Starve The Beast: Roll Back The Port Authority Toll Hikes
Given the results of the audit of Port Authority released earlier this week, it is fair to conclude that PA has been overcharging New Jersey commuters and truckers for decades.
Too much money has been the addictive substance that made PA “dysfunctional.”
Lack of money is what has enabled Governor Christie, and many other governors across the country to implement necessary reforms. Christie is extraordinarily talented, but would he have been able to get the Democrats to compromise with him if tax revenue was rolling in with abundance? No way.
Yet, with the September toll hikes, Governors Christie and Cuomo have helped the the dysfunctional, wasteful, corrupt Pork Authority to more of their destructive substance.
New Jersey Assemblywoman Valerie Vainieri Huttle (D-Bergen County) and New York State Senator Andrew Lanza (R-Staten Island) have called for the latest toll hikes to be rolled back, according to The Star Ledger.
At the very least, tolls should be rolled back to their pre-September levels until the ongoing audit of PA is complete and reforms implemented. A rollback to the 2001 toll levels should be seriously considered.
Phase two of the toll increases announced last August take effect in 2014. Christie and Cuomo should immediately revoked that authorization and roll back the current tolls to the September 2011 levels, at the very least.
More from my site
Christie and Cuomo Enact Port Authority Reforms, Encourage Legislative Concurrance
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie and New York Governor Andrew M. Cuomo Announce Reopening of World Trade Center and Exchange Place PATH Service on Monday, November 26
Joint Statement from New York Governor Andrew M. Cuomo and New Jersey Governor Chris Christie on Port Authority Toll Hike Plan
Joint Statement From Governors Christie and Cuomo On Port Authority Consultants’s Report
Manhattan DA probes secret settlement between Port Authority, seaport company
Speaker Prieto slams Christie-Cuomo vetoes of Port Authority reform bills
Christie And Cuomo Direct Port Authority To Scale Back Toll Hikes
Unions To Dems: Shut Up About Port Authority Toll Hikes
Port Authority Retirees Suing For Free Tolls And Damages
Reduce Costs Before Raising Tolls: It Is Time To Reform “Prevailing Wage”
Lets downsize the payroll and the cost of medical/pension benefits– by millions– by eliminating the following employees.
http://dng.northjersey.com/media_server/tr/2012/01/29authority/referrals.html
If I had a dime for the number of times some “low level” PA police officer, toll collector or other non-sense PA worker told me *WHO* got them their cozy overpaying job (with supurb, cheap benefits and a great pension plan) at the PA…. I’d have enough dimes to bring my posse of rustlers, cut throats, murderers, bounty hunters, desperados, mugs, pugs, thugs, nitwits, halfwits, dimwits, vipers, snipers, con men, Indian agents, Mexican bandits, muggers, buggerers, bushwhackers, hornswogglers, horse thieves, bull dykes, train robbers, bank robbers, ass-kickers, shit-kickers and Methodists through a single Port Authority toll-booth!
I’m curious…name one”low-level” Port Authority police officer who obtained their job from someone they knew. I was on that job for over 25 years and I can’t name one. That includes employing deceit or fraud–like over at your friends Sheriff’s Department.
PA = a hog’s feeding trough with our “elected” officials stuffing the agency with pals, family members, paymasters and other undesireables.
The PA is a political patronage mill.