Reader says Time for Beneficiaries of Squandered NJ Transportation Funds to Return Them
When a Ponzi scheme goes broke prosecutors appoint a trustee and use a “clawback” cause to force those who received beneficial $$$ to return it, and it’s distributed to investors/victims.
The same needs to be applied to the municipalities/homeowners who received the “benefit” of the sounds walls from money that was dedicated to road repairs, NOT to improve privat property of those who chose a poor location to live.
Until those funds that were pissed away on sound barriers are returned from the beneficiary homeowners and municipalities, no increase in taxes.
Union Group pushes for new ways to fund N.J. transportation projects
February 9, 2015, 3:01 PM Last updated: Monday, February 9, 2015, 3:03 PM
By JOHN REITMEYER
STATE HO– USE BUREAU |
The Record
A group that’s been pushing state lawmakers and Governor Christie to come up with a new way to fund transportation projects in New Jersey brought that effort to Trenton on Monday, holding a news conference to put more pressure on leaders to act.
“Now is the time for the final push,” said Tom Bracken, chairman of Forward New Jersey, a group made up of 75 different organizations, including labor unions, local government representatives and business groups.
New Jersey pays for its road, bridge and rail work primarily using funds raised from borrowing and from the state’s gas tax. But later this year the revenue generated by the gas tax will be going only to pay off debt, with few funds left in the state Transportation Trust Fund for new projects.
Bracken called that “the most critical issue facing the state right now.” He stopped short of endorsing an increase of the gas tax, which at 14.5 cents per gallon is among the lowest in the country, but said it should be among the options up for discussion as the leaders try and find a solution.
“I support a long-term, sustainable, dedicated solution,” Bracken said.
Members of labor unions had the strongest presence at Monday’s event, filling much of the room.
N.J. lawmakers: ‘Close’ on plan to extend transportation fund
FEBRUARY 4, 2015, 1:38 PM LAST UPDATED: WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 2015, 5:31 PM
BY JOHN REITMEYER AND DUSTIN RACIOPPI
STATE HO– USE BUREAU |
THE RECORD
State lawmakers on Wednesday tried to assure anxious local officials that they are close to reaching an agreement to extend the state fund that pays for road, bridge and rail improvements in New Jersey.
The lawmakers, however, provided no new details about what that plan could look like even as the state comes closer to the date the current funding source will go broke, and as they await a state budget proposal later this month from Governor Christie.
And for all their talk of agreement, the legislative leaders who participated in a panel discussion as part of the New Jersey League of Municipalities’ annual mayor’s legislative day in the State House also showed ways in which they still remain deeply at odds on the transportation issue — particularly over the potential for raising New Jersey’s gas tax.
Senate President Stephen Sweeney, D-Gloucester, said he and Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto, D-Secaucus, have been in talks to come up with a plan for extending the state Transportation Trust Fund, which is set to run out of money in a few months, and now are “close.”
“I think we can come to a solution,” Sweeney said. “I hope we can get an agreement with the administration.”
State lists 40 bridges that may need fixing fast, but the question remains what did they do with all the money in the Transportation fund ?
FEBRUARY 3, 2015, 4:25 PM LAST UPDATED: WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 4, 2015, 10:12 AM
BY JOHN CICHOWSKI
RECORD COLUMNIST |
THE RECORD
As Governor Christie’s new transportation commissioner sees it, you don’t need a civil engineering degree to recognize some of the obvious weaknesses in the 40 bridges that his engineers have placed on the Department of Transportation’s high-priority list for immediate inspection, including the Route 3 link over the Hackensack River that’s now undergoing emergency repair.
Related: High priority N.J. bridges for 2015
“It’s quite simple,” Jamie Fox observed. “As anyone can see, our bridges are old and crumbling. If we don’t identify a dedicated funding source now, we’ll have no choice but to close more bridges to ensure public safety.”
In addition to the Route 3 span that connects East Rutherford to Secaucus, 12 of the 40 are in North Jersey — four in Bergen County, four in Hudson and two each in Morris and Essex. Replacing or rehabilitating all 13 would cost a minimum of $300 million — a preliminary DOT estimate that would surely rise sharply by the time work is completed.
It is fitting that President Obama released his 2016 budget on Groundhog’s Day. Like Bill Murray’s character Phil Connors in the famous movie Obama is stuck in an endless loop where he keeps pushing economically destructive tax hikes that have little chance of becoming law.
This is the seventh budget he has released, and each of them had trillions of dollars of tax hikes that would needlessly increase the tax burden on American families and increase the already bloated size of the federal government.
This year’s headline-grabbing and nonsensical tax hike targets U.S. multinational businesses. Obama wants to apply a 19 percent minimum tax on their foreign income going forward and a 14 percent tax on the foreign income they previously earned but have not yet returned to the U.S. (and therefore have not paid their U.S. tax on yet).
Businesses would have to pay the minimum tax each year. Thus, it would end the long practice of deferral, which applies extra U.S. tax to foreign earnings only when businesses return those profits home. It is unclear from the text of the budget if businesses could continue to use their foreign tax credits, or if the minimum tax would apply on top of the foreign tax businesses already pay. Either way, ending deferral and raising taxes on foreign income will reduce investment by U.S. business both abroad and here at home. The result will be fewer jobs and lower wages for U.S. workers.
This tax hike is so perplexing because the U.S. already has the worst corporate tax system in the developed world. We have the highest rate, 15 percentage points above the average of our competitors, and we are effectively the only nation in that group that taxes the foreign income of our businesses.
We should be lowering the corporate tax rate and moving to a territorial system that would not tax overseas earnings to put our businesses back on competitive footing. However, by raising rates on the foreign income of our businesses, Obama’s proposal goes in the exact opposite direction.
This is an especially alarming development because corporate tax reform was supposed to be one area of potential compromise between Obama and the new Congress. Obama has said he is interested in doing it and even has a framework of a plan. These new proposals reduce the already slim chances of advancing much-needed reform.
This tax hike is so perplexing because the U.S. already has the worst corporate tax system in the developed world. We have the highest rate, 15 percentage points above the average of our competitors, and we are effectively the only nation in that group that taxes the foreign income of our businesses.
We should be lowering the corporate tax rate and moving to a territorial system that would not tax overseas earnings to put our businesses back on competitive footing. However, by raising rates on the foreign income of our businesses, Obama’s proposal goes in the exact opposite direction.
This is an especially alarming development because corporate tax reform was supposed to be one area of potential compromise between Obama and the new Congress. Obama has said he is interested in doing it and even has a framework of a plan. These new proposals reduce the already slim chances of advancing much-needed reform.
Obama is sure to argue that the policies he is proposing are similar to ones proposed by Republicans, such as in former Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee Dave Camp’s tax reform proposal last year. However, like in many of the president’s policies, the context matters immensely.
Camp’s proposal was part of a tax reform plan that established a territorial tax system. As part of that system, anti-base erosion and profit shifting (BEPS) policies are necessary to stop U.S. businesses from shifting too much U.S. income abroad. Obama proposing BEPS policies without simultaneously moving to a territorial regime is like trying to install a security system on a house that has not been built yet.
The president is also likely to argue that his tax on unrepatriated earning is a tax cut, since he would apply a lower rate to them than under current law. This is nonsense. By deeming the money repatriated and forcing businesses to pay tax on it, he is forcing businesses to pay tax on money they never intended to bring back to the U.S. and therefore would never have paid tax on.
The tax hike on multinationals is supposed to pay for half of a six-year, $478 billion highway and transit program reauthorization proposal. Obama wants to dramatically increase spending on underutilized mass transit rail systems and federal grants to local rail, road and port projects. Concentrating transportation decision-making in Washington is the wrong way to go; states, localities and the private sector know the mobility needs and consumer preferences on the ground. Obama’s proposal would give them less control over their transportation funding and spending when they need more.
Letter to the Editor published in The Record, Sunday, June 8, 2014
Underpass woes in Ridgewood
Ridgewood’s underpass brouhaha won’t be over until it’s over.
Meanwhile, the question is how to go under.
We’re assured that a full complement of staff professionals worked on this plan for years and the council approved it unanimously. Responding to public outcry, however, the council quickly agreed to demolish 800 to 900 feet of just-poured curbing to halve the center divider’s width from eight feet to four feet. Previously it was 3.5 feet. That enables two driving lanes to be restored later, if desired.
Good, but what a waste. And aren’t the bicycle lanes the basis of a $146,500 grant under the state’s “Complete Streets” program? Would removing them forfeit the grant?
Since a narrow median can’t support trees, wood chips or gardeners, it will be “hardscaped,” not landscaped. That’s okay, said new Village Manager Roberta Sonenfeld, because the median plantings on Grove Street have gone to weeds anyway. Moreover, the $5,000 “saved” on trees and $20,000 “saved” on an irrigation system can go toward the $45,000 needed to replace the new curbing.
Communications were inadequate, admitted Sonenfeld. Residents who instantly saw the plan as untenable would have weighed in long ago had they been informed.
During World War II, my father worked with Army traffic in Europe. Pins were stuck into road maps with different pin colors representing the number and extent of accidents at intersections. Where “too many” deaths were tallied, someone was sent to direct traffic.
Congestion, conditions and safety shortfalls cost NJ drivers $1,951 a year, says report
EDISON – Advocates for a long-term transportation funding plan in New Jersey have gained a new argument: You’re already spending the money, even without a gas tax hike.
You spend it on mechanics, due to repairs triggered by subpar roads. You pay it to gas stations, filling up more often after sitting in traffic. And you’re forking it over to insurance companies through higher rates that result from crashes on roads lacking modern safety measures.
The tab for such deficiencies, according to a report issued last week by Washington-based transportation research group called TRIP, is $11.8 billion a year. That comes to a sticker-shock average of $1,951 a year per New Jersey driver.
“The total number in New Jersey is a little bit higher than other states, and it’s basically because of congestion costs,” said Will Wilkins, TRIP’s executive director, as the report was issued last week at the NJ Carpenters Funds offices. “New Jersey’s one of the most densely populated states, so the cost goes up when you’re sitting in traffic congestion both for your time and also the motor fuel that’s wasted as you sit there in traffic.”
PHOTO COURTESY OF BOB LEAFE Bob Leafe, a reader from of Hackensack, recently spotted this large crack on the bridge near River Road in Teaneck.
Road Warrior: Route 4 bridge in Teaneck gets no respect
JANUARY 25, 2015 LAST UPDATED: SUNDAY, JANUARY 25, 2015, 2:49 PM
BY JOHN CICHOWSKI
RECORD COLUMNIST |
THE RECORD
During a stroll along the Hackensack River walkway on the day after Christmas, Bob Leafe became intrigued by the geese taking shelter under the Route 4 bridge in Teaneck, so he pulled out his camera and started shooting.
But when he looked closely at his work, Bob realized he had shot something a bit less idyllic than wildlife. His photo, as shown here, depicts what appears to be a vertical gash that extends along one of the giant pillars holding up part of the span that carries more than 100,000 vehicles each day, according to the state Department of Transportation.
“I’m no engineer, but that does NOT look good,” he wrote in an email. “Pretty scary,” he said later on the phone, adding that he would look for other ways to cross the Hackensack River from Teaneck to his home in Hackensack.
DOT engineers insist the span is safe enough for traffic — safer certainly than the Route 3 bridge over the same river between East Rutherford and Secaucus, whose left eastbound lane had to be closed last week for at least a month to repair persistent deterioration. Such road conditions rarely attract much attention from Trenton policymakers. But the Route 3 one attracted reporters and photographers to a DOT yard about a half-mile from the bridge, where Transportation Commissioner Jamie Fox again made his pitch for a “revenue enhancer.”
This term is code for some sort of additional levy that Fox believes is necessary to replenish the state’s Transportation Trust Fund, which has reached its bonding capacity. But the commissioner again avoided endorsing any hike to the hated 10.5-cent-a-gallon motor-fuels tax, which has always fueled most of the fund.
NJ transportation fund or NJ transportation Slush fund
Readers Demand A Full Accounting of the NJ transportation fund before any New Revenue Sources are Sought
“The Federal Highway Administration tracks all revenues collected by states for use on transportation. The two main sources are the gas tax and tolls. NJ gasoline taxes are low, but the state’s toll collections rank second in the nation behind only the much larger New York. The result is that NJ actually has, according to the Feds, the eighth highest annual revenues to devote to roads and bridges of any state. And yet the NJ Transportation Fund is bust? Why you ask? According to a 2013 study by the Reason Foundation, NJ spends 8.4 TIMES the national average for every mile of road it maintains or builds… it’s not because of the low gas tax, it’s because of inflated union wage rates to build & maintain roads at 8X the national average.
Reader says , We all know that the transportation fund is a black hole of graft an corruption. Why else do the unions want it fully funded? Also gotta love how Senate Budget Committee Chairman Paul Sarlo sees no alternative other than raising the gas tax, but then in the next breath he proposes lowering or doing away with taxes on pension benefits!!! How are the two related you ask? Good question, but probably too difficult for our union hacks to answer because they love riding this gravy train.
He is sometimes referred to as “Senator Sanzari’ since his employer (Sanzari) benefits as a major road builder if the gas taxes are raised..and actually spent on road projects instead of just going into the general fund.
N.J. transportation chief orders immediate review of state’s bridges
JANUARY 20, 2015, 4:39 PM LAST UPDATED: TUESDAY, JANUARY 20, 2015, 11:09 PM
BY CHRISTOPHER MAAG
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
The fight over New Jersey’s nearly-broke transportation fund ratcheted up two notches Tuesday when Transportation Commissioner Jamie Fox called for immediate safety inspections on every bridge in the state and local officials were warned not to count on $200 million in state transportation aid this year.
If the transportation fund is empty on July 1, that could throw into limbo an additional $100 million in matching federal aid for towns, endanger scores of road and bridge projects, and cause fiscal headaches for local officials. It also might increase pressure on the Legislature and Governor Christie to fix the transportation fund quickly, some politicians said.
Fox’s inspection order came hours after the collapse of an interstate bridge in Cincinnati, and after the department closed a smaller bridge in New Jersey that engineers discovered was unsafe.
“I’ve ordered an expedited review of all our bridges, state and local,” Fox said. “I’d rather be safe than sorry, so we know definitively whether we have any unsafe bridges.”
Fox’s move illustrates how depleted the transportation fund has become. Officially called the Transportation Trust Fund, it raises $1.2 billion a year, mostly from highway tolls and motor fuels taxes. After years of state borrowing against the fund’s revenues, however, nearly all of the money raised goes to paying the fund’s $18.2-billion debt, and little remains for repair or construction work.
With gas prices below $2 a gallon in some parts of the state, policymakers are considering raising the gas tax. Legislators say the additional revenue would go to fund much-needed bridge and road repairs in the state. However, the public isn’t buying it. The most recent statewide survey from Fairleigh Dickinson University’s PublicMind finds respondents oppose the idea of additional taxes by a more than two-to-one margin, with many (31%) saying their opposition is driven by skepticism that the funds would be used as intended, and the belief that residents are already overburdened by taxes (45%). (PolitickerNJ)
Reader Says No to the Gas Tax Increase : NJ actually has, according to the Feds, the eighth highest annual revenues to devote to roads and bridges of any state.
Funny how some on this blog want to raise gasoline taxes. The Federal Highway Administration tracks all revenues collected by states for use on transportation. The two main sources are the gas tax and tolls. NJ gasoline taxes are low, but the state’s toll collections rank second in the nation behind only the much larger New York. The result is that NJ actually has, according to the Feds, the eighth highest annual revenues to devote to roads and bridges of any state. And yet the NJ Transportation Fund is bust? Why you ask? According to a 2013 study by the Reason Foundation, NJ spends 8.4 TIMES the national average for every mile of road it maintains or builds… it’s not because of the low gas tax, it’s because of inflated union wage rates to build & maintain roads at 8X the national average. No wonder Senator Sanzari, I mean Sarlo, wants to raise gas taxes. Vote him out, recall him, whatever, the guy is a pure thug
PSE&G Cuts Residential Gas Bills This Winter With Three Months of Bill Credits
October 23, 2014
Bill credits are in addition to 9 percent reduction on Oct. 1
(Newark, NJ – October 23, 2014) Public Service Electric and Gas (PSE&G) announced today that it is providing a bill credit for the next three months for its residential gas supply customers that will cut the average bill for the typical residential gas heating customer by about 31 percent. The company will provide its residential customers who purchase gas supply from PSE&G a 28-cents per therm bill credit for usage during November, December and January.
A typical residential gas heating customer using 91 therms in November, 165 therms in December and 165 therms in January would see a total bill credit of approximately $118. Depending on meter reading schedules, many customers will see some of the credit in November, December and January with the remainder in February.
These bill credits are in addition to the reduction the utility has already put into effect on October 1, 2014, which reduced its gas supply rate to 45 cents per therm from 54 cents – its lowest rate in 14 years.
“Since 2009, PSE&G’s residential gas customers have benefitted from steady reductions in the cost of natural gas,” said Jorge Cardenas, PSE&G vice president of asset management and centralized services. “We’re able to provide additional savings this winter given the continued availability of low-cost gas from the nearby Marcellus Shale Formation in Pennsylvania. In addition, our transportation and storage capabilities and the way we manage our pipeline contracts have enabled us to seize this opportunity to once again reduce costs for our customers.
“While there’s no guarantee that these savings will be available in future years, we are pleased to pass them on to our customers as temperatures are dropping and they strive to keep their winter heating bills affordable,” Cardenas said.
PSE&G makes no profit on the sale of natural gas. The utility passes along what it pays for the gas to customers. Costs of natural gas supply account for about half of the customer’s monthly bill.
Overnight Milling Project at Garber Square October 21,2104 Boyd A. Loving
Ridgewood NJ, Garber Square, Ridgewood was closed in both directions (eastbound and westbound) to all vehicular traffic from 2000 hours on Monday, 10/20/2014, through 0600 hours on Tuesday, 10/21/2014 to allow for milling of the road surface in preparation for paving. This work was performed in connection with a major streetscape project approved by the Ridgewood Village Council. In addition to paving, the project will include the addition of bike lanes in both directions, the reduction of traffic lanes from two lanes to one lane, and a median island.
Village Notice : Garber Square Complete Streets Projects
Village of Ridgewood E-Notice
Re: Garber Square Complete Streets Projects
Dear Residents and Businesses,
All that is remaining for the completion of the Garber Square Project is the actual milling, paving and striping of the road. This is currently planned to be done overnight, with the possible exception of striping, so there will be no more planned lane closures during the daytime.
Milling is currently scheduled for Monday, October 20th between the hours of 8 P.M. through 6 A.M. We will do our utmost to choreograph the parts of the road we close during this time period, mindful of both the restaurant traffic and morning commuter traffic. As I have mentioned to you before, this plan is weather dependent.
I would like to thank you again for your patience and understanding. I believe that the area is looking great and more importantly, we will have enhanced the safety for pedestrians, vehicles and bicycles. Please check our website for future updates on the status of the milling, paving and striping.
No Surprise Here Past League of Muncipalities Prez: ‘ I would support a rise in the gas tax’
Wretched, abysmal traffic and worn out roads pockmarked with potholes characterize New Jersey’s quality of life, lawmakers grimly confirmed this morning as the Assembly Transportation Committee kicked around the possibility of a hike in the gas tax to replenish the state Transportation Trust Fund (TTF), with several local voices signifying support. (Pizarro/PolitickerNJ)
