By Samantha Marcus | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
on October 04, 2016 at 5:16 PM, updated October 04, 2016 at 7:52 PM
TRENTON — With the state Legislature poised to approve a 23-cent-a-gallon increase in the gas tax Wednesday — along with a decrease in the sales tax and the elimination of the estate tax — budget analysts and consumer advocates complained bitterly on Tuesday that the average New Jerseyan would pay a lot more at the pump while getting little in the way of tax breaks.
Various efforts by the governor and legislative leaders to replenish the Transportation Trust Fund have repeatedly brought these groups together to warn that the tax cuts will benefit a relatively few wealthy residents while undermining such Democratic priorities as environmental oversight, funds for education and aid for the state’s poorer residents.
The latest tax plan, the result of negotiations between Gov. Chris Christie, a Republican, and Democratic leaders in the Senate and Assembly, eliminates the estate tax, raises the Earned Income Tax Credit for the working poor, eliminates taxes on much pension and retirement income, slightly reduces the sales tax and creates a tax break for veterans.
The 23-cent-per-gallon increase on gasoline sold in the state will finance an eight-year, $16 billion transportation program that will draw another $16 billion in federal matching dollars.
I buy one tank of gas per week, most people don’t. 15 gallons x $.23 = $3.45 x 52 weeks = $179.40 annually. Now multiply that by 75% of the 6.67 million privately owned vehicles in New Jersey and you have $900 million. How is that going to fix all of the bridges?
3:18 You don’t own a truck. Pickups will contribute a lot — semis far more. But on the other hand, we can expect semis to stop gassing up (dieselling up?)in this state — DE and MA will be cheaper. The take won’t be near the forecast for that reason
I’m okay with it….should reduce the senseless miles people drive and save thousands of gallons of gasoline…which means less dependence on oil from Saudi Arabia and Mother Russia.
A Win-Win !
Pure tax and spend stupidity in Trenton with no analysis of why NJ spends 3x more than any other state per mile of state road…. This gas tax goes towards feeding a vampire squid sucking the lifeblood out of NJ taxpayers and commuters. Insanity!
These costs will be passed down to the consumer. Everything that travels via gas will begin to cost more, from food to furniture to airplane tickets. The increases will hardly begin and end with our own gas tasks.
4:07 by Vampire Squid do you mean Sen. Sarlo’s or his boss Sanzari?
4:59 is correct. NJ will be an emigration state.
3:56
Spoken like a true liberal progressive thinker.
The USA production of oil, thanks to fracking, has dramatically reduced our dependence on foreign sources of oil.
This gas tax increase is just another example of our out of control government spending…
As 4:59 noted it will be a drag on the economic growth of our State.
Of course you’re OK with that.
Wake up!
The other day it was reported by the record that state senator granny Weinberg has already earmarked one billion of this to extended the light rail to her constituents in englewood. I’m sure it will be a budget buster costing double that. Also it will be used to fund the inneficient bloated nj transit bureaucracy.
It sounds just like “if your like your health plan you can keep it””. How did that work out?
Get used to the same crappy bridges and roads
Reality hit Christie like a runaway train.
Day after train crash he agrees to tax to fund transportation. It only took him one death to come around.