What's Bad For Indiana Is... Bad for New Jersey

The ink is barely dry on Indiana's controversial 75-year lease of a toll road to a private consortium-- and other states are already asking whether Indiana's fire sale on state assets is a strategy worth emulating. New Jersey lawmakers think they could raise up to $10 billion from a similar arrangement in the Garden State. But the editorial board at the Asbury Park Press sees right through this ploy:

When Corzine was still a candidate, he spoke of his plans to reduce New Jersey's reliance on borrowed funds and budget gimmicks while protecting assets. In his March 21 budget speech, his second of four principles was: "We must stop
borrowing and using gimmicks to pay today's bills." Leasing our toll roads runs counter to everything he's said — and to sound public policy.
Weary of short-term budgetary fixes that have done nothing to solve the state's long-term fiscal problems, New Jersey taxpayers should be more than skeptical of any plans to sell public assets that can only provide short-term property tax relief.

The Morristown Daily Record is similarly skeptical:

In just about every philosophical argument about what government should do, participants on both the right and the left likely would agree that building and overseeing highways is a proper function of government...The Legislature should forget about this gimmick, keep its roads publicly-owned and, perish the thought, concentrate on something meaningful like property tax reform.

Indiana's step toward privatization appears to be a done deal-- but at least other states are thinking this through more thoroughly.