The Mastro Report Contains A Nasty Gimmick....

[Laxman]

designed to serve the political interests of Christie. Using Bridgegate as an excuse to break up the Port Authority to allow him to get his hands on the agency's cash and solve some serious budget problems. He's been using budget tricks to get himself out of trouble for the last 5 years. Only this is the granddaddy of all gimmicks! Threaten the long-term health of the nation's largest economic center for the chance to continue to look good for the republican primary audience. Once again-its all about him! The guy is like a serial killer. No conscience or remorse. No thought to anything but his own interests. Only instead of a charming personality we get the grand buffoon of bluster! Stop the madness before he causes any more damage.

Breaking Up PA Would Solve Christie's Transportation Trust Fund Problem

For Christie, splitting the Port Authority in two would provide the same sort of bailout as his decision to cancel the Access to the Region’s Core (ARC) rail passenger tunnel and shift $1.8 billion in Port Authority revenues and $1.3 billion in New Jersey Turnpike Authority toll money earmarked for the tunnel to provide the pay-as-you-go money needed to renew the TTF in 2011 without raising taxes.

But if the bistate agency was dismantled, Christie would have full control over New Jersey’s share of revenues and New Jersey project decisions without having to worry about the PA's lawyers or New York's representatives -- a very real threat.

Port Authority documents obtained by The Record showed that even as Christie was announcing that PA money earmarked for the ARC Tunnel would be used to repair the Pulaski Skyway and other Jersey bridges and highways, PA officials were objecting behind the scenes, saying it was an illegal use of PA funds. After months, the two sides finally reached a compromise, but Christie’s gamble with ARC had been in danger of not paying off.

For Christie, being able to earmark $500 million a year or so in Port Authority revenue for New Jersey highways and bridges as pay-as-you-go projects as part of the next Transportation Trust Fund, without having to ask PA officials or New York’s Democratic governor for permission, would eliminate a political and fiscal nightmare.

Without that money, Christie would either have to persuade the Democratic Legislature to allow him to borrow virtually all of the $1.6 billion in state matching funds needed to pay for highway, bridge and mass transit construction projects for Fiscal Years 2017-2021 – which is unlikely. Or he could go along with Democratic calls for an increase in the state’s gas tax, which is the third-lowest in the nation, and which Sen. Raymond Lesniak (D-Union) and Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto (D-Hudson) have already been pushing.

Either option – adding $8 billion in state debt or breaking his “no new taxes” pledge -- would be anathema to Republican primary voters, and Christie would have to announce the decision in his February 2016 budget speech in the middle of the presidential primary season. That’s why fiscal policy experts have been predicting privately that if Christie decided to run for presidency, he would resign by the fall of 2015 to run as a full-time candidate and leave the TTF problem to Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno. Being able to plug in the Port Authority money would enable him to refinance TTF at reasonable debt levels without a gas tax hike, and eliminate the need to resign.

http://www.njspotlight.com/stories/14/03/31/breaking-up-port-authority-would-solve-christie-s-transportation-trust-fund-problem/

[malaise]

1. I take it you've seen this

http://www.northjersey.com/news/christie-s-toll-money-shuffle-port-authority-funds-paying-for-repairs-to-state-roads-video-1.836409
<snip>
Toll money collected at the George Washington Bridge and other Hudson River crossings is being used by the Christie administration to prop up New Jersey’s overburdened and underfunded transportation fund in a move questioned by Port Authority lawyers in late 2010 as being outside the legal scope of the agency’s authority, according to dozens of emails, confidential memos and internal reports obtained by The Record.

Still, Christie officials pressed the agency to find a way to give $1.8 billion to New Jersey, even though several high-level Port Authority officials expressed concern that the projects it would fund — repairs to four North Jersey roads including the crumbling Pulaski Skyway — have tenuous connections to the Port’s cross-Hudson network.
The $1 billion renovation of the Pulaski Skyway, a state road, is being funded through toll money collected by the Port Authority.

Laws prohibit the agency from spending money on projects outside its transportation network unless they are specifically approved by lawmakers in both New Jersey and New York. But Christie announced the funding in early 2011 without seeking legislative approval or getting Port Authority lawyers to sign off on the move.

Instead, through a quietly orchestrated series of moves following the announcement, the Port Authority approved the payment by eventually saying the improvements would enhance access to the Lincoln Tunnel, even though all four stretches of road were miles from the crossing into Manhattan.

[Laxman]

2. That's Our Governor....

gimmicks,tricks and underhanded tactics-all designed to protect his image. Unbridled ambition is a dangerous thing.

“

The Port Authority was created in 1921 as an agency whose commissioners would be appointed not by local mayors, but by governors, in the hope that it would take short-term pressures off the agency,” Doig said. “Between 1924 and 1931, the Port Authority finished the Lincoln Tunnel, built the George Washington Bridge, and both the Goethals Bridge and the Outerbridge Crossing to Staten Island, and the Bayonne Bridge. It worked because it was a single coordinated agency with a regional mission.”

The planners who created the Port Authority never foresaw the likes of Chris Christie.

[Historic NY]

4. +1

Gutting the agency will prove to be a nightmare for all who travel in, or into the metro area.

[Beach Rat]

3. Those are two really interesting articles

This is some real esoteric policy wonk stuff but when you get past that its just a different kind of corruption. Its not Christie lining his pockets but its Christie using the resources of government for his own personal advancement.

[Laxman]

5. And Another Thing!

How disingenuous to use this report as a vehicle for this swill. It makes me think that if they could have worked in ending teacher tenure or public pension reform as part of this they would have added that too. The more I think about this report the madder I get.