The Day of Reckoning Fast Approaches in New Jersey

New Jersey residents are about to feel the cold sting of a strike by NJ Transit rail workers. They've been without a contract for years and the matter has gone to federal mediators, who have ruled multiple times in favor of the unions:

Several union representatives and elected officials speaking at the rally urged state leaders to accept recommendations from a Presidential Emergency Board, which sided with the unions. NJ Transit officials rejected those recommendations.

At least one of the remaining sticking points surrounds health benefits, with the unions offering to pay 2.5 percent of their straight time salary for health benefits.

NJ Transit wants employees to pay 10 to 20 percent of premiums, depending on which plan they're covered by.

Transit and rail union officials sat down Friday with federal mediators National Mediation Board in Washington, D.C., where the two sides discussed a new offer from the agency to avert a March 13 strike or lockout.

While the two sides failed to reach a settlement, a release from the National Mediation Board said the discussions were "positive and constructive."

Asked if an agreement is in the offing, coalition spokesman Stephen Burkert declined to discuss details.

"We're closer now than we were months ago," Burkert said following the rally. "We want to settle this, and we want to do it at the bargaining table."

The two sides will meet again Monday in Newark in hope of hammering out a final settlement, Burkett said.

So far, Governor Chris Christie, fresh off kissing Donald Trump's ass in the GOP primaries after dropping out of the race himself because he couldn't generate any traction despite spending more time in New Hampshire than New Jersey, has been uncharacteristically silent about this major issue facing the state.

It could be that Christie doesn't know what NJ Transit is, or that it is a major economic engine for the state. Or, he doesn't know how to deal with the problem. Either way, he's been MIA on transit issues and his GOP allies in the state legislature seem more interested in slashing or abolishing the estate tax than they are making sure that the transportation trust fund and pension fund obligations are met.

Let's also point out that NJ has not raised the motor fuels tax in a generation, while NJ Transit riders have faced repeated increases in fares over the past decade because the state continues to reduce its support for transit. New Jersey is one of the states most heavily dependent on mass transit, and the cuts and fare hikes have combined to leave the agency without wiggle room to deal with contract matters with its employees.

To help close an $80 million budget gap, NJ Transit has proposed to increase its fares an average of 9 percent, effective Oct. 1, 2015. This would be the first fare increase in five years; the last fare increase averaged 22 percent. As part of this proposal, some bus and train service would also be reduced. Meanwhile, the state’s gas taxes, already among the lowest in the nation, have not been raised since 1988.

The motor fuel tax now purchases less than it did a generation ago, so there's even less money to go around.

These workers deserve pay raises and it shouldn't be shouldered entirely by the commuters.

Frankly, there's no easy answers here - but it starts with refocusing attention on how the state budgets transit. Gov. Christie went ahead and pulled money from the Port Authority to rebuild the Pulaski Skyway in a decision that the federal SEC is investigating as a potential violation of bonding with the Port Authority. That's because the state didn't have any money in the trust fund to pay for the work. All across the state, bridges and other infrastructure is crumbling, and there's no money to do all the work.

This affects the ability of residents to get around the state, and affects public safety. After all, we shouldn't have to live in fear of concrete falling off bridges, bridge abutments collapsing, or structures failing entirely. And mass transit is one way in which more people can get around the state reducing congestion and traffic. Gov. Christie has long shown disdain for mass transit and these problems are coming home to roost.

Far from showing leadership, Gov. Christie is all but abdicating his leadership role and instead focused on how his choices can best suit his political future. That's no way to run the state, and it shows.

If this strike or lockout occurs, there is simply no way for hundreds of thousands of workers to get into the City. There isn't any capacity available to add buses to cover all the displaced workers. We're talking about gridlock, lost productivity both in New Jersey and in neighboring New York. Telecommuting is the only option for those fortunate enough to have it, but for those who work in fields where they have to be there in person, this will have serious financial consequences to them, their families, and their employers.

In plain English, the NJ Transit strike contingency plan is a bunch of wishful thinking and prayers, much like their asinine plan in place before Hurricane Sandy struck and severely damaged NJ Transit's rail operations for months.

Moreover, the strike would also cripple freight movement throughout the state since NJ Transit controls tracks used by freight lines and the freight wouldn't be able to move. This would have a devastating effect across the state.

Christie Administration Now Probed on Port Authority Funding of Pulaski Skyway Rehab

Media outlets continue reporting that Gov. Chris Christie and his administration is being investigated for how the Port Authority funded the Pulaski Skyway rehabilitation project.

New Jersey got the Port Authority to shift funds originally meant for the ARC tunnel to go to rebuild the Pulaski Skyway. That happened when Gov. Christie cancelled the ARC project in 2010, and it's a decision I agreed with because NJ Transit could never keep to a capital budget and New York was not contributing to a project that would benefit immensely from the added tunnels, as well as the fact that the project design was flawed with no through-running trains to Sunnyside Yards for maximizing train access into Manhattan during the morning rush hour and additional trains for the PM rush back to New Jersey.

The Pulaski Skyway was one of the first superhighways designed and opened in 1932. It connected Newark to Jersey City across the Hackensack River and Meadowlands, along with providing direct access to the Holland Tunnel. The bridge was determined to need massive rehabilitation, particularly after the collapse of the bridge in Minnesota a few years back.

The rehabilitation project is indeed a worthy and needed project, but New Jersey didn’t want to raise its own taxes or fees to cover it. That would have put Gov. Christie in a tough position had he wanted to run for President. So, it appears that Gov. Christie and his appointees at the Port Authority got the Port Authority to issue a ruling that the Skyway was an access road to the Lincoln Tunnel, which would be a valid use of Port Authority funds. But the reality is that it’s a stretch to call it a Lincoln Tunnel access road since it directly leads to the Holland.

This has consequences for the bond offerings by the Port Authority since it would be a material misrepresentation of what the bond offerings were for.

Now, a complicating factor is that the Port Authority doesn’t answer to Christie alone. It’s a bistate agency and New York Governor Andrew Cuomo would ordinarily need to sign off on the deal through his representatives on the Board.

Bridgegate showed how the system inside the Port Authority has completely broken down and how New York's appointees on the authority were outside the loop for the GWB lane closures. Is it possible they’re outside the loop on the Skyway funding deal?

I consider that possible but highly implausible because all the major news outlets reported on how Port Authority funds were going to be reallocated to do the Pulaski project. That would seemingly implicate Cuomo as well. These issues should have been raised back then and there were questions about how the money was reallocated, though no one appeared to have raised the question about whether the reallocation was legal from a securities offering perspective.

How wouldn’t it implicate Cuomo? If the New Jersey cronies were the ones who ginned up the legal authority to shift the funds, ignoring other counsel, then the prosecutors might be able to isolate the culpability for the deal to Christie and his allies inside the Port Authority.

Frankly, the way Gov. Cuomo has screwed with regional transit and played games with MTA funding, I wouldn't be shocked if both were involved in these actions and that there was a quid pro quo for the Port Authority to spend a similar amount of funds on New York based projects.

Time To Fix New Jersey's Broken Transportation Policy

Gov. Chris Christie refuses to fix the state's chronically underfunded transportation system out of the state's own revenues. This includes roads, bridges, transit, and rail systems. Rather than increase the state's low motor fuel taxes and risk the ire of Republicans who would complain about the tax hike, he's used his sway at the Port Authority to use money originally tasked to building a new rail tunnel into Manhattan to fix several bridges that aren't part of the Port Authority's mission, including the historic Pulaski Skyway.

Fixing those bridges were overdue, but it means that funds that should have gone to expanding the state's crumbling infrastructure were instead devoted to projects that should have been covered by the state's transportation trust fund but for the fact that the fund is essentially bankrupt with no relief in sight.

Christie orchestrated a fare and toll hike at the Port Authority and then turned around to use some of those funds to go and fix the Pulaski Skyway, Wittpenn Bridge, and several other roads that are considered approaches to the Holland Tunnel, even though they are miles from the facility itself.

That's why New Jersey residents need to take matters into their own hands. If Gov. Christie wont increase the motor fuel tax or raise revenues to dedicate to transportation matters in the state, then voters need to petition to amend the state constitution to raise the needed revenue for dedicated purposes.

By fixing the state's own revenue situation, it can help get the Port Authority to refocus on the bistate projects it was designed to do. It would free up revenues to maintain and expand its facilities, including the Port Authority Bus Terminal, contemplate assisting in the construction of the Gateway Tunnel to double capacity on the Northeast Corridor, and expand PATH to Newark Airport while keeping its infrastructure in a state of good repair.

Currently, New Jersey imposes a 10.5 cent per gallon gasoline tax and 13.5 cent per gallon diesel fuel tax. It's a rate that is unchanged since 1989, and the purchasing power has seriously eroded. Together, they generate about $540 million annually. This amount has actually fallen in recent years because of declining driving and increased fuel economy.

If we assume that drivers will maintain their current amount of driving, a tax increase of $.10 per gallon on each of the gasoline and diesel tax would potentially raise about $500 million annually. It would not only replenish the transportation trust fund, but it would enable the state to fund sorely needed road and rail projects without resorting to deficit funding, fiscal gimmicks, and raiding the Port Authority to do projects.

To this end, voters should consider the following ballot question:

Constitutional amendment to set a state minimum wage with annual cost of living increases.
Do you approve amending the State Constitution to set a state motor fuel tax equal to 20.5 cents per gallon for gasoline and 23.5 cents per gallon for diesel and other motor fuels. The amendment also requires bi-annual increases in that rate if there are annual increases in the cost of living.
Yes
No

The interpretive statement would run something along the lines of:
This amendment to the State Constitution sets the State gasoline and motor fuel taxes at a level sufficient to fund state transportation projects. Half the funds would be dedicated to road, bridge, and tunnel projects across the state, while the other half of the funds would be devoted to supporting mass transit projects, including NJ Transit operations that have the effect of reducing motor vehicle usage, congestion, and pollution statewide. The level of the tax would be adjusted every other year to account for cost of living adjustments.

Residents know that the state's roads, bridges, and tunnels, are a mess, but Gov. Christie refuses to take the necessary actions to improve the structural problems with how the state funds its transportation and infrastructure budgets. Putting the question to voters would go a long way to fixing the problems.

For those concerned that the tax would be an economic hit, one should also count the economic harm done by having a crumbling infrastructure, where roads and bridges can no longer handle modern traffic loads, road damage to vehicles costs drivers hundreds, if not thousands of dollars in damage, and the state can't address its backlog of critical projects that need adequate funding.

The tax increase proposed would still mean that motor fuel purchased in New Jersey is cheaper than those of all the neighboring states by a wide margin. Including federal tax of 18.4 cents, New Jersey regular fuel costs motorists 33 cents a gallon in taxes overall. In Pennsylvania, it’s about 60 cents, and in New York nearly 70 cents, the group says. The 10 cent hike would still mean that New Jersey drivers would pay nearly 30 cents less per gallon than New York and 17 cents less than Pennsylvania.

Obamacare Rolls Out Even As GOP Seeks Defund/Delay/Destroy Poison Pill Provisions In Budget and Debt Ceiling Talks

Yesterday marked the beginning of the Affordable Care Act's (ACA) health exchange rollout. While some refer to this as Obamacare with derision (and there are polls that indicate that people have a much more favorable view of the term ACA than Obamacare even though they refer to the same program/law), the purpose of the law is to provide access to affordable health insurance for more than 20 to 30 million people.

The rollout yesterday was not without its hiccups. Some people were met with overloaded servers so that they couldn't complete the registration, and there were some bugs in the process.

That is to be expected with any rollout of any major software/website. It shouldn't be a surprise given how the Republicans have sought to defund, delay, and destroy the ACA at every opportunity.

They've attempted to repeal the ACA more than 40 times in the House alone.

Years of litigation over the constitutionality of the law was concluded with a landmark decision that found the central provision, the individual mandate, constitutional. The GOP claimed that this was unconstitutional, even though the GOP and the Heritage Foundation had made the individual mandate a central part of their alternative plan to Hillarycare when that proposal was rolled out in the early 1990s. Republican Mitt Romney made the individual mandate part of the MassCare program.

But, the moment that the Obama Administration made it a central tenet of the ACA, the GOP savaged it as an affront to personal liberty. We'd have to have collective amnesia to follow the Republican argument and logic. We'd have to ignore that the ACA is modeled on the very successful MassCare, which has reduced the number of uninsureds in Massachusetts by expanding access to affordable health insurance.

Then, we get to the claims by the Tea Party extortionists who think that this is some form of socialism or worse.

The government created health exchanges where private insurance companies offer policies that include minimum levels of coverage that protect against catastrophic health costs to the individual that would otherwise bankrupt them or deny them further insurance. Insurance companies were instrumental in shaping the law, which is why the taxes and fees imposed by the act were written the way they were. Insurers wanted to be part of this - and they're going to be key facilitator to the Obamacare's success. Obamacare created an entirely new market that didn't exist before. That's a market capitalism failure. Obamacare sets up a situation where insurers can profit from millions of new insureds and their premiums (including the subsidies that help those who are eligible afford the insurance).

At the same time, insurance companies can no longer deny policies due to preexisting conditions or include lifetime limits. That's key to millions of people across the country who have had diagnoses for mental health issues, cancer, and other chronic conditions. Someone who was diagnosed with cancer as a child or young adult will no longer be denied insurance because of their cancer diagnosis. Someone who was diagnosed with lung or kidney disease that needs ongoing care will no longer be denied insurance.

People who are under the age of 26 can still be covered on their parents' insurance. That eliminates a period of time when many are in college and allow their insurance coverage to lapse (before the ACA, many insurers didn't allow dependents to stay on parents' insurance beyond age 21).

People with small businesses can now find insurance for themselves or their employees because the purchasing power of the exchanges helps reduce the costs to them.

And for those who think insurance costs are going up solely because of ACA have amnesia because health costs have been soaring for years (and this chart goes back decades). This isn't a new trend that began suddenly in 2009. It has been going on for decades as the cost of health care outraced the rate of inflation.

With this as the backdrop, the Tea Party extremists and the GOP have conspired to shut down the government with the extortionist demand that Democrats defund, delay, and ultimately destroy Obamacare in exchange for a short continuing resolution that allows government to continue operating. Thus far, Democrats have been resolute in defeating the GOP efforts, and some in the GOP are realizing that this is a losing hand and that they've screwed themselves and the nation of an opportunity to actually reform some of the problems with the ACA. The GOP's extremism in seeking defunding, delaying, or destroying Obamacare puts Democrats in position of having to defend the entirety of the program. They're willing to do this, even as some parts of the program should be further reformed. But a better situation than before the ACA is not the opposite of the perfect. The GOP claims that ACA needs to be repealed ignores the fact that the health insurance situation in the nation was a disaster and bleeding hospitals dry for indigent care.

Some Republicans are beginning to realize the damage being done to their party. This includes Rep. Peter King, who announced he was running for President, but also suggested that the government shutdown is the result of a cadre of extremists in his party who refuse to view the President as legitimate and are looking to roll back every single one of the President's achievements. They're willing to burn the government to the ground to achieve their ends.

The government shutdown is a minor trifle compared to the fact that the same Republican extremists are pushing poison pill provisions into the debt ceiling argument. They refuse to accept anything less than a defund/delay/destroy Obamacare for raising the debt ceiling, despite the fact that this Congress has already appropriated the funds. It is an incontrovertible fact that granting the hike does not authorize any new spending and failing to grant it does not cut spending.

These facts, and the fact that the polling doesn't favor the GOP, doesn't faze the Tea Party extortionists who think that if they take this to what they think is the logical conclusion that the Democrats will cave and they'll get the delay they seek. The polling suggests otherwise, but the GOP and its leadership are unwilling to confront the Tea Party cadre and put down this nonsense once and for all. In fact, expect the extremists to take the brutal punishment they're getting in newspaper opeds and editorials today as a badge of honor in rattling the mainstream media's cage.

However, House Speaker John Boehner can't or wont take those sensible measures because the Tea Party threatens to primary anyone who isn't sufficiently conservative enough. These extremists think that if only they have enough pure conservatives that they can succeed in taking down President Obama and his signature achievement in health care reform. Heck, there are reports that the Speaker wont allow a clean CR to come up for a vote because of the fear it might pass. That would effectively put Boehner in the extremist camp because he's catering to the very extremists who are shutting down the government.

Yet, he might be pushing this now, because if the debt ceiling isn't increased, it will result in damage that both sides acknowledge - a loss in credit ratings, increased borrowing costs, and tremendous damage to the US economy.

After all, if the leadership in the House drops the Hastert Rule, a bipartisan continuing resolution to fund government would happen today. If they adopt the Gephardt Rule, the nonsensical debt ceiling negotiations would be an afterthought since the budget appropriations process would allow for a concurrent increase in the debt ceiling to cover the contingency of the government spending more than it takes in revenue. In doing both, Speaker Boehner would marginalize the tyranny of the minority TP Extortionist camp, allow Congress to focus on the business of governance, and signal that the TP movement is nothing more than a bunch of nihlists who are willing to torch government in furtherance of a goal of denying access to health insurance for millions of people.

Cross posted at LGF. (Edited to add more link attributions to buttress the argument)

Gov. Cuomo Sets Course For Reelection Campaign With Tax Cut Gambit

Gov. Andrew Cuomo is hoping to win over some voters upstate with a plan that would cut somewhere from $2 to $3 billion in New York State taxes and fees.

In a surprising announcement scheduled for Wednesday morning, Cuomo will appoint former Gov. George Pataki and former Democratic state Controller Carl McCall to head a task force charged with finding ways to cut between $2 billion and $3 billion in taxes next year, a source with ties to McCall said Tuesday night.

Cuomo wants to announce an aggressive tax-cutting plan as he heads into his reelection run next year.

On the face, this makes perfect sense. New York has a reputation as a high tax state, but when you look under the hood, the tax cuts would do New Yorkers a tremendous disservice. There are several high profile projects around the state that are in dire need of funding, and some or all of the money to be cut would go a long way to funding those projects.

I'm talking about critical infrastructure improvements.

In New York City alone, there's Phase 2 of the Second Avenue Subway that needs to be funded so that the East Side of Manhattan commuters get relief beyond a stub line. Throw in bridge repairs and infrastructure improvements in the wake of Hurricane Sandy, and there's a pretty long list.

Then, there's Gov. Cuomo's pet project - the Tappan Zee Bridge replacement. It's waiting on confirmation of a federal loan program to fund the project, and the state has already borrowed nearly a billion dollars to get the project off the ground.

Upstate infrastructure needs significant investments, including sewer and water treatment facility upgrades, road rebuilding, and bridge repair or replacement.

Instead of cutting these revenue sources altogether, redirect some or all to fund infrastructure projects that will help modernize the state's crumbling infrastructure and to protect its residents from the effects from tropical storms and hurricanes.

Crumbling Infrastructure Watch

This morning, New Jersey commuters trying to get to the Holland Tunnel found themselves navigating a maze of detours and major delays as a key route was shuttered.

The emergency closure was the result of concrete falling from the covered roadway on Route 139 which is one of two major highways leading to the tunnel. Emergency repairs are underway, but the fact is that the roadway needs significant repairs. Replacement of the structure is more than needed as concrete continues to fall away from overhead.

Failing to invest in basic maintenance and upkeep plays a role in this. Heavy traffic pounds on these structures on a daily basis forming cracks that allow water to seep into the structures and begin the process of separating concrete from the reinforcing steel.

The closure in New Jersey is just the latest in a string of infrastructure failures across the state. Water main failures are a common occurrence and one that wastes a key resource and disrupts business in the affected areas. Water utilities and municipalities that manage their own water supplies are also failing to maintain their infrastructure - repairing emergency water main breaks rather than proactively replacing the oldest sections of mains and sewers to upgrade the system.

Heck, Newark has hundreds of fire hydrants that are inoperable because they lack sufficient water pressure or are otherwise damaged in some fashion. That affects public safety and yet there's an insufficient budget to address the concerns.

Far too many people want to see low taxes but ignore that the costs for maintaining an aging infrastructure have grown exponentially requires a growing budget to address those needs.

In New York City, the mayoral race has given little more than lip service to infrastructure and mass transit, which are keys to economic development and community vitality. The City has failed to restore funding to the MTA to help fund capital construction programs and has forced the agency to borrow to make ends meet. That has to change, or else the agency will find itself managing a system that increasingly is falling behind its attempts to get the system into a state of good repair. Hurricane Sandy exposed significant problems with the infrastructure, and not enough effort has gone in to make sure that the lessons are learned and applied to the system.

The Infrastructure Mess

Infrastructure and public safety once again come to the forefront with the collapse of the I5 Bridge in WA. It's looking like investigators are focusing on a truck that passed through the area shortly before the accident and whether it struck the overhead supports, knocking the span out of alignment. That would take quite a bit of force, unless other issues were at play (including corrosion and a lack of redundancy in structural support).

Time will tell what happened, but thankfully no one was killed in this collapse.

It's a reminder that we are spending far too little on maintaining and upgrading existing infrastructure. The amount we as a nation are spending on infrastructure has fallen to levels not before seen as a percentage of GNP over the past twenty years after peaking during the Stimulus period. We are spending far less in both real dollars and as a percent of GNP than other developed countries, despite critical areas that are not getting support.

Moreover, we're not getting out money's worth (bang for the buck) based on the costs compared to similar projects overseas. Two of the biggest projects are the East Side Access and 2d Avenue Subway lines. Both will improve access to NYC and reduce congestion by carrying hundreds of thousands of commuters each day, but for the cost of the first segment of the 2d Avenue line, several countries in Europe have been able to build out entire subway lines. The NYC subway system is the oldest in the country and essentially operates 24/7/365 with no lines shut down overnight as some of its counterparts elsewhere do. That's beginning the change with the FasTrak service to get repairs done faster and cheaper, but trying to add capacity to an already built-out system in a densely populated area is costly.

Yet, there's room to grow. There's a proposal floating around to get the outer boroughs connected using underutilized rights of way that the MTA doesn't currently use. The Triboro TX would loop through Brooklyn, Queens and Bronx, and link up lines so that commuters don't have to cross into Manhattan to get to their destinations. It makes tremendous sense, and could relieve congestion through Manhattan and wouldn't cost nearly as much as a new subway through Manhattan, except that the MTA doesn't have room in its capital budget to do it - and the lack of political will to get it done either. NIMBYs have been trying to get some of that turned into park, rather than revert to subways that would increase property values of neighborhoods along the routes and prospective station locations. Turnover at the top of the MTA isn't helping either.

But it still comes back to costs for infrastructure. We want it. We need it. It's indispensable, and yet we refuse to pay for it and politicians aren't going to do anything when they can't do ribbon cuttings (so basic maintenance gets shafted).

But big projects like bridges, tunnels, subways, and mass transit are just the tip of the iceberg on infrastructure and public safety.

In light of the tornado that destroyed the town of Moore outside Oklahoma City, there are some calls to require construction of storm shelters and storm cellars in new buildings and retrofit existing structures.

The Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin is refusing to support a mandate that would require storm celler/shelter construction in new or existing structures. It's absolutely mind-boggling.

Despite the life-saving potential of personal storm shelters, the cost remains a deterrent. So, too, does a general resistance to government mandates in politically conservative states such as Oklahoma, where tornadoes are most prevalent. Even the director of an association of storm shelter manufacturers, based in Texas, is opposed to a storm shelter mandate for new homes.

"Any time a governmental entity says 'thou shalt' and tries to take an individual decision into the public domain, it's going to get pushback, and you're also going to raise the cost of things," said Ernst Kiesling, executive director of the National Storm Shelter Association and a retired civil engineering professor Texas Tech University.

The science of storm shelters has advanced considerably since Dorothy failed to make it to the tornado cellar at Aunty Em's Kansas farm in the 1938 movie the Wizard of Oz. Some shelters still are dug underground in the backyard. But they are increasingly made with specially fabricated concrete and steel doors to meet Federal Emergency Management Agency specifications. And they aren't necessarily underground. In some cases, closets or bathrooms are being fortified to double as "safe rooms" that can withstand furious winds even if the rest of the house is blown away.

In 2011, Oklahoma announced the SoonerSafe incentive program, offering federally financed rebates of up to $2,000 to residents who install storm shelters. The state uses a lottery-style drawing to select rebate winners from among the thousands of online applications. Sherry Wells said she won this year. She and her husband decided to get the biggest shelter available- a vault-like box with wooden benches - at a cost of $4,800. The project was so freshly finished that the Wells hadn't even submitted their rebate forms when the tornado hit on Monday.

"If it wasn't for the hand of God and the cellar, we wouldn't be here," Wells said as she sorted through the rubble of her home Thursday.

A little over 3,000 residential storm shelters are registered in Moore, a city of about 56,000, said community development director Elizabeth Jones.

Moore Mayor Glenn Lewis wants to propose a city ordinance requiring all new homes to have storm shelters. But realistically, he said, city officials may be able to require them only in new assisted living facilities and apartment complexes because of cost concerns. Contractors will be part of the conversation with the City Council to see whether a broader requirement is possible, Lewis said.

"We want to be competitive," he said. "We don't want to price them out of the market."

Asked at a news conference if a similar mandate might be considered statewide, Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin quickly shot down the suggestion.

Their primary concern is cost.

It would cost anywhere from $3,000 to $5,000 to integrate a storm room into a new build. That is the difference between life and death. In fact, one family who won a lottery to get a rebate for a storm shelter survived the Moore tornado just weeks after finishing the work but before they were able to submit the rebate paperwork. That family is alive because of the storm shelter.

The cost definitely works in favor of installing and mandating the shelters, as compared to the funeral costs for those folks who were killed.

This isn't about a lack of money. It's about lacking the will to make it happen and adjusting priorities to focus on public safety and well being. The state of Oklahoma, along with the other Tornado Alley states have no statewide requirements for requiring storm shelters in new buildings, let alone retrofitting them into existing structures. The costs can be depreciated and spread out over the life of the structure, and moreover, the costs can be absorbed simply by reducing the square footage of a private residence with the structure built in by 30-50 square feet.

MTA To Revisit Issue of Platform Screen Doors

Every time we hear someone has been pushed on to the tracks at a station or has been run over by a train, the issue of platform screen doors (PSDs) comes up. These PSDs would prevent someone from falling on to the tracks - either accidentally, or on purpose.

The MTA has been resistant to considering them, primarily because of the immense cost of retrofitting the systems to all 468 stations in the system.

In fact, they weren't being considered for the new stations being built as part of the 7 line extension or the 2d Avenue subway. For those stations, it was estimated that the platform screen doors would add about $1.5 million per platform side.

Up to now, the MTA has resisted the idea of PSDs, but after two homicides in the past week involving people being thrown on to the tracks, the idea is being revisited.

I think it's an issue worth revisiting.

Not only can these doors prevent the senseless deaths due to being shoved on to the tracks, but they can also improve subway efficiency by reducing the amount of trash that collects on the tracks - reducing the chances for track fires, vermin that are attracted to trash, and can improve the air quality on underground platforms.

But that all runs headlong into cost.

It would likely cost $2 billion or more to retrofit the entire system.

That's money the MTA doesn't have and can't even begin to address because of the need to complete repairs due to Hurricane Sandy.

But it is something that should be considered for high volume stations, and stations as they are renovated and rebuilt.

Governor's Demanded Audit of Port Authority Finds Need For Toll Hikes

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey recently underwent an outside audit as required by Governors Chris Christie and Andrew Cuomo. They did so because of the fallout over a major toll and fare increase that went into effect earlier this year and follow-on hikes set for the next three Decembers as well as complaints that the agency was diverting funds for transportation projects to finish the World Trade Center project.

The audit report, prepared by the consulting firms Navigant Consulting Inc. and Rothschild Inc., finds that the Port Authority must raise tolls in order to maintain its credit rating and carry out infrastructure maintenance and upgrades over the next decade.

The report, prepared by the consulting firms Navigant Consulting Inc. and Rothschild Inc., lays out $26.9 billion in projects the Port Authority is poised to undertake through 2020 — everything from replacing the suspender ropes on the George Washington Bridge to raising the Bayonne Bridge and completing the World Trade Center. But it also identified about $44 billion in needs, including fixing aging terminals at Newark Liberty International and La Guardia airports.

To generate enough revenue to finance those projects, the report recommended that the agency attract private corporations to invest in joint projects and pursue aggressive cost-control measures, some of which Port Authority officials said they recently put in place. Port Authority officials said they would also pursue advertising revenue at its facilities to bring in more non-toll and fare money and would also continue to collect money owed by other government agencies and toll cheats.

The report mounted a strong defense of last year’s toll hikes at the agency’s bridges and tunnels, to $9.50 from $8 during peak travel times. They are scheduled to rise an additional 75 cents each December through 2015. Without those increases, the Port Authority would have had to cut $6 billion from its capital plan over the next decade, imperiling critical projects and its credit rating, the report said. Even with the toll hikes, the report said, the agency is losing money on its bridges, tunnels, trains and bus terminals. The report also encouraged the Port Authority to “educate the public” about tolls on some of the New York City-owned bridges linking Manhattan and its boroughs.

The Port Authority is responsible for infrastructure that is in many places approaching 80 years of age or more.

Bridges such as the Goethals and Outerbridge crossing need replacement due to their being functionally obsolete. The Bayonne Bridge must be raised to permit Super Panamax shipping to port facilities.

The George Washington Bridge needs upkeep, including replacing the suspenders that carry the bridge deck weight.

Airport terminals at JFK, LGA, and EWR are 52 years old and contribute to delays and bad customer experiences. The average age for PATH facilities is 72 years, and Port commerce facilities are 57 years old. The increasing age of the facilities means more must be spent to maintain a state of good repair, and that facilities need to be replaced or modernized to maintain competitive advantages over other facilities nationally and around the world.

The full report indicates $3.2 billion in capital construction for airport rehabilitation and improvement projects, focused on Newark Liberty's Terminal A, JFK's Terminal 4 and 5, and LaGuardia's entire terminal infrastructure.

Further, PATH would see another $2 billion in infrastructure projects, including extending rail platforms to accommodate 10-car trains, signal work, and tunnel modernization.

More than $4 billion would be spent on bridge-related projects, though the figure for raising the Bayonne Bridge appears to be 20% higher than the $1 billion costs previously acknowledged for that project. Also, the Goethals Bridge replacement span costs don't appear to show the full cost for that project - which are expected to be financed in a public-private partnership.

The report also indicates a negative free cash flow largely as a result of WTC construction, PATH, Ferry and Port facilities. This situation needs to be addressed all while maintaining the current level of service. At the same time, the bulk of the negative cash flow is the result of WTC construction, which means that the sooner the construction is completed, the sooner that the Port Authority will obtain revenues from WTC related facilities - the office tower rents, retail spaces, and taking construction costs off the books. The ongoing delays in construction have only made the Port Authority's financial situation worse, but it isn't sole reason. The Port's operations incur losses of $28 per container because the revenue stream from tenant rentals is insufficient to cover recurring capital costs, such as dredging and system upgrades. PATH loses about $3 per passenger, which is comparable to other mass transit systems although PATH doesn't get federal subsidies as seen in other mass transit systems.

Aviation facilities are the key generator of Port Authority revenues, with more than $20 in revenue per passenger, while bridges and tunnels generate $7.50 per vehicle.

What's Really Going On With Camden Police Force

NBC News breathlessly highlights that "one of the most dangerous cities in the nation is ditching its police force". That's not exactly the case in Camden, New Jersey.

The city has decided to cut costs by breaking the police union by calling in the Camden County police force to do the job of the formerly local police department. The county force is not unionized and has lower benefits and compensation than the local unionized police force did.

Camden is broke for all intents and purposes. It can't afford to maintain even its current paltry level of services. It has to look for ways to reduce those costs. One of the ways is to cut duplicative services. The county police force has the potential to do the same job as the existing police department - at a fraction of the cost.

Camden city officials have touted the move as necessary to combat the city’s growing financial and safety problems. The entire 267-member police department will be laid off and replaced with a newly reformatted metro division, which is projected to have some 400 members. It will serve only the city of Camden starting in early 2013.

“It’s not a money-saver, it’s living within the budget you’ve got to get more boots on the ground,” Camden County spokesperson Joyce Gabriel told NBC News. “There has been an uptick in violence this year, and the city decided to go with the county’s police department.”

Camden isn’t the first cash-strapped city to be faced with the decision to eliminate or merge its police department.

Bernard Melekian, director of the Justice Department’s Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) office, told NBC News that as communities around the country recover from the recession, police mergers are part of a new reality that will likely continue through the next decade.

San Bernardino, Calif., files for bankruptcy with over $1 billion in debts
“This really reflects a much broader issue, which is that the economy is changing the delivery of police services profoundly,” Melekian said, “and those agencies undergoing regionalization and consolidation – in particular, smaller ones that are financially distressed – are going to have to find another way of delivering those core services.”

Despite Gabriel's comments, it is intended to save the taxpayers money. It's part of a larger effort across New Jersey to work with shared services or to combine municipalities and their services to reduce costs to taxpayers.

And it's not like the Camden police have done a tremendous job in reducing crime in the city. The city's crime rates exceed those of most other areas of New Jersey and are well ahead of national rates. Violent crimes have been increasing while property crime has declined.

The city needs to change how it deals with quality of life and public safety; this may be how it starts. The county police patrolling the city will end up being about 50% larger at a comparable cost to the current force. More manpower on the street means more officers around to patrol city streets and make their presence felt in high crime neighborhoods. If the city further adopts a CompStat system of policing, the new effort may see even more benefits as manpower is more focused on high crime areas and criminals are taken off the streets with greater effectiveness.

Dealing with the costs of policing aren't confined to high crime areas. Here in Bergen County, the fight is whether to merge the Bergen County Police with the Bergen County sheriff's office. Some opposed to the idea claim that it would politicize the functions previously done by the police since the sheriff is an elected official (whose job includes running the county jail). Bergen county is only one of two counties in the state to still have a county police department - in addition to the sheriff and all the local police departments. Those services should be merged, since it would save the county hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in salaries, plus benefits.

NYC and TLC Making Mess of Taxi and Transit Systems

On top of a trial court decision yesterday that claims that the payroll tax used to fund the MTA is invalid, the Taxi and Limousine and New York City are doing their best to screw up the transportation system in the region.

The TLC has been updating the look for the ubiquitous yellow cabs. They've already signed off on a new design that isn't fully ADA compliant - because not every new cab will be required to be accessible.

Now, the TLC has decided to streamline the logos and information provided on the side of the cabs by stripping away all extraneous information.

T is for taxi, and that's good enough for the TLC. The look of the New York City taxi cab is changing again, and no we aren't talking about the Taxi of Tomorrow. Five years after the Taxi & Limousine Commission turned to Smart Design to create a new logo and graphics for NYC cabs they've gone and streamlined their work. We hope you don't like checking the current price of a taxi ride on the door of a cab!

Yup, going forward the fare panel on the side of taxis are no more. After all, we now have Taxi TVs to tell us that information (sigh). Also going away are the last vestiges of the checkered cabs as those black and white checks on the back are going away. Oh, and the word taxi. Yup, now cab doors will simply say NYC T (with the T in a black circle), not NYC Taxi.

"We have no doubt that a yellow car with a roof light with a big T will be understood as a New York City taxicab," TLC chair David Yassky explains. "Even the greenest of greenhorns will know that it’s a taxicab."

The cabs will now have a logo "T" and the cab identifier, but no other information.

They used to have Taxi written out, along with rate information.

Okay, they're trying to play around with branding, and a logo can be branded, but the word taxi can't. If that's part of the plan, then I get that.

But why drop the rate information? At a time when Mayor Mike Bloomberg has been pushing restaurants to include calorie counts on menus, he's allowing a policy that takes relevant information to commuters off the outside of cabs? How is that customer friendly? It's an asinine consideration, and the design team that came up with the plan spent just how much to revise the logos and information? It was a waste of money.

Meanwhile, back to the payroll tax. Ben Kabab highlights the multitude of problems with the ruling invalidating the tax. It is a huge hit to the MTA, which is funded in part from the tax. If it's upheld by the Appellate Division or State Court of Appeals, then the MTA would see a permanent loss of more than a billion dollars annually. That's money that can't be made up without slugging commuters or spreading out the costs to all taxpayers in the form of a new tax.

At the same time, a separate ruling invalidated the Mayor's plan to bring cab service to the outer boroughs. In that instance, the Mayor sought to make the changes in the state legislature rather than go through the City Council. The big problem is once again money. The Mayor bet a billion dollars on revenue raised from the sale of new medallions, and the court decision throws the city budget out of whack.

Taxi medallion owners have an inordinate amount of power to block any changes to the medallion system. They're vested in maximizing the costs of medallions, where the sale of an existing medallion can reach a million dollars or more. Allowing more medallions would dilute the value of existing medallions. The problem is that the medallion owners have the city council in its collective pocket and they've thwarted prior efforts to expand cab service to the outer boroughs where transit service is more spotty. The Mayor sought to change the status quo by going to the legislature, but this is a home rule issue. So, the Mayor has to go back to the drawing board to figure out how to expand service and close the budget hole of his own creation.

While he's at it, he better get on the TLC to make ADA compliance required across all cabs, not just a small fraction. And he could further assist in the transit policy by allowing disabled persons to use ADA-compliant cabs instead of Access-a-Ride buses that are costing the MTA far more than it ever imagined ($500+ million annually and growing). Since most cab rides are for far less than the cost per passenger for Access-a-Ride, a solution can be found here if the mayor, TLC and MTA can hash out an agreement.

But that means getting the medallion owners to back the changes.

Tolls to Top $14 on Tappan Zee Bridge Replacement

The Tappan Zee replacement span will cost north of $5 billion, and the New York State Thruway has to figure out how to pay for the cost of the span. The Thruway Authority is selling bonds to cover the costs, and the tolls will back those bonds.

The Thruway Authority is expected to nearly triple the existing $5 toll to $14 to cross the span. That's a huge blow to commuters and businesses that rely on transiting the span on a regular basis and have to pay $5 each way (or less with various discount programs).

It would also likely spur more drivers to head north to the Newburgh Beacon Bridge on the I-84 corridor. The George Washington Bridge, which is the most heavily traveled bridge in the world, has tolls expected to rise to $17 by the time the Tappan Zee is replaced.

Tolls imposed by public authorities are the easiest way that the state can get the necessary funds to build the bridge because it isn't nearly as easy to raise taxes to cover the same amount. Tolls hit those who are directly using the span, even though the benefits are felt throughout the region (lower pollution due to less idling in traffic jams, more efficient travel corridors, etc.).

The state should be kicking in more money to cover the construction, as should the federal government since the Thruway is part of the Interstate highway system.

That's essentially the justification for higher tolls, but the high cost for infrastructure construction should get higher scrutiny from media outlets and from the government itself (both within and outside state agencies). There's no reason that construction costs for these kinds of projects should be so much higher than elsewhere in the world (particularly Europe or Japan). The high costs means that there's fewer projects that can be contemplated because the size and scope of the projects (and the inevitable cost overruns) reduces public support for projects, regardless of how critical they are.

On Government Spending, Cost Inefficiencies, and Jobs

I was reading through a bunch of articles on the economy and what might happen if the automatic deficit cuts are applied (that was agreed upon by Congress if they couldn't reach a deal on how to make specified cuts). The focus was on defense spending where a 10% automatic across-the-board cut would be applied. So, for a submarine construction program, they'd have to cut 10% funding. That has the GOP trying to pin the lost construction jobs on the President.

I find the hypocrisy of that unsurprising, but revealing. It is an admission that the government can and does create jobs - the GOP is questioning where those jobs are coming from. It's apparently okay that defense contractors get government contracts to build stuff (using union labor in many instances), but if the President proposes infrastructure programs to spur jobs, he's derided as a socialist or worse.

I don't have a problem with the military spending on building new submarines and other technologies that can allow the military to do more with fewer personnel (the newest aircraft carrier will have a significant reduction in personnel aboard because of automation of numerous functions). Lower personnel costs have a cumulative effect. It reduces exposing our soldiers, sailors and marines to harms' way.

But at the same time, we need to address serious and widespread deficiencies in infrastructure. That would be a tremendous jobs opportunity but the GOP points at the stimulus package as a failure. What they want people to ignore is that the stimulus was as much a bailout of states that were in major deficit situations that couldn't raise taxes into the teeth of a major recession (at least half the stimulus was transfer payments to cover existing obligations, not to spend on new infrastructure that would encourage jobs development and a lasting improvement to infrastructure).

Still, there's plenty of fat on infrastructure projects. Amtrak went ahead and announced a $151 billion program that would upgrade the Northeast Corridor to true high speed rail. It's a staggering figure considering that it would run about $330+ million per mile or more than 10 times what it would cost for a mile of high speed rail in the rest of the world. There's no reason it should cost that much, and it would sap spending elsewhere on infrastructure. Construction costs are significantly higher on such projects in the US than they are elsewhere. That cost inefficiency has to be addressed at the same time that such projects are done.

Gov. Christie Seems Fine With Feds Managing New Jersey's Health Exchanges

So much for states' rights in Gov. Christie's eyes - he's open to the idea of letting the feds run the NJ health exchange.

Gov. Chris Christie said he is exploring letting the federal government set up the state health insurance exchange required by the federal health care overhaul to allow individuals to buy coverage.

He also said he is not sure that New Jersey needs to expand Medicaid under the federal law because the state's program that covers the poor and disabled is already so inclusive.

The Republican governor made the comments while appearing on Fox News Channel's "Fox and Friends" show, one of four national television appearances he was making Tuesday, a day after he told New Jersey lawmakers during a special session that they should cut taxes.

New Jersey legislative Democratic leaders said they had already agreed to a tax cut and accused the governor of trying to win more national attention.

Speaking on "Fox and Friends," Christie told about how he rejected the legislative Democrats' $800 million income tax increase, but he did not mention that it was intended only for people making more than $1 million or that the Legislature also adopted a tax cut plan.

New Jersey may not need to expand its Medicare program as much as some other states (think Louisiana, Florida and Texas for instance) to cover those uninsureds anticipated to be covered under the PPACA. It would be a more gradual and smaller expansion, but it would still bring more people into coverage than the current system.

I think that's Christie's way of finessing around the fact that the PPACA's individual mandate wont affect most NJ residents and that the expanded coverage would help those residents who don't have access to affordable insurance coverage.

As for the over portion of his appearance on Fox, the tax hike would have funded a larger property tax relief package, or funded transportation projects without the need for more bonding. He's mostly upset that he couldn't secure as large a property tax relief package as he wanted, and that legislative Democrats figured out a way to condition the property tax relief on meeting revenue estimates.

Considering that the revenue estimates aren't likely to be reached (they are at an unobtainable 7.2% growth estimate that flies in the face of current national and regional trends), the Democrats actually did the fiscally responsible thing by limiting the program to only when the state could afford it thereby avoiding a potential budget buster.

New Jersey's Legislature Takes Up Tax Relief In Special Session

Gov. Chris Christie addressed the state legislature in Trenton this afternoon and called on them to enact tax relief along the lines of the proposal he first offered earlier this year.

Senate Democrats countered that they provided tax relief to the tune of $183 million only if the state met the Governor's revenue projections. The contingency is a sound policy choice, but that isn't stopping Christie from hammering away at Democrats who are blocking this portion of tax relief.

Gov. Christie was far too aggressive in his budget projections and it's far too likely that New Jersey will not meet Christie's unfathomably high 7.2% growth rate. New Jersey budget projections for the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2012 fell short of its projections, and there's no reason to anticipate anything improving in FY 2013.

The conservative move would be to limit spending make conservative revenue projections so that if revenues come in better than anticipated, it grows the rainy day fund that can then be used to pay down structural debt, fund the pension fund, and the transportation trust fund.

Christie has managed to fund the pension funds to the tune of about $1 billion, but that's only beginning to put a dent in the chronically underfunded state pension funds. Much more needs to be done on that front.

At the same time, the state has to address the transportation trust fund so that transportation projects to repair the creaky infrastructure are addressed. The budget ends up using funds from the ARC project that were killed to fill part of the hole, while borrowing takes care of the rest. Additional borrowing only saddles the state with more debt and reduces the amount available for transportation projects in future years as debt service takes up an ever greater percentage of the budget.

North Dakota Voters Kill Property Tax Repeal; Religious Measures

North Dakota voters decided against repealing the state's property tax, much to the relief of the state's politicians, unions, chambers of commerce, and school districts upon which the property tax is the primary or significant source of funding. The measure lost badly, with most taxpayers realizing that the funding is critical to education.

If approved, it would have been the first time a state repealed a major tax since Alaska abolished the personal income tax in 1980.

At the same time, the state's voters rejected Measure 3, which would have caused all kinds of legal problems and would have likely raised 1st Amendment issues over restricting government actions on religious grounds.

The language of Measure 3 stated that a person has the right to act or to refuse to act in a manner due to a deeply-held religious belief. It would then be up to the government to prove that it has a compelling government interest in infringing on one’s right to act or not act. The measure’s proponents said that it was needed in order to strengthen people’s religious liberty.

North Dakotans Against Measure Three, the main group opposed to Measure 3, had argued that the wording of Measure 3 was vague. One example of vague language noted by opponents was that the government must prove it has a “compelling government interest” in infringing on a person’s religious actions. Another example was over government having to use the “least restrictive means” to further its interest.

Opponents said Measure 3 could’ve opened the door for people to use religious beliefs as a defense in breaking laws protecting against abuse, domestic violence and discrimination. Measure 3 proponents consistently denied this claim, saying that other states with similar laws in place haven’t had such issues.

Christopher Dodson with the North Dakota Catholic Conference said he was disappointed by Measure 3’s rejection by voters. Dodson said in a statement that efforts will continue to strengthen religious protections for North Dakotans.

“We will not rest until religious freedom in North Dakota is protected in the law as a fundamental human right,” Dodson said.

If Measure 3 had passed, North Dakota would’ve joined 12 states that already have passed religious liberty laws: Arizona, Connecticut, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Missouri, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Tennessee and Texas. Alabama is the lone state to have added a law to its state constitution.

Two other measures were considered yesterday in North Dakota. The voters approved a measure to override the Legislature's decision to keep the University of North Dakota's mascot - dropping the Fighting Sioux nickname. Measure 1 was also approved, and allows legislators to be appointed to full-time appointive state offices.

What To Do With $70 Billion in Unspent Earmarks

Senator Tom Coburn has announced that the federal government has more than $70 billion in unspent earmarks on its books that must account for. This includes monies that were designated for state and local projects that those localities later chose not to do.

The $70 billion figure is money that's been unspent for years, including $13 billion in road-building money that was earmarked to the wrong places, or for projects that states and localities no longer want to build.

In one case Mr. Coburn said $29 million was dedicated to a highway interchange in Newport News, Va., in 1998, but the state abandoned the project. The congressman who sponsored the earmark died in 2000, but the money remains unspent.

In another case Atlanta is still holding onto $2.7 million in funding that was allowed to be spent only on the 1996 Olympics.

"A dollar taken from the taxpayers left unspent is a dollar not needed by the government or a dollar that did not go to someone in need," Mr. Coburn said in a letter accompanying his report. "It represents a failure to budget wisely."

That's a small sum of the total federal budget and the ongoing deficit, but it's a not insignificant sum of money that could go to any number of major infrastructure projects around the nation.

It could secure the financing (or outright pay for) for any number of bridge and tunnel projects and other critical infrastructure projects. That includes air traffic control system upgrades that would boost efficiencies for the airlines and travelers by reducing congestion at airports and reduce the amount of fuel needed to reach any number of destinations. The economic benefits of upgrading the air traffic control system could reach into the billions of dollars annually as flight times are cut by routing planes more directly to their destinations.

It could help fully fund the entire 2d Avenue Subway, which would enable hundreds of thousands of commuters to more easily reach their destinations in New York City. It could fund the replacement spans for the Tappan Zee, Goethals Bridges, or the Pulaski Skyway. It could mean the construction of the Gateway Tunnel and Portal Bridges on the NEC.

It could mean construction of replacement spans for hundreds of deficient bridges, overpasses, and roads around the nation.

It could mean addressing deteriorating conditions of sanitary sewers and water delivery systems.

It could mean addressing funding shortfalls for National Park infrastructure, such as rehabilitating roads, visitor centers, and habitat restoration.

All of these have tangible economic benefits - not only immediate benefits due to construction work and the jobs created, but the long term benefits of improving and maintaining long-neglected infrastructure.

This is one of the major shortfalls of the ARRA of 2009 - it didn't sufficiently address infrastructure work, despite plenty of shovel-ready projects around the nation that would have benefited from the work.

The Rebuilding of Ground Zero, Part 162

Despite the fact that there's been no work done on the WTC 9/11 Museum for months, that doesn't mean that the fight over what the museum will contain and display hasn't continued.

I find it mind-boggling that there's a fight over whether to include photos of the 19 Islamic terrorists who carried out the attacks. We need to see the faces of those who are responsible. It's like having a museum about the Holocaust and not including any of the names and faces of the key Nazi officials behind the Wanasee Conference and the orders to carry out genocide against the Jewish people.

Displaying the photos is necessary and critical to the museum's mission to reflect what happened before, during, and after the 9/11 terror attacks.

New York City’s fire chief protested that such a display would “honor” the terrorists who destroyed the World Trade Center. A New York Post editorial called the idea “appalling.” Groups representing rescuers, survivors and victims’ families asked how anyone could even think of showing the faces of the men who killed their relatives, colleagues and friends.

The anger took some museum officials by surprise.

“You don’t create a museum about the Holocaust and not say that it was the Nazis who did it,” said Joseph Daniels, chief executive of the memorial and museum foundation.

Such are the exquisite sensitivities that surround every detail in the creation of the National September 11 Memorial Museum, which is being built on land that many revere as hallowed ground. During eight years of planning, every step has been muddied with contention. There have been bitter fights over the museum’s financing, which have delayed its opening until at least next year, as well as continuing arguments over its location, seven stories below ground; which relics should be exhibited; and where unidentified human remains should rest.

Even the souvenir key chains to be sold in the gift shop have become a focus of rancor.

But nothing has been more fraught than figuring out how to tell the story.

The entire process has been an absolute mess, as my ongoing Rebuilding of Ground Zero series (and the preceding Battle for Ground Zero) has detailed for nearly a decade. Every proposed move has been scrutinized and yet key details are likely to get short shrift.

Yet, I think the most important detail that has yet to be worked out is the one that has tremendous symbolic meaning. After all, we're talking about the National September 11 Memorial Museum, and yet museum officials are contemplating imposing entry fees to defray the costs for operating the museum. That's absolute hogwash, and Congress needs to set aside the necessary funds to make sure that the museum is free to the public.

Future generations need unfettered access to the site to understand what happened, what was lost, and what the ongoing effects are on those who went to Ground Zero to help with the rescue and recovery operations.

Bloomberg Supports Cuomo's Call To Revise New York Marijuana Possession Laws

Arrests for marijuana possession are among the top crimes caught under the NYPD's Stop and Frisk policy. That policy has been under attack for its disproportionate focus on minorities throughout the city.

Governor Andrew Cuomo has now floated a proposal to reduce the penalty for possession of a joint to a violation, essentially decriminalizing the possession of amounts under 25 grams.

Mr. Bloomberg, whose administration had previously defended low-level marijuana arrests as a way to deter more serious crime, said in a statement that the governor’s proposal “strikes the right balance” in part because it would still allow the police to arrest people who were smoking marijuana in public.

Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, plans to hold a news conference at the Capitol on Monday to announce his plans to seek the change in state law. Administration officials said the governor would seek to downgrade the possession of 25 grams or less of marijuana in public view from a misdemeanor to a violation, with a maximum fine of $100 for first-time offenders.

Mr. Bloomberg said his police commissioner, Raymond W. Kelly, would attend the governor’s news conference “to show our support for his proposal.”

“We look forward to working with legislative leaders to help pass a bill before the end of session,” the mayor said, referring to this year’s legislative session in Albany, which is scheduled to conclude in three weeks.

In his statement, the mayor noted that last September, Mr. Kelly issued a memorandum to officers clarifying that they were not to arrest people who take small amounts of marijuana out of their pockets after being stopped by the police.

Mr. Bloomberg said that the governor’s proposal was “consistent with the commissioner’s directive.”

Bloomberg's changed stance increases the chances that the proposal may gain traction in the state. Reducing the penalties would also reduce the number of people who would be brought into the criminal justice system and reduce costs over the long haul - though that has the potential to be offset by an increase in crime. Expect Republicans to focus on the potential for higher crime, though they may also see the reduced costs for incarceration and processing of low-level drug crimes. Even Gov. Chris Christie in New Jersey has called for revision of drug crime penalties to reflect the fact that the state can't afford to incarcerate low-level drug offenders.

California Considers Tobacco Tax Hike With Legislature On Sidelines

California currently imposes a cigarette tax of 87¢ per pack of 20 cigarettes. That's well below the rates imposed in a number of other states, including neighboring Arizona ($2 per pack) or Oregon ($1.18 per pack). It's slightly higher than Nevada's 80¢ per pack. By comparison, New York imposes a $4.35 per pack (NYC is $5.85), New Jersey is $2.70 per pack, and Connecticut is $3.40. Out on the West Coast, Washington imposes a more than $3 a pack tax.

Consumption rates have dropped in the NYC metro area with the combination of higher taxes and more restrictive locations where smoking is permitted, which creates its own problems.

Health programs funded with tobacco taxes would see lower appropriations unless the taxes are increased to cover losses (and those who kick the habit because of higher taxes/restrictions). If the state doesn't hike the taxes periodically, the programs lose necessary funding and have to curtail their operations or else draw upon general funds instead (which in CA isn't possible due to its budget woes).

The question becomes whether the tax hikes will deliver the revenues projected, and what happens to the programs when the revenues fall short (does it require higher and higher taxes or shifting funds from other programs to cover the health programs funded by the tobacco taxes).

Californians not only have to deal with the potential windfall due from a potential $1 per pack tax hike on cigarettes, but a general distrust of the state legislature to spend the money wisely. They might be for a cigarette tax hike, but they're against the legislature spending it.

The tax, which would raise an estimated $735 million, is being voted on as California is reeling from a new wave of bad budget news. Gov. Jerry Brown announced last month that the state was facing a deficit of $16 billion, and he proposed a round of severe spending cuts to deal with it.

But none of the $735 million would go to close the deficit. Organizers argued that the tax would have less chance of passing if voters thought it would go into the state coffers, and said that their only goal here was cutting down on smoking. Raising the cost of tobacco has proved to be the most effective way of discouraging smoking, particularly among teenagers.

“The voters in this state are disinclined to give money — even tobacco money — to the Legislature to spend: they don’t trust them with the money,” said Don Perata, a Democrat and former president pro tem of the State Senate, who is the author of the proposition. “We’ve become such a damned antitax state that we’ve demonized any kind of tax.”

Still, the image of a $735 million windfall rushing in at a time when California is facing a three-week cut in the school year has proved, at the least, discordant. The editorial board of The Los Angeles Times, while proclaiming itself uncomfortable to be siding with the tobacco industry, urged voters to defeat it.

“It just doesn’t make sense for the state to get into the medical research business to the tune of half a billion dollars a year when it has so many other important unmet needs,” it said. And opponents have seized on this as one of their central arguments.

“Isn’t that a little strange?” said Michael C. Genest, a former director of finance for the state who worked as a consultant to the “No on 29” effort, noting that Mr. Brown had just announced the state’s latest budget shortfall. “It’s astonishing to me that someone would go to these lengths to have a major tax increase and none of it would go to the budget.”

At 87 cents, the cigarette tax here is about half the national average, and it ranks 33rd in the nation — down from the third highest in 1999. California is one of only three states that have not raised the cigarette tax over the past decade. About 12 percent of Californians now smoke.

The money would be dedicated to cancer research and smoking cessation programs, not balancing the budget. Proponents believe that the limitation on where the money goes in the state budget is a plus; anti-tax sentiment is such that no one trusts the legislature to spend the money appropriately.

Opponents in the tobacco industry are apparently so fearful of this initiative's passage that they're throwing serious money to stop it: $47 million.