The governor and the Legislature soon must find a way to raise nearly $2 billion annually to pay for maintenance to New Jersey's highways, bridges and mass transportation, or the state risks losing companies and jobs because of a crumbling infrastructure, agreed state Senate President Stephen Sweeney and Senate Republican Leader Tom Kean.

"Nobody is coming here if we don't invest in infrastructure," said Sweeney. "We need to bring the business, and we need the infrastructure to move them."

Sweeney and Kean traded their views during a New Jersey Chamber of Commerce Breakfast Roundtable in Monroe on Oct. 29.

The clock is ticking for solutions. The state's Transportation Trust Fund (TTF) is set to run out of money by next summer when the cost of debt service is projected to exceed the fund's revenue.

"The TTF is a multi-billion issue with a long-term solution that is necessary,' Kean said.

Among ideas that have been proposed is a per-gallon gas tax increase, a 7 percent sales tax on motor fuel sales, raising car rental fees, the dedication of online gaming revenue, or a combination of them.

"It's going to cost something," said Sweeney, who noted that the opening this week of a newly widened 35-mile stretch of the New Jersey Turnpike - designed to reduce traffic congestion along a notorious part of the highway - is a reason why investment is so crucial. "The greatest thing that can happen right now is the opening of the (widened) Turnpike because people can see what we are paying for."

Sweeney said the state needs to double transportation funding that goes to municipalities and counties. "They have three quarters of the roads, but their funding is cut year after year," he said.

The Estate Tax

Kean said another way to help to stimulate the economy is to lower the estate tax so it is in line with the federal estate tax. "Too many people are moving to Pennsylvania, a state that does not tax retirement accounts," Kean said. "They are moving to Pennsylvania at the end of their careers and it's not because of the weather in Pennsylvania."

Sweeney was asked about lowering the property tax, but he said there should be no tax reduction to the property tax or estate tax until the state solves its pension crisis.

Sweeney recently said the state should focus on getting the pension system 85 percent funded by 2018 to put it in line with private sector plans that are considered healthy. New Jersey's pension funds are currently funded at about 54 percent, in part because the state skipped or made only partial payments for a decade. Like the Transportation Trust Fund, though, there is a difficult political question: How will the governor and Legislature find the revenue to pay for the pension fund?

Kean said the state must "multi-task."

Size of Government

Sweeney and Kean agreed that the best way to control state taxes is to reduce the size of government. "I think there should be less towns and more services provided by counties," Sweeney said. Kean said services should be provided either by towns or counties, depending on which level of government is traditionally more effective in their particular regions.

"We have 565 towns and 600 school districts," Sweeney said. "The problem with this state is there is home rule and everybody likes what they have. This problem is easy to fix. But we need the political will."

A special thank you to United Airlines for sponsoring the event.