Governor Christie: Second-Term Governors Are Built To Make The Difficult Decisions

Statement

The fact is that people spoke clearly on November 8th and said they want gas tax money to be used for transportation and infrastructure in this state and not for anything else. It makes this gas tax much more of a user fee than a true tax because the people who are paying that tax are using the roads with their vehicles, using our mass transit systems, and, as a result, they're making sure that every dollar of that goes into the maintenance and the improvement of those systems. Now listen, I've been involved in politics in this state for a long time, and everyone's going to play politics with an issue like this, but this is what second-term governors were invented for, I don't have to run for anything. I don't have to pretend that you can fix this problem without increasing a tax. I don't have to pretend that it's bad policy to dedicate a tax for the very purpose the tax is being paid for. I don't have to pretend that New Jersey is affordable and doesn't need tax cuts if I were in the other party. Second-term governors are built to make the difficult decisions that first-term governors are a little more scared to make because they got one more shot in front of the voters. I made this deal because it was in the best interest of the state and I made this deal because we can't leave it to politics any longer on the way that we fund our roads and our bridges and our mass transit systems, and we shouldn't leave it to you to have to raise your property taxes in order to maintain your roads. We shouldn't leave it to you to have to be the one to deal with the wrath of the property taxpayer by yourself, and through this plan you'll have the opportunity now not to have to face that decision of raising property taxes just to maintain the capital infrastructure of your municipality.

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