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<div class="timestamp">April 12, 2012</div>
<h1>Cannibalize the Future</h1>
<span><h6 class="byline">By <a rel="author" href="http://topics.nytimes.com/top/opinion/editorialsandoped/oped/columnists/paulkrugman/index.html?inline=nyt-per" title="More Articles by Paul Krugman" class="meta-per">PAUL KRUGMAN</a></h6>
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<p>
One general rule of modern politics is that the people who talk most
about future generations — who go around solemnly declaring that we’re
burdening our children with debt — are, in practice, the people most
eager to sacrifice our future for short-term political gain. You can see
that principle at work in the House Republican budget, which starts
with dire warnings about the evils of deficits, then calls for tax cuts
that would make the deficit even bigger, offset only by the claim to
have a secret plan to make up for the revenue losses somehow or other.
</p>
<p>
And you can see it in the actions of Chris Christie, the governor of New
Jersey, who talks loudly about acting responsibly but may actually be
the least responsible governor the state has ever had. </p>
<p>
Mr. Christie’s big move — the one that will define his record — was his
unilateral decision back in 2010 to cancel work that was already under
way on a new rail tunnel linking New Jersey with New York. At the time,
Mr. Christie claimed that he was just being fiscally responsible, while
critics said that he had canceled the project just so he could raid it
for funds. </p>
<p>
Now the independent Government Accountability Office <a href="http://gao.gov/products/GAO-12-344">has weighed in with a report</a> on the controversy, and it confirms everything the critics were saying. </p>
<p>
Much <a title="The Times’s coverage" href="http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/10/nyregion/report-disputes-christies-reason-for-halting-tunnel-project-in-2010.html?hpw=&pagewanted=all">press coverage of the new report</a>
focuses, understandably, on the evidence that Mr. Christie made false
statements about the tunnel’s financing and cost. The governor asserted
that the projected costs were rising sharply; the report tells us that
this simply wasn’t true. The governor claimed that New Jersey was being
asked to pay for 70 percent of a project that would shower benefits on
residents of New York; in fact, the bulk of the financing would have
come either from the federal government or from the Port Authority of
New York and New Jersey, which collects revenue from residents of both
states. </p>
<p>
But while it’s important to document Mr. Christie’s mendacity, it’s even
more important to understand the utter folly of his decision. The new
report drives home just how necessary, and very much overdue, the tunnel
project was and is. Demand for public transit is rising across America,
reflecting both population growth and shifting preferences in an era of
high gas prices. Yet New Jersey is linked to New York by just two
single-track tunnels built a century ago — tunnels that run at 100
percent of capacity during peak hours. How could this situation not call
for new investment? </p>
<p>
Well, Mr. Christie insisted that his state couldn’t afford the cost. As
we’ve already seen, however, he apparently couldn’t make that case
without being dishonest about the numbers. So what was his real motive?
</p>
<p>
One answer is that the governor is widely assumed to have national
ambitions, and the Republican base hates government spending in general
(unless it’s on weapons). And it hates public transportation in
particular. Indeed, three other Republican governors — in Florida, Ohio
and Wisconsin — have also canceled public transportation projects
supported by federal funds. The difference, of course, is that New
Jersey is a densely populated state, most of whose residents live either
in Greater New York or Greater Philadelphia; given that position,
public transit is the state’s lifeblood, and refusing to invest in such
transportation will strangle the state’s economy. </p>
<p>
Another answer is that canceling the tunnel allowed Mr. Christie to
divert funds from that project — as his critics have said, to
cannibalize the investment — and put them into the state highway fund,
thereby avoiding the need to raise the state’s tax on gasoline. New
Jersey gas taxes, by the way, are lower in real terms than at any point
in the state’s history. But, as a candidate, Mr. Christie said that he
wouldn’t raise those taxes, so cannibalizing the tunnel helped him avoid
embarrassment. </p>
<p>
The crucial point about both of these explanations is that they stand
Mr. Christie’s narrative about himself on its head. The governor poses
as a man willing to make hard choices for the future, but what he
actually did was sacrifice the future for the sake of personal political
advantage. He catered to national Republican prejudices that are
completely at odds with New Jersey’s needs; he cared more about avoiding
embarrassment over a misguided campaign pledge than about serving an
urgent public need. </p>
<p>
Unfortunately, Mr. Christie’s behavior is all too typical these days. </p>
<p>
America used to be a country that thought big about the future. Major
public projects, from the Erie Canal to the interstate highway system,
used to be a well-understood component of our national greatness.
Nowadays, however, the only big projects politicians are willing to
undertake — with expense no object — seem to be wars. Funny how that
works. </p>
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<br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Art Deco (Wayne A. Fox)<br><a href="mailto:art.deco.studios@gmail.com" target="_blank">art.deco.studios@gmail.com</a><br>