This comes from Tax Facts, January, 1927:
JERSEY WISDOM
Governor A. Harry Moore, of New Jersey, in his first inaugural address to the 1927 Legislature, after discussing several methods of financing new highway construction, said: "Lastly, I might suggest to you the wisdom of assessing some part of the cost of the road system upon the land specially benefitted thereby, as is the practice in municipal improvements. A striking illustration of what might be regarded as an evil of having the State at large pay for major improvements and the land peculiarly benefitted by the improvements escape, except in so far as it shares its proportion of the State's expense, is in the increase of land values in Bergen county, which came as a result of the projected Hudson River Bridge."
Notice that this was said before the George Washington Bridge had become a reality: the increase in land values began well before construction began.
Governor Christie could learn from Governor Moore's wise observation in 1927, as New Jersey considers the benefits to be derived from building an additional tunnel under the Hudson River.
And those who are upset about pork spending don't seem to notice that much of that federal spending has the effect of increasing land value in the localities where it is done, and that smart states, counties and towns would collect some significant share of that increase in land value, month in and month out, from those benefited by that federal investment.
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