Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice,
shame on me – an Italian
proverb
House Bill 5046,
which would re-establish tolls in Connecticut, is yet another tax, a tax being
money that flows from private wallets to public treasuries.
According to popular delusion, people traveling from states
bordering Connecticut will pay the tax. The trick in taxing is to find someone
else to pick up the bill. Senator Russell Long of Louisiana put it
aphoristically: “Don’t tax you, don’t tax me, tax the fellow behind the tree.”
The truth is: We are the people behind the tree. Even when the tax burden
appears to be paid by someone else, as in business taxes, the burden of
taxation comes home to roost. Businesses collect corporate taxes from the
consumers of their products and services. Like your smarmy politician, the
taxed business is a tax collection operation.
In the case of transportation tolls, the imposture is thin
and transparent. Only about 30 percent of congestion tolling will be paid by
the people from out of state using Connecticut roads. The bulk of it, 70
percent, will be paid by Connecticut tax camels carrying heavy loads, and some
are warning that the add-tax will be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.
Other skeptics ask: Why is the transportation fund in need of such massive
capitalization?
That question is not answered in departing Governor Malloy’s
approving statement now that a bill to establish tolls has passed – by one vote
– Connecticut’s Democrat dominated Finance Committee. Malloy’s statement is
brief enough to be quoted in full. When you are a politician in full pant
collaring the fellow behind the tree, the less said the better.
“This is an important step forward as we work to ensure
the long-term
solvency of the Special Transportation Fund, and I applaud Finance
Committee leadership,” Malloy said. “The truth is that if we do not
find new revenue, we will not be able to keep our roads, bridges, tunnels, and
rails in a state of good repair, and we will be forced to significantly
increase fares and dramatically reduce services on bus and rail services. If we
fail to take action this year – on this bill and on my proposals to ensure the short-term
viability of the transportation fund – we will put the safety of
Connecticut drivers at risk and cause unnecessary harm to our economy (Emphasis
mine)."
One wants to know why does the most
insolvent tax collector in state history regard yet another tax – which follows
two massive tax hikes, both imposed by Malloy and the Democrat dominated
General Assembly – as a “step forward?” What precisely is the state of
Connecticut stepping forward into?
The two hefty and wealth destroying Malloy taxes, the
largest and the second largest in state history, evidentially have not opened
the door to fiscal stability. Following these encroachments on personal wealth
and prosperity, taxpayers in Connecticut even now are staring down the barrel
of massive state deficits. Connecticut’s current “balanced” deficit is $224
million, this to be followed by yet
another deficit of $2 billion in the next fiscal period which, when it rises
like a menacing cloud over Connecticut, obscuring the sun, blasting hope, will
not cast a dark shadow on Malloy, who has declined to run for a third term as
governor.
And good for him. Malloy can always escape the inevitable
consequences of his ruinous policies by fleeing to some other more tax
hospitable state, a trek may of our brothers and sisters and nephews and nieces
already have made. Connecticut is still the only state in the union that has
continuously lost population during a recession that ended in much of the
country nine years ago.
Given the past practice of spendthrift politicians who in
the past have unlocked lockboxes with their grandmothers' hair pins, pilfering
their contents and depositing the loot into the general slush fund, why should
anyone suppose that another tax burden will not be used to relieve a necessary pressure
upon prodigal spenders to permanently change their destructive habits. A
permanent inhibition is the ONLY reasonable solution to Connecticut’s
metastasizing debt. Even if the special transportation fund lockbox were to be
tamper proof, the tax increase will facilitate more spending, which is the
devil in the details of Connecticut’s deepening debt ditch. Connecticut did not
arrive at massive tax increases, followed by massive spending increases,
followed by massive debt, followed by more massive tax increases, through
prudent, permanent, long term, cuts in spending.
And there is anti-democratic poison in the toll tax brew. “The
toll bill,” said Senator Toni Boucher, “would give the entire authority over
instituting, placing, pricing, outsourcing and any other decisions to the DOT.
This was a big NO vote for me.”
Indeed, the transfer of legislative authority over the use
of public dollars to the Department of Transportation (DOT) places getting and
spending beyond the reach of taxpayers who will no longer be able to vote in or
out of office those cowardly legislators who do not want, for obvious reasons,
to execute their constitutional getting and spending obligations. This shameful flight
from constitutional responsibility is what now passes for democracy in the
Constitution State.
Comments