Radio Free Montone: No To Gas Tax Hike!
By John Montone, 1010 WINS
Come in Trenton. Can you hear us?
The most recent Rutger's/Eagleton Poll found exactly what the previous poll and the poll before that and polls for many years have found: New Jerseyans do not want the state's gasoline tax to go up.
No surprise there. Do taxpayers ever want to pay more taxes? But on this one they have been very adamant. Even though the Jersey tax is the second lowest in the nation state residents keep saying NO. Even though the governor, when he isn't hanging around with hog farmers in Iowa, proposes swapping out the gas tax hike for a reduction in the so called "death taxes," the answer is still, NO!
Even when it is explained by the pollsters that the additional revenue will go to repairing the state's pockmarked roads and decaying bridges, the answer does not change. NO.
But why? This Jersey boy thinks he knows.
Every other tax in the great Garden State ranks near the highest in the land. Property taxes. The income tax. The sales tax. So in return we get relatively cheap gasoline. Swap that for lowering the estate and inheritance taxes? Well, there are some who say you can't afford to live or die in New Jersey. But statistics show that most estates are not worth the $650,000 that triggers that tax and because of various exemptions inheritors of estates can usually dodge the tax man.
Tax swap…rejected.
But this Jersey Boy thinks the REAL issue is broken promises. To paraphrase Jerry Seinfeld, Trenton politicians are great at the first part of the promise -- making it. Not so good at -- keeping it. The Promise: Revenue from Atlantic City casinos will reduce taxes and utility bills for senior citizens except when the revenues disappear because other cities and states got into the gambling business. Promise: Public employees will not get raises but will get a very generous pension when they retire. Sorry, folks. That was a Ponzi scheme. Promise: Tolls on the Garden State Parkway are temporary. Once the road is paid for the toll booths will come down. That promise was made around 60-years ago.
The broken promise in this case is that the state's Transportation Trust Fund will ensure that we will always have adequate money available to keep our roads and bridges in tip top shape. Until the fund goes broke which it is about to do. This is because for decades lawmakers have dipped into the fund to fix local roads without replenishing the money. Instead the state has floated bonds, so many bonds the state's bonds no longer float, they sink.
As Wayne from Elizabeth practically screamed into my microphone the other day when I asked him about a hike in the state's gasoline tax, "Where has all the other tax money gone?" And so Wayne says, NO, to the gasoline tax hike.
It's the same answer New Jerseyans have been giving pollsters for years.
Come in Trenton. Can you hear us?
