keep thousands of jobs at its Moorestown facility in part because of a $40 million Grow New Jersey grant from the state Economic Development Authority.

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Michael Drewniak, a spokesman for the governor, dismissed New Jersey Policy Perspective as "simply not credible" and said figures provided by the development authority indicated the incentives have created more than 100,000 jobs since enacted in 1996.

"This outfit is notoriously biased and consistently goes out of its way to fit an agenda," Drewniak said. " The business incentive and job retention programs they denigrate have long had bipartisan support and sponsorship. Also, let’s take objective note of the record job growth during this administration."

The report said companies only need to bluff about leaving for the state to "blink first and award a grant for jobs likely to be kept in New Jersey anyway."

When companies do stay, they often end up moving a short distance from their former offices.

For instance, in 2011 Goya won an $82 million tax break to move its headquarters from Secaucus to nearby Jersey City.

Goya won the incentive through the Urban Transit Hub tax credit, which was originally intended to spur growth in the state’s cities. But the company’s new headquarters is being built in a remote part of Jersey City, isolated from public transportation.

The biggest single recent tax break — $261 million for Revel Casino in Atlantic City that opened almost a year ago — did create jobs, although the troubled $2.4 billion resort filed for bankruptcy last week.

The Legislature is currently considering a bill (A3680) that would overhaul how the state awards business subsidies that would combine the state’s five main programs into two.

New Jersey Policy Perspective said it was in favor of legislation tightening requirements for grants, like valuing newly created jobs more than jobs kept in the state. At the same time, the organization said it would also lower the threshold for how many jobs businesses would need to create to be eligible for incentives.

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Gordon MacInness, executive director of New Jersey Policy Perspective, said he was not calling for the state to scrap incentives altogether as long as other states were offering their own.

"We are not advocating that New Jersey get out of the business. I don’t think you could do that short of all the states coming together and agreeing to stop raiding each other," he said. "But you can’t just rely on that and say you’re doing the job of addressing the unemployment problem."

New Jersey Policy Perspective plans to hold a press conference about the report in Trenton this morning.

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