Tag: Corzine

Toll plan redux redux

Interesting piece by Linda Stamato, who teaches at the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University. She asks some basic questions about the governor’s toll-hike and debt plan that need to be answered before anyone should offer any support.

She writes:

I don’t buy the governor’s “either/or” framework for fiscal salvation. We don’t either need to increase the income tax by 20 percent or the sales tax by 30, or the gas tax by 12 cents or live with the governor’s plan. A combination of approaches makes more sense to me. And, certainly we ought to be putting more on the table for inclusion than has been placed there so far. We need a combination of taxes, a freeze on spending and reductions in costs, to accompany reasonable increases in tolls. An income tax increase should not be summarily dismissed by any means, certainly if equity is a consideration, and, it must be. An increase in the gas tax also makes sense if the intention is to replenish the Transportation Trust Fund, address ransportation-related needs, including public transit, and, not least, encourage fuel efficiencies and reduce carbon emissions. (To be sure, Governor Corzine’s own ambitious goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions ought to figure in this picture as well.)

My own issues with the plan are as follows:

  • It is not broad-based. The plan asks a narrow class of people to pay the costs of fixing a mess created by the state Legislature and previous governors and that provided a host of benefits to people across the state.
  • It hits workers pretty hard, increasing the cost of people who must use the toll roads to get back and forth to work and those who drive for a living.
  • It is likely to force cars off the toll roads and onto local roads — for those of us in Central Jersey, that means an increase in cars and trucks on Routes 1 and 130.
  • It cuts debt, but does nothing to address the myriad problems that created the problem in the first place. Yes, the governor wants to force the state to go to voters when it wants to borrow money; that would be a positive step. But it leaves in place the 1,400 or so taxing entities — municipalities, school districts, fire districts, county governments, etc. — that craft their own budgets and have their own staffs. That’s a lot of overlapping jobs that could be eliminated if some of these entities were to be merged.
  • And the likely use of the toll money for pork projects, as Charles Stile points out in today’s column.

My sense is that a broader-based approach is necessary and must include steps to reduce spending and alter the tax structure — in addition to consolidation, we need to reconsider nearly everything we ask the government to do, what should be a state responsibility, a local responsibility and how much of the cost of government in New Jersey we expect the state to cover.

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

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Toll plan, redux — traffic on Rt. 1 and Rt. 130

One more thing about the toll plan: Will it force drivers from the Turnpike onto local roads like Route 1 and Route 130? How can it not?

(E)conomists say the higher tolls could mean less money spent at a restaurant or hardware store, or drivers clogging local roads to avoid the tolls.

“There will be strategies emerging to avoid bearing those costs,” said James W. Hughes, the dean of the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers University.

Be prepared for an increase in traffic in South Brunswick and Cranbury.

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

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Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.

Plan could take its toll

The governor is preparing to hit the road to sell his plan to use the state’s toll roads to restructure New Jersey’s debt, and from all accounts it looks as though he will not be facing a willing buyer.

The public in a series of polls last year expressed opposition, though admittedly it was being asked to comment well before a plan was on the table. At the time, there was still some fear that the state would sell or lease its roadways to a private company, which would have a direct impact on the roads’ management and maintenance. The plan unveiled this week does not do that. But it still is not going to be an easy sell — nor should it be.

Consider this comment in The New York Times today from a regular driver on the N.J. Turnpike:

With a sense of resignation in his voice, Ed Daly, who had stopped for a snack at the Joyce Kilmer rest area, just north of Exit 8A, said, “Tolls fall heaviest on the working man.”

Mr. Daly, the paper points out, is “a sales manager for a communications company in Clifton, who said that he traveled the turnpike every day, spending $50 a month in tolls.”

Once the first increases take effect in 2010, that would jump to $75, and he would have to absorb the difference by himself.

“Talk about a regressive tax,” he complained.

The Times story offers several other complaints from drivers that, when combined with this story in The Star-Ledger on state E-ZPass data, make it clear that Gov. Jon Corzine is getting ready to head into the belly of the beast.

Dismissing the toll plan out of hand is difficult, however, because of the severe fiscal crunch facing the state, a financial catastrophe that should be common knowledge but that appears not to be fully understood by the state’s residents. Everyone wants — and deserves — real property tax reform (the property tax is regressive), but few seem willing to pay the cost in higher state income taxes, drastic changes in the organization of local government or the kind of severe spending cuts that would be required to make it happen.

Add this to the fact that we still pay among the lost tolls and gas taxes in the country and it is clear that toll hikes should not be taboo.

That said, the governor’s plan is rather extreme — the numbers he outlined were staggering, boosting the cost of a trip from the Delaware Memorial Bridge to the Lincoln Tunnel from $5.85 to $48 over the next 14 years — and regressive, especially coming from a staunch liberal Democrat.

The governor was right to demand that critics place a better alternative on the table, rather than just stating their opposition. Republicans, in particular, have been very good at offering complaints and vague suggestions — cut the budget, they say, but rarely offer suggestions as to what could be cut, knowing that once they do that they will have to deal with the wrath of those who will lose out.

That said, I think we are destined to accept at least a scaled-down version of the governor’s plan, combined with other changes. Personally, I’d propose an significant increase in the income tax, municipal consolidation, broader school-funding reform and universal health care coverage (expanding coverage to everyone in New Jersey, possibly using the model in place in Massachusetts, could lessen the costs to the state of covering not only current employees but retirees; the Massachusetts approach is not perfect, but might be our best bet until the federal government addresses health care on a national level).

At the very least, I am hoping that the drastic nature of the governor’s plan will shock taxpayers into understanding how dire the state’s fiscal condition is, making it more likely that something can be accomplished.

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

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Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.