I’ll open this post by saying that I am skeptical — and this is generous — of the plan announced today by the governor to “monetize” the state’s toll roads.
Speaking at the state League of Municipalities convention in Atlantic City today, he offered the plan as a way to cut the state’s debt load in half.
In a speech before the 92nd annual New Jersey League of Municipalities convention, Corzine said he would reduce the state’s bonded debt by at least 50 percent, largely through toll increases. He would not say how much tolls would be going up, nor offer a range.
Corzine promised to unveil details of the plan in January, including any proposed toll hikes. He stressed he would not sell the New Jersey Turnpike or the Garden State Parkway, but try to form a nonprofit agency to manage the toll roads and raise money through bonding to pay down the debt.
“Every dollar that goes to debt service or unfunded liabilities is a dollar that can’t go to municipal aid or school funding,” Corzine said to several hundred local, county and state officials who attended the luncheon. “It’s all connected.”
There is something to be said for doing something drastic to reduce the state’s $32 billion debt, which as Juan Melli at Blue Jersey points out “could save about $1.5 billion in yearly interest payments which would help close our over $3 billion structural deficit.”
There is truth in this. The question is whether the method being floated is anything more than another in a long line of gimmicks.
I remain skeptical.
South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
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Hank Kalet 