OPINION
Good morning state legislators! For many of us, today is Vote to Renew the Transportation Trust Fund Day. Many of you reviewed the proposed legislation and recognized both its simplicity and importance. It is a modest proposal to keep the TTF fully funded for the next five years, relying on a small increase in the gas tax as well as starting to incorporate zero emission vehicles into the financial formula. It is a fiscally sound approach that builds on the foundation laid by the 2016 renewal.
It was not always this straightforward. From 1988 until 2016, everyone recognized the value the TTF provided, but were unwilling to fund it responsibly. New Jersey endured 28 years of financial gimmickry, kick-the-can-down-the-road policies, and the willing evasion of responsibility that left the TTF totally insolvent in 2016.
But for some, it feels like Groundhog Day.
Here we go again. Here comes the political posturing, the “we can get something for nothing” proclamations, and the easy task of taking shots at a relatively modest policy rather than actually delivering one. TTF was created under the leadership of our esteemed former Governor Thomas Kean to remove partisan politics from funding our transportation infrastructure. In the years that followed, not everyone followed the governor’s intent to keep politics out.
Let’s call it as we see it. New Jersey doesn’t have a gas tax problem (our gas is more than 21-cents cheaper than the national average). We have a political problem, and this time, it is just a few Republicans who are eager to create divisions and cast aspersions (and we have certainly seen the same from Democrats in the past). What should be a housekeeping measure of practical changes to account for increased future costs and new modes of transportation is being blown out of proportion to score points rather than pave streets and affix blame rather than fix our roads, rails, and bridges.
These same detractors might counter that they aren’t being heard, that their ideas are being ignored, but I suspect even they know that isn’t the case. This isn’t about ideas not being considered. It is about relying on ideas that provide for a stable source of funding for another 5-years as opposed to reverting to the financial gimmicks and one-shots of the past.
Yup, we have heard these objections before. The 1.9-cent annual increase to the gas tax will devastate families and stall the economy. Yet opponents must acknowledge that the average price of gas has increased 6-cents in the last week and still remains 4-cents cheaper than it was a year ago. And even after the almost 25-cent increase of 2016, New Jersey gas prices are still below the national average. Gas prices will change significantly over the course of the five years of this program regardless of whether the tax is increased or not. The only thing that changes is whether the Trust Fund receives additional revenue from the gas tax or if New Jersey gives away the increased revenue to others.
How about ending the free rider problem for zero emission vehicles? Some want it both ways. They have a plan that relies on $2.3B in funding from electric vehicles while at the same time calling for a rollback of Governor’s Murphy prohibition on the sale of gasoline cars by 2035. They want to count the revenue as they look for ways to ensure it never arrives.
Another $1.5B is given to the TTF through a one-shot payment from the debt defeasement fund. A fund with the purpose of either paying down existing debt, or financing capital projects that would otherwise utilize debt to pay for it. In this gimmick, neither debt is paid down, nor are projects paid for without bonds. It is simply used as a mechanism to inject cash into the TTF. It is this type of one-shot payment both sides of the aisle have railed against when it was used to make up a gap in the budget.
Even the staunchest opponents to TTF renewal have extended an olive branch – a legislative road map – to gain their support. Most notably mentioned has been the idea of tax offsets. We will increase revenues for this (transportation) but we want to decrease revenues for something else in the state budget.
Advocate and fight for budgetary changes all you want, but don’t hold TTF renewal hostage to do so. It might be an effective leverage point – we remember when 3,200 of our members and hundreds of New Jersey contractors lost their jobs in the TTF shutdown of 2016 and certainly don’t want it again – but Governor Kean’s TTF was all about avoiding the partisan chicanery for transportation. All the communities we represent will benefit, he might say, so let’s avoid the political chaos and create a program that is thorough, predictable, and sustainable.
Should we throw away the progress we’ve made over the past eight years for transportation? We now offer more aid to local communities, have repaired more bridges, eliminated more bottlenecks, and have done so borrowing less money. Is now the time to jettison all of this?,
In 2016, after a months-long shut down of state-funded projects, Republicans and Democrats triumphantly agreed to a pragmatic, long-term solution for transportation. Years of bad policies demanded big bi-partisan solutions. As hard as that was, that was the cost of doing what’s right after years of neglect. Republicans AND Democrats did this and we have had a successful, supportive program for the last eight years.
Let’s not repeat the mistakes of the past.
Legislators, if you can’t give your vote to renew a program that benefits the communities you represent, at least give it to your voters straight afterwards. You chose political obstruction over offering bipartisan support. You chose a riskier financial path for a program that is finally stabilizing after years of neglect. You chose what 28-years of legislators did between Kean and Christie. You chose wrong.
Steven Gardner is Executive Director of NJ LECET, the labor-management partnership of the Laborers’ International Union of North America, LIUNA.