IT’S OFFICIAL: TRENTON DEMOCRATS HIDING TOLL HIKE PLAN

IT’S OFFICIAL:  TRENTON DEMOCRATS HIDING TOLL HIKE PLAN

Time to End the Stone-walling and Reveal Scheme to Boost Tolls  

            Senator James J. “Sonny” McCullough issued the following statement in response to the Corzine Administration’s refusal to fully comply with a request for information relating to the plan to sell New Jersey’s toll roads that was authorized in the Fiscal Year 2008 annual appropriations act.

            “The Trenton politicians have spent $4.5 million to press forward with their plan to sell off our toll roads, and now they want us to believe that the people of New Jersey are not entitled to see if any of that money was spent on examining how high they want to raise the tolls.  Worse still, Majority Party legislators have foolishly given the governor a ‘blank check’ in the State Budget to spend even more taxpayer dollars in the months ahead to perfect their -- now officially secret -- plan.             “It takes a special kind of arrogance to spend millions of tax dollars collected from middle class families and small businesses on a scheme to raise their tolls, and then tell them they have no right to see all of the details of their proposal.  If embracing decades of higher tolls such is a great idea, then why not let the voters see the plan before Election Day?  The answer is that Trenton politicians know that this is the biggest and most dangerous fiscal gimmick in State history, and they want to keep the truth hidden from the voters.         “It is time for the legislators who are part of the Governor’s toll road tax team to stop cowering behind a wall of official secrecy and join those of us who are demanding an immediate and  public debate on their toll, tax, borrow and spend agenda.”