Christies no-tax pledge leaves infrastructure rotting: Editorial $$ bz0923monopoles Sapone A Public Service Electric & Gas worker upgrades a transmission line in Livingston in 2012. (Sapone, Patti) Print Star-Ledger Editorial Board By Star-Ledger Editorial Board on September 02, 2014 at 8:00 AM, updated September 02, 2014 at 8:36 AM 0 Reddit MORE STAR-LEDGER EDITORIALS Christies no-tax pledge leaves infrastructure rotting: Editorial As unions fade, middle class fades with them: Editorial Say no to this casino, to protect N.J.s water supply: Editorial Questioning the logic of a nine-year-old with an Uzi: Editorial The public deserves information about New Jerseys oil trains: Editorial All Stories | New Jersey, like many states, scaled back spending on basic infrastructure during the Great Recession. A report last year from the American Society of Civil Engineers tallied the damage. It found that two-thirds of the state’s major roadways are in poor or mediocre shape, bumping auto repair costs by an average of $601 a year. It found that the state’s crumbling water and sewer systems would require $40 billion to fix, and that 651 bridges in the state were structurally deficient. This is beyond short-sighted. It pushes costs to the future, makes our economy less competitive, and aggravates unemployment. And thanks to Gov. Chris Christie, we are likely to be stuck in neutral for years to come. The politics boils down to semantics. A boost in your electricity bill is not a tax hike. One reason is that he has already raided more than $2 billion from the Port Authority and broken every piggy bank in sight. A second is that he refuses to raise any taxes to remedy this, even to replenish the bankrupt transportation trust fund>bankrupt transportation trust fund. So let’s be grateful that big investments are being made in our electricity system, at least. PSE&G last week issued a study on the impact of its $8 billion in spending on infrastructure projects executed or planned in the six year stretch between 2011 and 2016. That covers several big projects designed to make the system more durable, and to expand and fortify transmission lines that date back nearly a century. The study, done by a team at the Bloustein School at Rutgers University and paid for by PSE&G, found that these investments create the equivalent of 6,000 jobs a year for the next decade. That’s partly spin, since the study did not look at the economic drag of higher utility bills. But those costs will be small. Surrounding states will share some of the costs, and a beefy transmission system reduces electricity costs by allowing New Jersey to import cheaper juice. And this comes at a time when low prices for natural gas soften the blow. On the whole, these investments are a big win for the state’s economy. So why don’t we repeat this success in other sectors of the infrastructure? It boils down to semantics. The electricity projects are paid through your monthly bills, not through higher taxes. Christie is fine with higher electric bills, higher tolls, and higher bus fares. But for political reasons, he won’t raise taxes. And that means the state’s infrastructure is likely to decline further on his watch. Maybe we should come up with a new name for taxes. How about we call it a user fee for the priviledge of living in New Jersey. We can start by imposing it on income above $500,000 a year.
Posted on: Tue, 02 Sep 2014 13:12:13 +0000
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