Tag: monetization

Heavy lifting ahead on toll plan

The governor is pitching his debt and toll plan to the wrong people, as Alfred Doblin points out in this on the mark column.

Unless the governor can change the structure of the protests, he will lose the debate — even if he is better prepared and offers what may be the best financial rescue for New Jersey. The public doesn’t want tolls raised and does not distrust government to make substantial cuts.

Remarkably, Republicans are making this their issue. As if state Republicans played no part in under-funding state liabilities or ignoring the looming fiscal crisis.

The public has every right to doubt that the governor can cut spending significantly. But it is foolish to believe that opponents of the governor’s plan will cut spending either. Cutting taxes is painful. Cutting services is more painful. Cutting contractually agreed upon benefits from state workers is more than painful, it is litigious and costly. There is no easy or inexpensive way out.

Corzine would have been smarter to unveil his plan in stages. He spent a year crafting his plan. During that year, he could have cut $2 billion from the state budget, demanded that the Legislature authorize no new spending without a guaranteed recurring revenue source and insisted that the public vote on whether the state takes on unsecured debt.

There wouldn’t be pig balloons flying around Trenton in February if Corzine floated those balloons last spring. New Jerseyans believe the state is drowning in debt. But they also believe the state is weighed down by wasteful spending.

If the governor wants to get rid of the flying pigs, he has to first cut the pork to the bone.

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

E-mail me by clicking here.

Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.

The governor, the MOM line and toll hikes

The governor has placed what appears to be the MOM line on his list of mass transit priorities.

But what this means is anybody’s guess. The Asbury Park Press reported on Saturday that the governor was backing an engineering study of the rail proposal — cost: $250 million, a figure that seems absurd.

The state is not confirming the report and South Brunswick Mayor Frank Gambatese said this week that Transportation Commissioner Kris Kolluri, who was quoted extensively in the APP story, called him to say the governor had not endorsed MOM.

“He told me ‘don’t think the governor supports this,’” Mayor Gambatese said.

Mr. Kolluri did not return our calls this week, though Department of Transportation spokesman Joe Dee offered this statement:

”The governor continues to be a strong advocate for public transportation,” said Joseph Dee, Department of Transportation spokesman. “Currently, the MOM project is in the environmental study phase. It would be premature to discuss any other expenditures.”

Again, not exactly a definitive answer. Maybe, the governor can offer something more definitive this weekend, when he will take his debt restructuring road show to Hightstown on Saturday and East Brunswick on Sunday.

Here’s the schedule and how to make reservations:

  • Saturday, Feb. 9, 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. at Hightstown High School, 25 Leshin Lane, Hightstown; To RSVP or call (609) 777-2513
  • Sunday, Feb. 10, 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. at East Brunswick High School, 380 Cranbury Road, East Brunswick; To RSVP or call (609) 984-9846

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

E-mail me by clicking here.

Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.

Toll roads to ruin

On Thursday, we reported that local mayors were concerned that the governor’s toll plan likely would push cars from the Turnpike to local roads — in particular, Routes 1 and 130.

Yesterday, the governor released the consultant’s report it used to craft the plan — a report that appears to back the mayor’s contention. According to The Star-Ledger, which offers a nice summary for those who do not want to slog through the entire report (parts I, II, III and IV),

The report forecasts that between 20 percent and 30 percent of traffic on the Turnpike, the Atlantic City Expressway and Route 440 and between 10 percent and 20 percent of the traffic on the Garden State Parkway would turn to other roads, mass transit or freight rail if the Legislature adopts Corzine’s plan to raise tolls four times by 50 percent plus inflation by 2022. Even with the decrease in traffic, the report forecasts huge increases in revenue if Corzine’s toll plan is adopted.

Transportation Commissioner Kris Kolluri said yesterday the Corzine administration maintains far fewer cars and trucks will leave the toll roads than the report predicts.

For instance, after Turnpike tolls went up by 70 percent for passenger vehicles and 100 percent for trucks in 1991, the volume of passenger vehicles on the Turnpike fell by 5.5 percent and the volume of commercial vehicles fell by 10 percent, according to a memo from Turnpike Authority Executive Director Michael Lapolla. Traffic volumes returned to pre-toll-hike levels within five years.

Not what people in this area need to hear.

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

E-mail me by clicking here.

Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.

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

E-mail me by clicking here.

Email me at grassroots at comcast dot net.