On Q2 who is Spadea, Guadagno, Peterson listening to?

The "no camp" on Ballot Question 2 is a coalition that's more like a collection of misfits from Dr. Moreau's island of the damned.  You have everything from warmed-over Holocaust deniers, to Tea Partiers who claim that the Roman Catholic Pope is the anti-Christ, to Alt-Right "Red Shirts", to eccentric neo-Marxists without a party to call home. 

The latter includes a far-left couple from Essex County who have had a rather problematic relationship with local Democrats there and who now find their views embraced by alt-rightists like "Red Shirt" leader Bill Spadea.

Last week, Bill Spadea had leftwing Democrat Peter Humphreys on his show to explain why he and Spadea are opposing Ballot Question 2.  Spadea described Humphreys, who is a lawyer, as a "financial expert".

Here's the deal.  If you want to know where a person is coming from, follow the money.  Where does Humphreys put his money when he donates to candidates for public office?  Well, the answer is simple:  Left-liberal Democrats.

What kind of Democrats?  Humphreys and his wife have contributed to John Kerry for President, Barack Obama for President, Obama-Biden, Hillary Clinton for President, Robert Menendez for Senate, Frank Lautenberg for Senate, Linda Stender for Congress, Donald Payne for Congress, the New Jersey Democratic State Committee... need we go on?

This is who Bill Spadea gets his "expert" financial advice from  on policy questions, such as Ballot Question 2.  And not only Spadea, but more mainstream characters like Lt. Governor Kim Guadagno and Assemblyman Erik Peterson are ever eager to lap up the swill put out by these career lefties. 

Spadea, Guadagno, and Peterson are ignoring the words of real experts, like the Reason Foundation’s Baruch Feigenbaum, who studies transportation policy for a living.  Speaking of the TTF deal, Professor Feigenbaum said:  “The best change the bill made was introducing an amendment to constitutionally guarantee that all gas tax revenue funds transportation purposes ONLY.  In the past the Christie administration has used gas tax revenue to balance the general budget. This is a violation of the users-pay/users-benefit trust fund that transportation policy is based on and should NEVER occur.  New Jersey residents are strongly encouraged to vote for the amendment (Ballot Question 2).”

Did it never occur to anyone that the reason left-liberals like Humphreys want Ballot Question 2 to fail is so they can use the revenue from the gas tax for the kinds of social programs they think are important -- like more money for Planned Parenthood, COAH housing, gun buy-back programs, needle-exchange programs, and such?  Lt. Governor Guadagno is an openly avowed liberal on social issues, but it's a surprise to find her wanting to turn over the money from the gas tax to the whims of the Democrat legislative majority in Trenton.

While it may be expected for some of the more freakish characters who have emerged from this debate to act out as baboons would -- to see mainstream Republicans, chased in circles by fear, agree to articulate their pursuers' demands, is something new.  Again it's Guadagno, having rejected Trump while embracing the Big Lies of the Alt-Right, who is the most notable headshake here.

The "no camp" on Ballot Question 2 has argued their case with as much energy and common sense as this fellow has:

Come Wednesday, November 9th, if the Democrat majority has the power to spend the gas tax money on left-liberal programs that have nothing to do with transportation, we will have the likes of Guadagno and Peterson to blame.

Reason Study author says gas tax must go up

We've all heard about the Reason Foundation study that claimed New Jersey had the most expensive roads in America.  The Reason study was controversial and other studies refuted it -- such as the one coming out of Rutgers University's Voorhees Transportation Center.

Some politicians seized upon the Reason study to argue that cost-cutting efficiencies should be put in place before any more money went to repair and maintain the state's roads and bridges.  We wonder if they would feel the same about the grossly mismanaged Veterans Administration -- close all those hospitals and services and dump the wounded out on the streets until the VA operates more efficiently. 

Others claimed that they could fund the entire Transportation Trust Fund (TTF) with savings from efficiencies and cost-cutting.  No numbers were produced to support this, but in testimony, Barauch Feigenbaum (Reason's Assistant Director of Policy) offered some excellent recommendations as to the areas in which significant savings could be achieved. 

The lamentable fact is that not since 1990 has the state's user tax on gasoline and diesel produced enough revenue to cover the cost to maintain the state's transportation system.  That year the gas tax collected $404.9 million to fund a $365 million transportation program.  The tax on gasoline and diesel hasn't gone up for 28 years, hasn't even kept up with inflation, leading to more and more being borrowed to pay for road and bridge maintenance and repair.  Today the cost of the debt service alone exceeds $1.1 billion.  In contrast, the gas tax collected just a bit more than $750 million in 2015. 

No wonder the author of the Reason study, David Hartgen (Emeritus Professor of Transportation Studies at UNC Charlotte), recently told New Jersey media that there was no way around the revenue problem the now-bankrupt TTF faces: 

Even as some say his report proves that New Jersey must cut costs before hiking the gas tax, Hartgen says the opposite may be true. The transportation trust fund is now $30 billion in debt. Without new revenue from the gas tax or some other source, it cannot spend any money on new construction. 

“I don’t think budget cuts will work,” Hartgen said. “They need to look at the gas tax.”