NJ: Raising Tolls & Keeping the Money for the Public - Unlike Privatization Ripoffs

After discussing the possibility of privatizing major state highways last year, New Jersey Governor John Corzine instead made a proposal earlier this month that called for significant increases in tolls that would provide nearly $30 billion to decrease state debt and invest in state transit projects. Unlike rhetorical promises around privatization money in other states, this plan actually laid out how money would get raised. 

Whatever one thinks about raising tolls as public policy, this is at least an honest proposal. The dirty secret of most privatization proposals is that the reason private companies are willing to pay billions to buy or lease highways is that they then have license to raise tolls massively, but that's not how it's sold to the public.  And the worse part of the deception of the public is that most of the toll increases then don't go back to public investments but instead line the pockets of the private investors. As we noted last year, while Indiana Governor Mitch Daniels boasted about getting $3.8 billion for leasing 157 miles of highway in that state, independent analysts estimated that the companies buying the lease will get to raise tolls and reap an additional $11.4 billion-- money the taxpayers could have kept if the state had raised tolls itself and held onto the roads as New Jersey is proposing.

There is no such thing as a free lunch, despite privatization being sold that way. Companies pay lots of money for privatized highways because they then get to raise tolls themselves and keep the profit, rather than reinvesting on behalf of the public. Gov. Corzine is arguing that New Jersey can raise $30 billion by keeping the increased toll money that other states like Indiana are giving away to private companies.   It's not a free lunch, but at least it's not a deceptive rip-off like the highway privatization scams being promoted around the country.

Research Roundup

Fourteen states face a total budget shortfall of at least $29 billion, with twelve others expecting budget problems, according to a state budget update from the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities. The brief outlines a number of options for those states and cautions against cuts in services that would undermine long-term economic investments and calls for greater federal support as part of an anti-recession package.

Immigration and the Wealth of States, a study by the conservative America's Majority organization, sharply challenges conventional wisdom in finding that states with high numbers of immigrants actually have higher rates of employment, less individual poverty and less crime than states with fewer immigrants. Median per capita income -- is $3,469 greater in the 19 high immigration jurisdictions than in the 32 other states, from 1999-to-2006, unemployment declined in the high immigration states, while increasing nationwide in 2006, and the total crime rate per 100,000 residents was lower in the high immigration jurisdictions than in the 32 other states.

States are facing increasing attacks on their ability to protect their citizens from corporate abuse, not just from the lawbreaking corporations themselves but from federal policy that preempts state law, a phenomena the Drum Major Institute analyzes in its new report, A Pro-Civil Justice Presidential Platform

The U.S. government's response to Hurricane Katrina not only was appalling-- it's actually violated internationally recognized human rights principles in its treatment of its citizens displaced by the tragedy, as a new report by the Institute for Southern Studies documents.  Not only did the government fall short during the tragedy, their continuing failures led to tens of thousands of residents being permanently displaced because of the lack of help owned them under those international obligations.

The Center for Law and Social Policy (CLASP) has outlined a new policy framework for Charting Progress for Babies in Child Care and an analysis of results from Early Head Start programs working with younger children.   The studies all emphasize the need for broad help for families beyond the time when kids are formally in early child care situations.

People are living longer-- but much more so if they are rich, as the Economic Policy Institute shows in a new brief, since the "longevity gap" between the rich and poor is growing.  Where a male in the top half of earnings only lived 1.2 years longer than a man in the bottom half back in 1972, those in the richer half of the population were living 5.8 years longer by 2001.

In its first release from its 2007 Unheard Third Survey, the Community Service Society finds that low-income New Yorks are struggling to get health care, as employers drop coverage.  Most support health care for all residents, regardless of immigration status.

Please email us leads on good research at research@progressivestates.org

3 Steps Forward

1. NM: Gov. Richardson eyes universal coverage goal as he prepares 2007 legislative agenda

2. SC: Lawmakers to Consider Public Smoking Ban and Increase in Nation's Lowest Cigarette Tax

3. IA: Culver wants more children covered by health insurance

2 Steps Back

1. MD: Immigrant driver ID rejected by O'Malley 

2. WV: Top jurist under fire in W. Va. coal case for favoring vacation partner

Masthead

The Stateside Dispatch is written and edited by:

Nathan Newman, Policy Director
J. Mijin Cha, Policy Specialist
Adam Thompson, Policy Specialist
John Bacino, Communications Associate

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