Democrat Senate President Steve Sweeney Pushes for Gas tax Increase for unions ,criticizes Christie
DECEMBER 20, 2014, 11:55 AM LAST UPDATED: SATURDAY, DECEMBER 20, 2014, 4:37 PM
ASSOCIATED PRESS
TRENTON, N.J. (AP) — Senate President Steve Sweeney has gone on offense, criticizing Gov. Chris Christie and calling on him to detail his plan for saving the imperiled transportation trust fund. But Sweeney has not said how he would pay for his own ideas.
As the Legislature wraps up the calendar year without a deal to address the fund, Sweeney along with Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto and Republican Gov. Chris Christie are still working behind the scenes to come to an agreement.
Thus far, Sweeney, the influential southern New Jersey Democrat, has been upfront in expressing what he wants the deal to look like: the fund should be beefed up to $2 billion from $1.26 billion, and money to municipalities should nearly double to $400 million.
In an interview with the Associated Press, Sweeney said his “bottom line” is the inclusion of rail projects in Hudson and Bergen counties, in Camden and Gloucester counties as well as freight rail infrastructure projects in the central part of the state.
“We are not gonna pit regions against each other,” he said. “The needs are great, they’re real and we have to advance them together. Too often it’s like us against them and that’s not how it should be,” Sweeney said.
While he says a tax increase is probable, he has not written or endorsed legislation detailing exactly what that tax would look like.
In part, that’s because talks with Christie and Prieto are still underway and no agreement would be possible without their support, Sweeney said. To publicly embrace a plan to pay for the fund — like an increase in the state’s 10.5 cent gas tax — could scuttle those talks, Christie said in an interview on 101.5 FM last week.
https://www.northjersey.com/news/sweeney-criticizes-christie-calls-for-plan-to-save-imperiled-transportation-trust-fund-1.1173185
It seems as no one has any ideas how to pay for anything both parties just prefer to kick the can down the road and leave it to someone else, all are cowards to address the problem.
No gas tax increases! It only provides a slush fund for governors (R or D) to raid to balance their budgets.