LAUTENBERG ANSWERS ZIMMER CALL & OPPOSES CORZINE'S TOLL HIKE PLAN

Lawrenceville, NJ – After yesterday’s press conference where U.S. Senate candidate Dick Zimmer renewed his challenge to Senator Frank Lautenberg to join him in opposing Governor Corzine’s warmed-over toll hike plan, Senator Lautenberg met that challenge by agreeing with Zimmer though his campaign spokesperson.   

Today, Zimmer commended Senator Lautenberg and called on the Senator to join him in also rejecting increased borrowing and higher taxes as the solution to the highway funding shortfall.  He specifically challenged Senator Lautenberg to endorse the use of existing state revenues to replenish the state’s Transportation Trust Fund as proposed by the Republicans in the New Jersey Legislature and to support a proposal by U.S. Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) to redirect wasteful federal earmarks to cover the shortfall in the federal Highway Trust Fund.  

“I am pleased that even Senator Lautenberg has seen the recklessness of Governor Corzine’s toll hike plan and realized that the last thing New Jersey taxpayers need is steeply higher tolls,” Zimmer said.  “Now, Senator Lautenberg needs to assure New Jerseyans that he does not want to meet our transportation needs by raising taxes or borrowing more money.  Government should live within its means the way New Jersey families have to.”  

With the nation's Highway Trust Fund running out of money faster than anticipated, Congress is expected to approve an $8 billion bailout plan by transferring money from the government's general fund to the highway account, thereby increasing the federal deficit and the national debt by that amount.  According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, an estimated $11 billion in earmarks has yet to be appropriated from currently authorized transportation spending, more than enough to cover the shortfall.    

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