Hank Kalet

Lack of votes taking their tollon proposed toll hikes

Sometimes, when you write a column on a weekly deadline, the world moves and you’re left talking about things that have changed.

That appears to be what’s happened with the governor’s toll-hike plan, which he now is acknowledging is nearly death.

“I’m not conceding that it’s dead. On the other hand, I’m a realist. I don’t have 21 and 41 votes for this,” Corzine said, referring to the minimum votes he needs to push his proposal through the state Senate and Assembly.

The governor now says he is willing to listen to alternatives — he’s been saying that all along, but now actually seems serious about doing so.

Corzine said yesterday he will review a proposal by Assembly Transportation Committee Chairman John Wisniewski, the first detailed alternative to his plan.

“We’ll have to see what it actually accomplishes,” Corzine said. “But it’s a healthy addition to the dialogue. I’m searching for a solution that actually addresses the failed financial position of the state.”

The plan announced Wednesday by Wisniewski (D-Middlesex) would phase in an 18-cent increase in gas taxes over three years and consider privatizing the state Lottery. Under this scenario, tolls would rise by less than half of what the governor has proposed.

There are other options that, if considered, could be part of a more varied approach — income taxes, for instance. In any case, the toll plan as currently conceived seems on life support.

The other question that this raises is whether the governor will remove the toll plan from his budget calculations and how this might affect his planning.

Corzine had previously pledged to hold spending flat, a move that alone requires more than $2 billion in spending cuts.

“We can only spend the revenues we have, and details of the plan will come on Tuesday,” said Corzine spokeswoman Lilo Stainton.

Corzine said he still hopes to halve the state’s $32 billion debt. But his comments Thursday focused more often on investing in state infrastructure, the second of the two prime goals in his toll plan.

“We may not get everything I want with regards to these issues, but if we get a long way down that path, I think we will have made real change, a real contribution to both the present and the future of this state,” Corzine said.

It’s not a solution, but at least the issue of the state’s fractured finances is on the table. That’s more than we’ve gotten from anyone else in recent years.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

E-mail me by clicking here.

This is the winter morningof my discontent

I’m standing in my kitchen at the moment, typing on the laptop and sipping at some coffee, snow falling outside, the powder coming down faster and heavier than anything else we’ve seen this season.

Outside the window, the patio table has about 3 inches on it, the patio covered. Out front, the driveway is coated and the car and the newspaper in its yellow bag at the end of the driveway is barely visible.

I hate this stuff — still have to get the shovels out and clear the driveway so I can get out and head to a morning meeting and then to the office.

Mostly, this is just a hassle, the shoveling, clearing the car (see above, the Murano at about 8 a.m. today), the general stupidity of most drivers.

The dog, however, likes nothing more than to play in the snow. I can’t go out to shovel and leave her in the house — she cries and spins around and generally bugs Annie. Usually, Annie will help me shovel and Honey will run around the yard, finding a buried tennis ball and make us stop what we’re doing to throw it for her.

It keeps it light and keeps me from complaining about shoveling too much. I complain, but then the dog makes me laugh.

I’d move someplace warm, but I like New Jersey and the dog would never forgive us.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

E-mail me by clicking here.

McCain, the Times and the issue of ethics

The response to the John McCain story in today’s New York Times on the right has been one of shock, of high moral outrage that unnamed sources would be used to sully the reputation of a war hero, to insinuate that he’d had an affair.

Forget for a minute the whispering campaigns regularly waged by what Hillary Clinton has rightly called the “vast right-wing conspiracy,” innuendo that not only has targeted the Clintons, John Kerry, Al Gore and most of the Democratic Party, but John McCain himself.

Forget the expected attack on the Times as a bastion of liberal bias.

What is important about the response is its focus on the sex scandal angle and the way in which it sidetracks the real debate. The Times, in focusing on what unnamed sources say was more than a friendly relationship with a female lobbyist, has taken the focus off the real issues in the story — a somewhat muddled presentation that rehashes a lot of what we already knew about McCain.

The basic question the Times story raises is legitimate and must be addressed: Has John McCain, who has staked his reputation on being a clean-government reformer, engaged in the kind of influence peddling he has regularly decried?

The story offers an interesting and believable narrative in this regard, but leaves this issue up in the air, with questions raised about the nonprofit he had formed and his connections to a variety of lobbyists with business before his Senate committee.

These are issues that need to be explored. McCain attempted to answer them during his press conference today — defending his honor and credibility, but also taking a cheap shot at the Times designed to play to the GOP base.

Should his responses be taken at face value? No more than the comments from unnamed sources in the Times story.

My opinion on unnamed sources remains the same: that they should only be used sparingly in special circumstances to get information of vital importance that can be gotten in no other way or to protect the safety or privacy of sources — a whistleblower, for instance, or someone getting help from the local food pantry. I’m not sure that the use of unnamed sources here rises to this standard, though I will say they were not used frivilously.

So, what should we take from this? There remain a lot of questions that need to be asked about a candidate who has made honor, integrity and straight talk his calling cards, but has shown a disturbing willingness to pander, pander and pander again.

Let’s hope the media continues to probe deeply into McCain’s background, to press him on his flip-flops and conflicts, real or apparent, and that the eventual Democratic nominee also is held to this standard.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

E-mail me by clicking here.

Quote of the day: on accountability

Juan Cole offers this (from yesterday’s post on his Informed Comment blog):

And I think there is good reason to ask whether McCain helped create al-Qaeda and the mess in Pakistan to begin with. It is time for someone to start holding the Cold Warriors who deployed a militant Muslim covert army against their leftist enemies accountable for the blow-back they created.

It has not been fashionable in the Post-9/11 era to raise this kind of question — to do so is to court criticism as an America-hater — but shouldn’t the people who created the conditions that led to the spread militant Islam be held to account?

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

E-mail me by clicking here.

Dispatches: Corzine’s losing bet

There are a lot of flaws with the governor’s toll-hike plan, as I point out in my Dispatches column and Charles Stiles points out in this column, but I have to wonder whether Gov. Jon Corzine is really ready to listen.

He has asked for alternatives, but how willing is he to consider them?

The Tri-State Transportation Committee offers a way to cut down on the transportation costs — basically, by rethinking the state’s approach to what it spends its cash on. Most interesting to me is this:

Include a fix-it-first mandate in the asset monetization legislation. To ensure that New Jersey continues to reduce its backlog of roads and bridges in poor condition, fix-it-first legislation should be included within the asset monetization plan. The legislation could require that 4% or less of transportation dollars raised by the plan go to expanding roadways, for example. Currently, less than 3% of NJDOT’s transportation program is spent on expansion, a trend that should extend to the other transportation agencies in the state.

The state has a woeful record of keeping its roads, bridges and rail lines up to day — as the governor has acknowledged — so it needs to make this a priority and enshrine this priority in state law.

The governor also should follow the prescription offered by New Jersey Policy Perspective and include a gas tax increase in the plan. As I’ve said, the state may need to raise tolls to cover rising costs, do some needed maintenance and even pay down some of the toll road debt, but a mix of other options — gas tax, income tax, budget cuts, consolidation, etc. — has to be on the table. Solely relying on tolls is foolish politically and generally unfair.

South Brunswick Post, The Cranbury Press
The Blog of South Brunswick

E-mail me by clicking here.