Governor Christie and the New Jersey Legislature are about to increase the gas tax by 23¢ per gallon taking effect for Thursday morning and overnight becoming the seventh highest gas tax in the country.
Unfortunately, hiking the gas tax treats only a symptom of the broken Transportation Trust Fund.
We commend legislative leadership for the serious proposal to set in motion a reduction and ultimate repeal of the estate tax, which would be significant to the state’s fiscal health and keeping residents here, and for working towards more broad-based tax relief. However, these issues deserve independent attention and separately focused legislation. Americans for Prosperity has long advocated for repeal of the estate tax, including organizing rallies at the State House and around the state.
Repealing one tax to hike another would not address the underlying structural problems of this broken system. The residents of New Jersey deserve a plan to pay back debt and reduce taxes for all – not just some. Additionally, the proposed deal includes raising the Earned Income Tax Credit – a program that boasts a 22% fraud rate.
There have been multiple opposing estimates of how much New Jersey truly spends on roads, upwards of $2.1 million per mile. If you have not yet, please read the Reason Foundation’s testimony before the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee here. Baruch Feigenbaum, the Assistant Director of Transportation Policy at Reason, has a Master’s Degree in Transportation Planning with a focus in Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology and serves on two (2) National Academy of Sciences Transportation Research Board committees. He has offered five (5) suggestions for consideration before resorting to a gas tax hike:
1. Enter into Design-Build and Public-Private Partnerships
2. Prioritize State of Good Repair
3. Right-Size Staffing
4. Employ a Merit-Based Project Selection Process
5. Reduce Diversions
At the Senate hearing earlier this year Feigenbaum said, “Increasing funding without making long-term reforms will result in continued ineffective spending, which will necessitate additional tax increases in the near future perpetuating the problem. The taxpayers of New Jersey deserve better.”
New Jerseyans are among the most over-taxed citizens throughout the entire United States. Working families, millennials, and retirees are over-burdened by New Jersey’s high taxes and are being forced to look elsewhere for prosperity and opportunity. We must ask our representatives in the New Jersey Legislature to do better than the current proposal.
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