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[proverbialwisdom]

9. Mulshine: "Chris Christie's transportation bond bill: Read it and weep."

http://blog.nj.com/njv_paul_mulshine/2012/06/chris_christies_transportation.html

Chris Christie's transportation bond bill: Read it and weep

Published: Sunday, June 24, 2012, 8:19 AM Updated: Sunday, June 24, 2012, 3:39 PM
By Paul Mulshine/The Star Ledger

Back when he was a candidate for governor, Chris Christie characterized his predecessor’s penchant for borrowing as “unconscionable.” He promised his policy would be “We should go pay-as-you-go with current budget funds.” So I was shocked last week when I got a call from George Humphris of Toms River.

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That was Christie’s campaign promise to let New Jerseyans vote on all future bonding. The bill in question would permit the state to borrow $3.4 billion to refill the Transportation Trust Fund - without a referendum on the November ballot.

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I thanked Humphris for the call and promised I’d read the bill in question. I called up bill S-2020 ( http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/bills/BillView.asp ) on my computer and read all 24 pages. I read it again. And again.

I couldn’t make the slightest bit of sense out of it. It had been a long day. The next morning I put on a pot of coffee and read the bill again. I still couldn’t penetrate the prose, so I put in a call to Steve Lonegan.

He’s the former Bogota mayor who unsuccessfully challenged Christie for the GOP gubernatorial nomination back in 2009. Lonegan has been obsessed with out-of-control borrowing since the administration of the first governor named Christie. In 2000 he filed a lawsuit to stop the Whitman administration from bonding without voter approval. That suit failed but a later suit was a success. And then in 2008 voters passed a constitutional amendment banning bonding without voter approval.

I read Lonegan passages from the bill like the one that created a “Subaccount for Prior Bonds” and a “Subaccount for Debt Service for Transportation Program Bonds.”

“What the heck?” he said.

I read him the passage about how the revenue would come from a tax “amended by section 18 of P.L.1992, c.23, and repealed by section 56 of P.L.2010, c.22 and now imposed pursuant to 1[R.S.54:39-103] section 3 of P.L.2010, c.22 (C.54:39-103)1.”

“Huh?” he said.

On Thursday morning I drank an extra cup of coffee and headed for Trenton. Once there, I ordered another cup of coffee and pulled the bill up on my laptop. I showed it to legislators and to lobbyists. Not a single one could figure out the dodge that made this borrowing legal.

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