New Jersey’s reputation for uber corruption is again lovingly preserved by the New Jersey legislators in Trenton. They announced that their irresponsible borrowing/spending from the Transportation Trust Fund (TTF) will not be corrected, but will indeed be further fueled by gouging you a staggering 23 cents per gallon. Some say the colossal gas tax announcement was purposefully trying to hide behind the tragic Hoboken news.
Unmentioned in the gas tax announcement is the fact that the TTF, before this new tax, already gets $1.6 billion from the state and the feds toss in yet another $1.6 billion … every year! Yo, legislature, you can’t live on $3 billion/12 months? Then get a different job!
Originally, the TTF was a pay-as-you-go concept with projects limited only to what the TTF could afford from its budget. But in the early 90s the elected incompetents and the TTF fund officials located in Ewing decided to start borrowing wildly and then to irresponsibly stream money out of the fund to make fiscal problems go away (New Jersey Department of Transportation, NJ Transit, McGreevey’s Project Labor Act, which imposes higher labor costs on New Jersey projects, etc.).
This deplorable behavior has resulted in New Jersey residents paying — are you ready? — $2 million for each mile of our roads, effortlessly the worst performance (and we pay these people) in the nation (Reason Foundation). They kicked the can down the road in the 90s, and legislators subsequently thrived on the borrowed revenue. Now the weasels are needing more money to keep the virtual Ponzi scheme going.
Democracy enables the folks who will now give us this gas tax travesty to gleefully move on with their careers and leave us holding the bag. Christie is already mentally pursuing Trump inside the beltway and he could care less about your New Jersey 23 cents a gallon. Legislative voters who vote to pass the gas tax will ultimately move on, some out of state, indifferent to the painful load put on us at the gas pump.
I recommend you go down swinging by burning up legislators’ phones and email by making it savagely clear you will remember their names in the voting booth if they vote for this tax. Small leverage, but these unemployables are consumed with keeping their sinecures.
Public servants?
Here’s how you reach them: http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/members/legsearch.asp.
Jeffrey B. Sickles
Eatontown