Move New Jersey Forward http://www.movenjforward.org Mon, 25 Oct 2010 17:01:23 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.1 10/18/10 – Readers prefer gas-tax hike over more borrowing – NJBiz http://www.movenjforward.org/2010/10/101810-readers-prefer-gas-tax-hike-over-more-borrowing-njbiz/ http://www.movenjforward.org/2010/10/101810-readers-prefer-gas-tax-hike-over-more-borrowing-njbiz/#comments Mon, 18 Oct 2010 17:10:43 +0000 Zoe Baldwin http://www.movenjforward.org/?p=291 [...]]]> 10/18/10

Readers prefer gas-tax hike over more borrowing

NJBIZ Poll Results
Monday, October 18, 2010 12:00 AM
By NJBIZ Staff

Summer Olstad
Nearly half of responders to the most recent reader poll support raising the gas tax as a means to repair the long-suffering Transportation Trust Fund, with less than 3 percent supporting legislative borrowing as the remedy for the fund that’s used to pay for road and rail projects.
“Five cents more on all the fuel purchased can add up to a lot of finished roads,” wrote reader Kathy Janton. “But it has to be for funding roads that we drive on, tunnels we drive through, bridges we drive over — not higher salaries, more benefits or pensions.”

Reader Meg Fitch, meanwhile, said the TTF crisis “should have been handled years ago. Our elected officials need to stop thinking about themselves and their next elections. They need to think about what’s right.”

Reader Howard Maltz took cast a critical eye on Trenton. “Our legislators have got to stop raiding the Transportation Department’s piggy bank to plug the holes in the budget,” he wrote. “It has gone on for too long, and now the roadways and the infrastructure is paying the price.

But there was plenty of vitriol for any tax hike. Stephanie Shaffery, of 20 Twenty Graphics, wrote, “Trenton needs to stop spending money, and come up with a plan that allocates proper funding to worthwhile programs and spending. If transportation funding is considered worthwhile, then fund it without charging the taxpayers another dime.”

NEXT WEEK: Will the trans-Hudson tunnel be built?

]]> http://www.movenjforward.org/2010/10/101810-readers-prefer-gas-tax-hike-over-more-borrowing-njbiz/feed/ 1130 10/13/10 – N.J. to introduce $1B in bonds to support transportation trust fund http://www.movenjforward.org/2010/10/1013-n-j-to-introduce-1b-in-bonds-to-support-transportation-trust-fund/ http://www.movenjforward.org/2010/10/1013-n-j-to-introduce-1b-in-bonds-to-support-transportation-trust-fund/#comments Wed, 13 Oct 2010 12:57:27 +0000 Zoe Baldwin http://www.movenjforward.org/?p=297 [...]]]> N.J. to introduce $1B in bonds to support transportation trust fund
Wednesday, October 13, 2010, 7:36 PM

Bloomberg News

New Jersey will bring as much as $1 billion in Build America Bonds to market tomorrow after increasing the proposed sale size following a successful refunding transaction today, the state Treasury Department said.

The Transportation Trust Fund Authority bonds, maturing in December 2028 and rated Aa3, or fourth highest, by Moody’s Investors Service, were priced to yield 225 basis points above 30-year Treasuries, according to information from the senior manager Barclays Plc of London. The state had planned to sell $929 million, according to preliminary sale documents.

Texas Transportation Commission Build Americas, with Moody’s top Aaa rating and maturing in April 2033, priced to yield 90 basis points above 30-year Treasuries Sept. 22, data compiled by Bloomberg shows. A basis point is the equivalent of 0.01 percentage point.

New Jersey’s issuance comes a week after Governor Chris Christie canceled an $8.7 billion trans-Hudson rail tunnel and Transportation Commissioner James Simpson suspended 100 trust fund projects for lack of funding.

Proceeds from tomorrow’s sale will finance highway and mass-transit work in the U.S.’s most densely populated state through February or March 2011, state Treasurer Andrew Sidamon-Eristoff said at a legislative hearing on the bond deal Oct. 4.

General Fund

About $393 million of the proceeds will repay New Jersey for advances from its general fund that covered the transportation program’s $125 million in monthly expenses, according to Sidamon-Eristoff. About $25 million more will be used to meet the state’s share of interest payments on the bonds through June 15, 2011, according to the bond documents.

The issuance amount was raised after lower-than-expected interest rates prompted the state to increase today’s refunding by $34 million, to a total of $500 million, William Quinn, a Treasury spokesman, said in an e-mail.

The refinancing bonds, maturing through December 2024, sold at a true interest cost of 3.76 percent, and saved the state about $30 million, Quinn said.

http://www.nj.com/business/index.ssf/2010/10/nj_to_introduce_1b_in_bonds_to.html

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