PROMINENT NJ VOICES COMMENT ON A SAFE, RELIABLE, AND SOLVENT TRANSPORTATION PLAN FOR NJ

March 15, 2024

Read what distinguished leaders across New Jersey are saying about the Transportation Trust Fund and conversations surrounding its reauthorization:

Christopher Emigholz, Chief Government Affairs Office, NJBIA
“NJBIA appreciates outside-the-box thinking that considers the need reforms within our transportation system as well as New Jersey’s lack of affordability and already high taxes. We look forward to the continued dialogue about how we increase investments in our transportation infrastructure in a responsible manner.”
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Christina M. Renna, President & CEO, Chamber of Commerce Southern New Jersey
“Investment in infrastructure is the backbone of the economy. But tying transportation infrastructure projects to an increased gasoline tax – at a time when New Jersey’s gas tax rate is already one of the highest in the nation and EVs have been driving on the state’s roads rent free for years – makes no sense. If we want to make New Jersey more affordable, the tax and fee increases have to stop.”
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Eileen Kean, NJ State Director, National Federation of Independent Businesses (NFIB)
“An increased tax is another fee on our already over taxed Main Street small businesses. The current TTF funding mechanism of 42.3 cents per gallon of gas is already a burden. Instead of taxing every NJ business, an independent audit of New Jersey Transit should be legislated to expose out of control spending.”
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Eric Blomgren, Chief Administrator and Director of Government Affairs, New Jersey Gasoline, C-Store, Automotive Association
“New Jersey once had the second lowest gas tax in the nation, now we have one of the highest, and it’s on track to go even higher. Many small businesses near the NY and PA borders will lose sales because the smaller the gap in prices, the less likely motorists are to go out of their way to purchase from a NJ station. Funding our infrastructure needs without increasing fuel taxes will leave more money in the pockets of consumers.”
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Regina Egea, President, Garden State Initiative
“The New Jersey Transit Accountability Act takes the right approach: a third party audit to identify areas for cost savings in order to avoid tax increases. New Jersey can’t tax our way out of the structural deficit – so we need creativity now, and we need our legislators to make the tough decisions to get New Jersey back on track. This is a compelling proposal for responsible leaders who have the courage to take a first step toward fiscal sanity.”
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Senator Steve Oroho, Former State Senator and Sponsor of the 2016 TTF Reauthorization
“No one disputes the need to reauthorize the Transportation Trust Fund which is critical to our state. However, very much unlike the situation we faced in 2016 when the fund was completely insolvent, the TTF in 2024 is healthy and supported by revenue. It is precisely because of the actions we took in 2016 to fix the structural problems that existed in TTF that we are not faced with the same bleak situation.
For example, there had been almost no pay-go and projects were being paid by more and more debt. Now more than $500 million each year is pay-go. Also in 2016 the share of funding to counties and municipalities had dropped to as low as ten percent. We doubled local aid and that helped reduce the burden that would have fallen on local property taxpayers. This proposal would boost local transportation funding again.
Additionally, this plan appropriately has electric vehicles paying into the fund to help support our transportation infrastructure and those monies should be constitutionally dedicated to TTF.
Bottom line – this alternative proposal builds on the successes of the 2016 plan and demonstrates we can have a robust TTF without having to raise the gas tax again.”
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Andrew Sidamon-Eristoff, Former Treasurer, State of New Jersey
“The Murphy administration’s public finance strategy is a real head-scratcher. Instead of using the Debt Defeasance and Avoidance Fund to avoid issuing expensive new 30-year debt to finance the Transportation Trust Fund, it has used it to retire shorter term debt with lower interest rates and is now proposing to divert $585 million to the General Fund. These moves may deliver some immediate budget relief and flexibility for the Governor’s last year in office, but New Jersey’s taxpayers will be stuck with an expensive tab for decades to come.”
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Mayor Deb Buzby-Cope, Mayor, Bass River Township
“Towns like Bass River rely heavily on state and local grants to fix our roads, which are important thruways to get to the shore. The Transportation Trust Fund is an extremely important tool and needs to be funded, but we should try to accomplish that without raising the gas tax. Senator Tiver’s plan does just that, and I’m in full support of it.”