Report Disputes Christie’s Basis for Halting Tunnel
Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey exaggerated when he declared that unforeseen costs to the state were forcing him to cancel the new train tunnel planned to relieve congested routes across the Hudson River, according to a long-awaited report by independent Congressional investigators.
The report by the Government Accountability Office, to be released this week, found that while Mr. Christie said that state transportation officials had revised cost estimates for the tunnel to at least $11 billion and potentially more than $14 billion, the range of estimates had in fact remained unchanged in the two years before he announced in 2010 that he was shutting down the project. And state transportation officials, the report says, had said the cost would be no more than $10 billion.
Mr. Christie also misstated New Jersey’s share of the costs: he said the state would pay 70 percent of the project; the report found that New Jersey was paying 14.4 percent. (Um, LIAR!!!!!) And while the governor said that an agreement with the federal government would require the state to pay all cost overruns, the report found that there was no final agreement, and that the federal government had made several offers to share those costs.
Canceling the tunnel, then the largest public works project in the nation, helped shape Mr. Christie’s profile as a rising Republican star, an enforcer of fiscal discipline in a country drunk on debt. But the report is likely to revive criticism that his decision, which he said was about “hard choices” in tough economic times, was more about avoiding the need to raise the state’s gasoline tax, which would have violated a campaign promise. The governor subsequently steered $4 billion earmarked for the tunnel to the state’s near-bankrupt transportation trust fund, traditionally financed by the gasoline tax.
Before Mr. Christie declared the tunnel dead, his transportation advisers told state legislators that they had discussed taking money from the project to fill the transportation trust fund, which was almost empty.
Since then, the governor has steered $4 billion in tunnel money to the trust fund, avoiding an increase in the state’s gasoline tax, the second lowest in the nation.
Conks being Conks. Never mind infrastructure, just think of your political future...and where that next Coney Dog is coming from. That fat fvck.
"And, let's hear it for the pizza delivery guy! Fvcking FINALLY!" Jesus, get your skinny UD-graduatin' ass over here!
How much exponentially more did it cost the US taxpayers than they originally projected it would? This would have been the same thing. Typical donk response is to raise taxes to pay for more big govt boondoggles. Well those who don't learn from history are bound to repeat it. Bravo to Christie for saving the taxpayers, be they NJ or from the entire country, tens of billions. 
so much for less government spending.
