By Matt Rooney | The Save Jersey Blog
There’s no shortage of ideas floating around Trenton concerning how to “fix” the much-discussed Transportation Trust Fund (TTF), Save Jerseyans.
I’d feel a lot better about it if ONE IDEA, just one (!), directly tackled the problems responsible for breaking the TTF in the first place.
Consider your options….
The most popular proposal in Trenton is backed by the building trades, big time campaign donors to both sides, so the gas tax hike (designed to fuel new road work) is understandably popular with politicians who rely on road work-related labor union’s dollars and muscles comes November. NJSpotlight provides a solid summary of the plan which is pitched by Senators Steven Oroho (R-Sussex) and Paul Sarlo (D-Bergen), and backed by the Democrat establishment, right here. How to summarize it? Everyone will feel the immediate impact of a massive 23-cent gas tax hike – New Jersey’s first increase since the 1980’s – but the only offsetting tax relief disproportionately aids the state’s better-off residents… after they’re dead.
The only ‘fairness’ embedded in this tax “restructuring” plan is the extent to which it’s going to hurt everyone at each end of the Turnpike and everywhere in between. It’s egalitarian economic pain save for the super rich.
Jennifer Beck (R-Monmouth) and Michael Doherty (R-Warren)’s plan is the most-discussed alternative to the Democrat preferred plan. It’s also the best of the available options because, setting aside its many flaws, their proposal at least avoids direct tax increases on New Jerseyans.
What’s more, Doherty in particular has been consistently vocal about the root causes of the TTF’s woes. These two know there’s a real problem. Beck, for her part, lost two running last fall. She knows people are tired of the status quo.
The pair’ plan is nevertheless modest. It would start by freeing-up $1.6 billion through a new round of health benefit cuts and a repurposing of clean energy funds. That’s helpful. But we’d also be doing the one thing that’s as almost as bad as raising taxes: borrowing more money. A ton of cash. In fact, we’d need to borrow $5.4 billion over seven years to contribute 40% of the $11.2 billion this plan would assign to New Jersey transportation projects through fiscal year 2023. The Beck-Doherty plan also relies on a rosy 3% annual state revenue increase. That’s very optimistic given that the past decade’s average growth rate is under 1%. The incumbent Governor’s aggressive revenue estimates have proven notoriously problematic.
Again… better, but not great.
A third plan – put forth by State Senator Samuel Thompson (R-Middlesex) – involves an annual two cent-per-gallon increase in the gas tax. A slow bleed. And then there’s his kooky Senate colleague Ray Lesniak‘s plan which, if we’re being honest, is hard to assess since the Union County-based Democrat boss’s numbers keep changing.
No one is talking about spending cuts. No one! It’s mind blowing.
Think on it. Spending cuts are obviously the first place any business (or family) would look to repair a bleeding budget in the event of a fiscal emergency. ‘Raising taxes” or, in the federal government’s case printing money, isn’t an option for most of us.
Borrowing? Not with Trenton’s credit! You and I would never get a loan. We’d be laughed out of the local bank’s branch office.
Trimming the cable package or cutting down on dining out? Who hasn’t had to do that at one point in their lives? Trenton’s ruling class thinks they’re special. They believe that they should always be 100% immune to the consequences of their own decisions.
Even if that irritatingly arrogant attitude weren’t morally repugnant, Save Jerseyans, most of the plans on the table don’t even add up and purposely, it seems, ignore far-reaching mathematical consequences. Reflecting on the gas tax hike/estate tax phase-out push, Governor Chris Christie’s own former treasurer recently noted how “the tax cuts under discussion would reduce either general fund or Property Tax Relief Fund revenue while the tax increases would generate dedicated revenue; this mismatch could drive a very serious budget shortfall.“
Yet no one seems to give a damn. At all.
You’re going to hear plenty of condescending talk in the days to come. They’ll say critics of these plans are simply refusing to “join the discussion,” the implication being that anyone who thinks endless borrowing-and-taxing until the End of Days isn’t a sound, valid approach to finances is somehow crazy.
Don’t doubt your own sanity, folks. It’s these Trenton-types, living in their bubble, who have lost touch with reality assuming, of course, they were ever in touch with reality to begin with. The Democrats sold out long ago. Many of the Republicans have either given up on winning entirely after years in seemingly-endless minority purgatory or, defeated by the realities of a gerrymandered map and crushing Democrat/Union Super PAC spending, are happy to grab onto whatever they can. No one is thinking big, or establishing a vision, with an eye on elections to give voters a clear choice. They’re constantly negotiating against themselves. It’s a big part of the reason why nothing ever changes.
I’m not willing to lower my standards, Save Jersey faithful. Neither should you. We cannot afford to.
So any politician who won’t admit to Trenton’s spending problem – when our state is spending $2 million per mile, the most in the nation – isn’t a serious person who care about serious solutions. Tell’em I told you! This gas tax debate is a litmus test of sorts in that respect. There’s little hope of fixing Trenton (or the roads in any of our other 564 municipalities) until serious people are once again in charge under the dome.
#NoGasTaxHike!
_____
