The Ridgewood Blog Brings a Free Market Laissez-faire Point of View to Local, New Jersey State and National Issues.
Fill ‘er up – for now. The Senate isn’t expected to take any action on either of the proposed bills that would raise the state’s gasoline tax by 23 cents overnight. If legislators passed and Christie signed a gasoline tax bill on Thursday, gasoline that costs $2.06 per gallon would have cost $2.29 per gallon on Friday morning. Mike Davis, Asbury Park Press Read more
June 25,2016
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, Here’s what we all need to know: The TTF has been a cesspool of waste and inefficiency. Sarlo and Sweeney use the TTF to buy union votes from their pals like Sanzari. It costs NJ state taxpayers $2.0 million per mile of state road, 12X the nation average and 3X the next highest state. Every other state in the country does it for considerably less, with MA next highest under $700,000 per mile. The funding for state roads is there from current gas taxes, bridge & tunnel tolls and commuter pass taxes. All Trenton needs to do is renew the funding on July 1st, but this should only come after an independent audit of the current TTF. Until then, not a penny more in gas taxes should be raised.
file photo by Boyd Loving
The state Legislature on Thursday will begin to consider bills that would raise taxes on gasoline by 23 cents a gallon while reducing or eliminating taxes on estates and some income, a deal that has support and opposition cross party lines. Samantha Marcus, NJ.com Read more
Lawmakers in Trenton have begun hashing out the details of a plan to raise $2 billion a year for construction projects on New Jersey’s crumbling highways, bridges and rail lines by increasing the gas tax for the first time in 28 years. Christopher Maag, The Record Read more
file photo by Boyd Loving
Not so fast. That’s the message some New Jersey lawmakers, residents and both conservation and liberal interest groups have for legislators who plan to move forward with a 23-cent wholesale fuel tax hike to pay for road and bridge work. Associated Press Read more
February 6,2016
the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Ridgewood NJ, Not a single question about the reason why the Transportation Trust Fund needs more funding, not one. When it costs the state over $2 million per mile of state road, 3 TIMES more than the next highest state, then something is wrong. And the NJ gas tax is only part of the story. Add in toll road, bridge & tunnel charges, and commuter pass costs and NJ residents already pay some of the highest transportation-related taxes in the country. There’s no support for this until state road work is opened up to non-union labor, and a full review of administrative & excess costs is complete.
Before Trenton thinks about raising the Gas Tax we also need :
1) We need a full audit and full accounting of the Transportation Trust Fund
2) We need a full Audit and full accounting of all the “Stimulus ” spending in New Jersey
3) A guarantee that any money raise will ONLY GO TO ROAD TRANSPORTATION PROJECTS !
4) A Full Audit of all the current sources of Financing the Transportation Trust Fund TTF
As if common knowledge that keeping more money in American’s pockets will pump more money into the economy isn’t enough, here are 5 more reasons not to raise the gas tax:
1. An increase in gas taxes will hurt middle-income Americans the most.Middle-income families make up roughly one-third of Americans. By increasing the gas tax, not only are you lessening the amount of money in their pockets, but the amount of money being pumped into the economy is being lessened too. It’s estimated that a 1 percent increase in gas prices takes $1 billion out of consumers’ pockets. That’s $1 billion dollars that could be spent on eating out, clothes, and leisure activities.
2. Raising the gas tax will likely encourage more non-highway related spending. Revenue from the tax would go to the HTF. One would think money from the HTF would be funding highways but instead, HTF funds have supported squirrel sanctuaries, landscaping, trail hikers and trolley riders. In fact spending on side projects has increased 38% since 2008 while spending on core highway projects has remained flat.
3. Raising the gas tax will not solve the real problem. The problem is that there is a funding deficit because the HTF is spending more money than they are bringing in. Currently the gas tax brings in around $34 billion annually, yet the federal government is spending roughly $50 billion each year. There is no solution in the “raise gas taxes” method. Tax proponents claim raising the tax would close the deficit and cover future, necessary funding from the HTF. However there is no guarantee for either of these things. More likely than not, this solution would only support and encourage more wasteful spending.
4. A gas tax hike will increase the price of consumer goods. The transportation of goods is primarily done via highways. Cars drive on highways and gas fuels cars. It’s a no-brainer that raising the gas tax will cost drivers more to fuel their way to deliver goods. Higher gas taxes, leading to higher gas prices will mean a higher cost on goods. This means increased financial pressure on middle to lower-income families if tax advocates get their way with this regressive increase in the gas tax.
5. Tax hikes have a negative impact on economic growth. As discussed, higher gas taxes mean higher gas prices which reduce the discretionary income of millions of Americans. Reductions in discretionary income often correspond with diminished economic growth. In fact, analysts at Goldman Sachs predict “lower gas prices could add as much as half a percentage point to GDP growth this year.” (https://www.atr.org/top-five-reasons-not-raise-gas-tax )
NJ Senator Mike Doherty (R-23) questioned New Jersey’s outsized spending on transportation infrastructure, saying that he has not found a satisfactory explanation as to why the state pays more than ten times what similarly populous states like Massachusetts pay to fix their roads, bridges and highways
Sweeney Trots out ‘New Jersey – Investing in You’ with Key Senators
They came bearing gifts in the Christmas season, – $174 million’s worth, to be precise – state Senate President Steve Sweeney (D-3) and his colleagues in the Senate Democratic Caucus, the statehouse cough-up of seven weeks-worth of round table visits around New Jersey in the respective districts of the senators who now stood sedately at attention with Sweeney. Max Pizarro, PolitickerNJ Read more
NJ Poll: Voters Tell Legislators To Keep Their Hands Off The Gas Tax
November 14, 2015 11:45 AM By David Madden
HAMDEN, CT (CBS) – With the general election now in the rear view mirror, New Jersey politicians are expected to take up a number of unpopular issues.
Tops on that list is a bid to increase the state’s gasoline tax. A new poll of Garden State voters suggests drivers want that levy left alone.
The Quinnipiac poll back in April found half of those surveyed might support an increase to help pay for road repair and such. That was the first time in eleven years the number got that high, according to pollster Mickey Carroll.
This latest poll, taken after the November Third general election, showed that support was short lived.
“People don’t like it 62 to 35,” Carroll told KYW Newsradio. “But legislators who have to decide what to do with a nearly bankrupt Transportation Trust Fund are said to be going for it.”
Time to Audit the Transpotatioon Trust Fund (TTF)?
APRIL 28, 2015, 6:38 PM LAST UPDATED: WEDNESDAY, APRIL 29, 2015, 7:46 AM
BY CHRISTOPHER MAAG
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
An additional 200 state-owned bridges in New Jersey will become structurally deficient in the next five years — bringing the number of failing structures to nearly 500 and wiping away recent gains by the Transportation Department to reduce its long backlog of bridge repair projects, state officials said this week.
The bridges will be added to the list of 290 state-owned spans that already are defined as deficient, a designation that indicates one of the bridge’s three main elements — the deck, or the structural supports above and below the deck — is failing and needs repair, Transportation Department officials said. It does not necessarily indicate the span is unsafe.
“With the aging infrastructure that we have, this is a problem that’s not going to go away,” said Steve Schapiro, a spokesman for the state Transportation Department.
The decline is inevitable, Schapiro said. The bridges will slide into deficiency whether or not New Jersey voters and elected leaders find new revenue next year for the state’s transportation fund, which is nearly broke. Negotiations between lawmakers and Governor Christie to fix the fund, possibly by raising the gas tax, have ended for the year, Transportation Commissioner Jamie Fox told The Record in March.
State Sen. Paul Sarlo, D-Wood-Ridge, on Tuesday echoed that, telling New Jersey Chamber of Commerce members that a gas tax increase was unlikely because of political concerns.
