New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie Announces $300 Million State House Makeover

CBSNewYork/AP ^ | 11/29/16 | CBSNewYork/AP

[NewJerseyJoe]

"New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has announced plans to completely renovate the state house.

Christie said Tuesday that staff will be moved into other office space in Trenton by July for a four-year, $300 million project. Parts of the building date to the 18th century."

[NewJerseyJoe]

I guess now we know what the outrageous gas-tax increase was REALLY for.

[9YearLurker]

$300 million???????????

[arl295]

$300 million?

They could knock the place down and build a 20 story sky scrapper.....

[Right_in_Virginia]

How bad is the shape the state house is in?

[Fido969]

Armor plate, bullet-proof glass, etc.

[9YearLurker]

That doesn’t get you near $300 million.

[Alberta's Child]

Uh -- whut?

In New Jersey, the gasoline tax has been allocated entirely to the Transportation Trust Fund for years.

[4rcane]

White House is facing renovation as well. I wonder how much that will cost. $300 million is insane

[Oratam]

After nearly 7 years as governor, Christie has severely weakened the floors.

[Ken H]

For the kitchen and dining room.

[ObozoMustGo2012]

[In New Jersey, the gasoline tax has been allocated entirely to the Transportation Trust Fund for years. ]

Uhhh... you clearly don’t know a thing about NJ politics.

Tax money NEVER goes to whatever project a tax bill is passed for These funds are regularly raided by politicians to line their own pockets or to grease corrupted palms.

[Alberta's Child]

I've lived in New Jersey most of my life, and I know exactly how the NJ political game works.

Politicians have no reason to raid the Transportation Trust Fund to line their own pockets or grease their own palms. There are plenty of opportunities for them to do that within the TTF already.

The TTF has been run into bankruptcy on its own merit. It didn't need any politicians to raid it for other purposes.

[Alberta's Child]

Now that’s funny. I can’t wait to see that come up in the lamestream New Jersey media. LOL.

[Ancesthntr]

I lived in NJ for the first 39 years of my life. Rest assured, a tiny fraction of that money would be of far more benefit to the people of that state - to just demolish the whole thing, and to build molds for cement overshoes for the entire legislature. The rest of the money can be saved for better things, like putting up a wall to keep out NYC residents fleeing the god-awful mess that they’ve created from coming into NJ like a bunch of locusts to destroy a new place.

[Ancesthntr]

“In New Jersey, the gasoline tax has been allocated entirely to the Transportation Trust Fund for years. “

---

Do you really think that the extra revenue stays there? No, it doesn’t - not in NJ or anywhere else. Sure, the actual allocated dollars go there (DOT in this case); but the normal allocation of the state budget that would otherwise have gone to the DOT will now go elsewhere. DOT’s budget will either remain stable, or go up the normal percentage that it would have ANYWAY, without the special allocation from (in this case) the gas tax. This is how ALL government works.

[RitaOK]

Poor Christie. What timing. Sheesh. Nothing good seems to fall his way anymore.

[Cen-Tejas]

Isn’t New Jersey dead bang broke?

If so, tents would seem to make a more appropriate statement or just disbanding the inept government and rent some space in empty office buildings for the so called “indispensable” type employee/bureaucrats if any.

[pepsi_junkie]

I guess now we know what the outrageous gas-tax increase was REALLY for.

We have among the highest state taxes, highest auto insurance, highest sales tax, highest property taxes, highest density of toll roads but at least we always had one thing, one great thing: cheap gasoline.

Then Christie and his pals took it away.

[miss marmelstein]

I assume that vote carried?

[Captain Jack Aubrey]

Article says second oldest state house. Wrong. Third oldest. Virginia is second oldest.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_state_capitols_in_the_United_States