For a plan that he’s been working on for more than a year, there’s still a whole lot of questions that haven’t been answered.

At his first public hearing on his asset monetization    fiscal restructuring   financial restructuring and debt reduction    toll hike plan, the governor was repeatedly asked why it was fair to ask such a small segment of the population – those that ride the toll roads – to bail out the rest of the state.

Think about that. The governor admits “in concept” that those who live near the toll roads are going to get hit hardest by his plan. He admits “in concept” that it’s asking just a portion of the population to pay for everybody else.

In other words, since he apparently is opposed to spending cuts, and he doesn’t think he can win an argument for a broad-based tax, the only thing left to do is stick it to those poor saps who live near the or use the toll roads. And since that’s a smaller segment of New Jersey, it makes more sense to sock it to them than to try to spread the pain evenly.

Under Corzine’s plan, four counties get hit particularly hard: Middlesex, Monmouth, Bergen and Ocean, according to new data from the Turnpike Authority.

So now we wonder, when the governor says that 53 percent of the revenue on the Turnpike is from out-of-state drivers, is he including New Jerseyans whose E-ZPass is registered with an out-of-state agency?

We also wonder: Why don’t they ever tell us how many out of state drivers drive the Garden State Parkway? Our guess is it’s because the Garden State Parkway is a much more local commuting road than the Turnpike will ever hope to be.

Consider this:  residents of Monmouth and Ocean counties pay more than a third of the E-ZPass tolls on the Parkway — $33.1 million. In total, Ocean County E-ZPass drivers paid 19 percent of state E-ZPass tolls on the Parkway, the most of any county, followed by Monmouth County drivers, who paid 18 percent.

Here’s another question: in six years, when a trucker is paying $14.40 to go just 26.6 miles, has any one figured out how much expensive commodities are going to be in the state of New Jersey as compared to other states?

That extra cost for food, for clothing, for gasoline has to show up somewhere.

"This is just going to be devastating," Gail Toth, executive director of the New Jersey Motor Truck Association, told The Associated Press. "I've got companies that already pay $100,000 a month on tolls. A month! Where do you think that extra money is going to come from? Every time you buy a loaf of bread or a gallon of milk, you'll be paying for this. At the end of the day, rich and poor alike are going to pay for this."

Is the governor planning a toll rebate to cover the cost of that?

And what about the public benefit corporation?  The governor’s office admits that the IRS hasn’t even blessed it yet, and won’t do so until after the legislation creating it has been approved. There is no guarantee that the PBC will look anything like what the governor has in mind once lawmakers get done with it. Isn’t it risky to base a program on a concept that still hasn’t gotten the official OK yet?

We also wonder about the makeup of this board. Is the governor going to include any average citizens who could represent their fellow taxpayers and toll riders? Or is he planning solely on stocking the board with people with a vested interest, i.e. retired government officials, union members and the like?

The administration told the Inquirer that the board will decide what to do with the money, whether to reduce the toll, or give it to the Transportation Trust Fund to use it as a downpayment for future repairs.

Does it make sense for an unelected body with no control from the governor’s office – or more importantly, the public – to make this decision? And what’s to stop this group from deciding that more tolls are needed than Corzine currently plans?

And, why, by the way, when the governor talks about this plan, and mentions the average trip -- $1.20 on the Turnpike and 35 cents on the Parkway, does he not mention that this is one-way? By 2022, that average round trip on the Turnpike will cost a driver $19.70, instead of the current $2.40; the average trucker, $82.20, instead of $10.10. The average round trip on the Parkway will rise from 70 cents to $5.40. How does that not harm the low- and middle class?

According to his own information booklets, which are titled “Asset Monetization” – which either means the governor’s going back to the name, or someone in his office didn’t get the message that the name has changed – the biggest outstanding debt in the future will be medical expenses for public employee retirees.

Which brings us back to a question we have never gotten a satisfactory answer to.

When he was negotiating with the state workers for a new contract, the workers agreed that retirees should begin to pay 1.5 percent of their pension costs to cover their health insurance premium.

All on his own, the governor then did away with that provision, saying that the $2 million a year it would save was “de minimus.”

On Jim Gearhart’s show on NJ101.5 radio last week, the governor explained that he didn’t think it was fair to ask retirees to have to pay more. .

“I don’t think we be ought to be going to 92 year olds ... and say, ‘Oh by the way, that contract that you negotiated 50 years ago and you thought you were going to get health benefits for free, you ought to change that.’” Corzine said. “I don’t think that’s fair. So we didn’t do that.”

But apparently, it is fair to ask retirees from a few select counties in the state to pay a lot more in toll costs. Apparently, it is fair, in Corzine’s mind, to ask retirees and everybody else to pay more in food and clothing to cover the new costs truckers are going to have to pay on the toll roads. And apparently, it is fair, to try to target the hit on commuters and those who live near the toll roads, rather than just cut the state budget by an additional 7 percent – or $2.6 billion a year.