Posted on 09/16/2016 5:32:43 AM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
The governor and state Democrats agreed on a gas-tax increase to replenish the TTF, but Christie issued a stop-work order for all state-funded transportation work in Jly when the two camps could not agree on budget reductions to counterbalance that measure. Christie authorized the use of money from the state's general fund last month to pay for "essential" road and highway work, but there was no indication from Passaic that it received any of those funds. According to The New York Times, the stop-work order sidelined more than $3 billion worth of TTF projects.
Since the shutdown, state Democrats offered Christie another budget deal, this one including a phase-out of the New Jersey estate tax. However, Christie rejected the $900 million package, stating that it did not offer enough tax relief for the state's residents. Christie said he wants a 1% decrease in the state sales tax to balance out a proposed 23-cent hike in the gas tax.
Passaic County could be just a bellwether of other county and contractor lawsuits to come, all in an effort to get the state to reimburse their shutdown-induced costs. According to the executive director of the Utility and Transportation Contractors Association, the situation could generate an additional $24 million in contractor remobilization costs alone. Workers are also feeling the pinch as they watch the good weather months — the period when most infrastructure projects are performed — dwindle away. Not only does the approaching winter offseason mean that stalled projects won't start up again until spring, but workers could also be looking at nine months of no paychecks.
NorthJersey.com: Passaic County says it'll sue over transportation project shutdown's extra costs
Probably cheaper to hire a welder to cut the raised manholes down to street level.
And the roads are still a mess. Corruption, corruption, corruption.
In NJ the TTF is a giant slush fund for the connected, a majority of the money is used for paybacks for the well connected
Christie did the right thing to shut that mess down. Glad our gas tax did not get raised to pay for more corruption from the RATs
BTW notice how the only areas affected are ghetto corrupt areas? Ocean County is fine, so are the rest of the “red” parts of the state that get little to zero of this money.
Actually, Christie seemed amenable to the gas tax increase, IF the legisl00ture would also reduce the sales tax by 1 percent. Isn’t the sales tax something like 8 percent in NJ?
Well, he knew they wouldn’t go for it. That is why he did that.
He knew they weren’t going to raise the gas tax 40 cents on 4th of July weekend and give the evil rich a discount on buying boats and cars.
He got them to veto their own tax increase, Christie was playing chess while they were playing checkers on that one
Everyone is waiting to see what happens in the November election this year. If Trump wins, there's a good chance Christie goes to Washington as a cabinet member (probably Attorney General). If that happens, then his Lieutenant Governor succeeds him and serves the remainder of his term until the 2017 election. That might complicate matters if she decides to run in 2017 as an incumbent.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.