The push to erect tolls just another $$ source
The push has begun. Anyone listening to radio or watching TV should have noticed the public service announcements now being sponsored by groups concerning the proposed imposition of tolls on the state’s highways. Knowing a solid number of voters are against the plan, the usual tactic of “guilt by neglect” has been the theme we’ve noticed.
We are told for Connecticut to be competitive we must have a rebuilt infrastructure. Tolls will cost out-of-state people more. Truckers will be charged more, people in the state will pay less. We need it before something dire happens.
These are the tactics now being employed by those who want – read: business groups and the state’s Democratic leadership – another cash cow in the form of tolls. For a cash cow is what it is being dressed up in the attire of infrastructure repair.
“We need the cash,” was the lament of state legislative officials. That is the statement that needs to be understood. Once again, as it did for lottery revenue and other use taxes, the money generated from tolls will not be specifically earmarked for infrastructure.
No. What will happen is what always happens. The money will be funneled through the state’s general fund and be part of the revenue side of the budget. Infrastructure will be improved, but any thought of a “lock box” or “earmarks” should be dispelled. The state’s politicians will use the tolls and the subsequent increases that will come with them to fund other state projects and programs.
And, let’s not fool ourselves, the state drivers’ “discount” will be a short-lived experiment. There is just too much money to made, and too much temptation by politicos to spend.
We said so a few weeks ago, and we continue to say: gas tax hikes made in the 1980s following the collapse of the Mianus River Bridge on I-95 were supposed to fix the state’s infrastructure and keep it maintained. Any driver knows that “Road Work Ahead” should be the state’s new motto. But much of that gas tax money is funneled elsewhere, and used to fund pet projects and state programs.
This new effort to put tolls on state roads is yet another attempt at doing what is easy: add another tax. State legislators will rend their garments and decry the fact they have to add more in taxes, but when it comes right down to it, it is the easier of two options.
State spending keeps going up and programs are added. Yet, it has been almost two decades since the state did an evaluation of departments with an eye toward eliminating waste and duplication of effort. Who knows, with a little creativity, a state department might be eliminated and the work of that department reapportioned to others. It would lighten the state’s ever-growing bureaucracy, and the salaries and benefits that cost us so much.
We think we speak for many in the state, and many in West Haven when we say that state infrastructure does need rehab, but state officials have not exhausted every option on how to do it, nor done what we all have to do: live within our means.
In the 1960s, the state was a destination for many workers because of the government-contract industries here. With the decline in the 1970s and 1980s, those jobs went elsewhere.
The General Assembly, which got into bad spending habits in those years, never adapted to the new realities. Until politicians show a readiness to cut spending and make inroads in reducing our bloated government, no new taxes or use fees should be accepted by state residents.
Bravo