(VINELAND August 30) – First District Senator Nick Asselta and his Assembly running mates, Norris Clark and Michael Donohue – responding to an analysis of the Governor’s proposal to monetize New Jersey’s toll roads that indicates that tolls on the average motorist would have to rise by 150 percent to pay back the bonds issued by a new state agency – today declared the prospect of such a massive toll hike a “non-starter,” and urged the Governor and his Democratic allies to scrap their plan.

“No wonder the Governor doesn’t want to release his plan to monetize our toll roads – and no wonder Jeff Van Drew is doing everything he can to deny his June 21 vote in support of this plan,” said Asselta. “As we’ve been saying for months, selling, leasing, or monetizing the toll roads would require a massive toll increase – according to this new analysis by a respected asset securitization expert, it would mean a 150 percent tax hike for the average motorist. That’s a non-starter.

“Every public poll taken since the Governor started talking about this scheme has shown overwhelming opposition, and with good reason. People are smart enough to know you can’t sell yourself an asset you already own and walk away with money. It just doesn’t work that way. The Governor and his Democratic allies who already voted to give him a blank check to prepare to sell the toll roads – including Jeff Van Drew and Nelson Albano – should just scrap this outrageous plan and go back to the drawing board.”

“New Jersey is already overtaxed,” added Clark. “Our residents pay the highest property taxes in the nation, and now the Democrats want to foist another massive tax increase on us? The problem we have in Trenton isn’t that we have too little revenue, it’s that we have too much spending. Rather than simply look for more and more creative ways to gauge our taxpayers, the Democrats should be looking instead for ways to eliminate the wasteful spending we’ve all read about.”

I said months ago that selling the toll roads would be costly to everyone,” said Donohue. “We are dependent on the Garden State Parkway and the Atlantic City Expressway – they are true economic lifelines in our part of the state. Raising tolls by 150 percent not only constitutes a massive tax hike on every driver, but will drive up the costs of goods and services delivered to our area. This cockamamie scheme will devastate our local economy and put a further burden on families. This is just one more example of South Jersey getting the short end of the stick – and every Democrat who voted to give the Governor a blank check to prepare to sell our roads will be held accountable on Election Day.”

To read about the study, visit: <a href=”http://www.nj.com/news/expresstimes/nj/index.ssf?/base/news-5/118844940490830.xml&coll=2>Lawyer: Fiscal Plan Takes Heavy Tolls</a>

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Paid for by Asselta Clark Donohue