And, Chris Christie sells us out once again. Or folds like cheap suit. Take your pick.
NJ Democrats want to raise our state's Gas Tax by a whopping 23 cents a gallon to pay for more transportation boondoggles like Camden's light rail to nowhere and a new rail tunnel for people who work in Manhattan. Er, "to fix our crumbling roads and bridges," at the low, low price of $27.3 million dollars per mile. Or, so I'm told.
In exchange, they're going to "phase out" the Estate Tax. In theory, anyway.
And today Chris Christie signaled he's OK with that plan, if the tax-and-spend party pinky-swears they'll phase out the estate tax "faster."
State lawmakers have "got work to do" on a pair of transportation funding plans if they expect approval by Governor Christie, he said Monday.
Having spent the weekend reviewing the proposals, Christie determined there is "not nearly enough" of what he calls Tax Fairness — reductions in exchange for an increase in the gasoline tax. Both legislative plans call for increases of up to 23 cents per gallon likely to be passed on to motorists.
"Tax fairness!" Because tacking 23 cents a gallon onto the price of gas is "fair!"
Oh, but, we're going to get rid of one of our dueling Death Taxes. Maybe.
Both plans propose raising $2 billion a year for the Transportation Trust Fund over the next 10 years. A critical component to achieve tax fairness, Christie said, is the elimination of the estate tax, one of the two so-called "death taxes" that many critics say make New Jersey uncompetitive with other states and unpopular for retirees. But the legislative proposals would phase out the estate tax over four years. Christie wants it eliminated by the time he leaves office in two years because, he said, "I don't trust them."
Yeah, well, we don't trust you either Chief.
And we certainly don't trust your bureaucratic brain trust to wisely spend that new $2 billion in annual revenue you're squeezing out of us. Because their track record stinks. Where else but New Jersey could you find a 3½ mile roadway reconstruction project costing north of one billion dollars? I must be the only guy in the state whose palm isn't getting greased on that one…
If I've said it once, I've said it a hundred times. We don't have a revenue problem, we have spending problem. And Chris Christie's "solution" is to look the other way.
Thanks governor. Thanks a lot.
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