The Yankee Institute once again is ringing
an alarm bell, this time over a tolling bill crafted by the Connecticut
Transportation Committee (DOT) that “contains a provision which allows a
tolling proposal by the Connecticut Department of Transportation to pass
without a vote by the legislature.” This is not the first time the Democrat
dominated General Assembly sought to escape its constitutional obligation to
vote on every dollar it raises or expends.
Under the terms of Raised Bill
7280, “the General Assembly will have only 15 days to vote on tolling
recommendations from the Connecticut Department of Transportation after an
informational hearing, otherwise the tolling proposal will pass and be
submitted to the Federal Highway Administration,” according to the Yankee
Institute.
Difficult as it may be for small “d” democrats in Connecticut
to believe, this anti-democratic, insidious bill does create a petite
legislature within the DOT. And it allows cowardly legislators to escape the
wrath of voters by assigning to unelected officials – Connecticut’s
increasingly omnipresent administrative state – a legislative authority, that
of raising and expanding tax funds, that belongs constitutionally to elected
senators and representatives in Connecticut’s General Assembly.
The bill does specify that “DOT shall make recommendations
for tolls on I-84, I-95, I-91 and the Merritt Parkway – similar to the
governor’s bill.” However, the bill
stipulates that the tolling proposal “may include implementing
electronic tolling systems on other limited access highways, or portions
thereof, if the commissioner determines such implementation is necessary and
provides the rationale for such implementation,” and the latest DOT study,
according to Yankee, “called for 82
tolling gantries on all highways throughout the state to raise $1
billion in yearly revenue. Gov. Lamont has proposed tolling only the
interstates and the Merritt Parkway, but reversed his campaign pledge to only
toll trucks.”
Small “d” democrats should pause here and reflect. The bill
assigns to the DOT commissioner, an appointed rather than elected official, a
taxing, expending and legislative power that even the Democrat Speaker of the
House or the Democrat President Pro Tem of the Senate or the Democrat Governor
of Connecticut does not enjoy under a representative system of government in
which political power is sharply divided between the separate branches of
government and those wielding taxing and spending powers are subject to
dismissal by a voting public.
Lamont’s reversal on the question of who shall be toll-taxed
called forth a mild rebuke from one commentator – most others having fallen into a somnolent snooze -- who felt
that Lamont’s flip-flop raised “some long-term worries about Lamont’s ability
to lead.”
But really -- who is worried?
Leadership in a Democrat Party that has captured all the
political high ground – the governor’s office, all the constitutional offices,
all the U.S. Congressional Delegation offices and gatekeeper roles in both
houses of the General Assembly -- may be overrated. With such commanding
majorities, does it matter whether Lamont leads or is led by the nose?
In addition to legislative troops at the beck and call of
Democrat political operatives, Lamont and leading Democrats may rely for
political succor upon 1) unionized state workers, who in the recent past have
exerted an outsized influence in Connecticut politics, 2) the inertia of many
voters in the state who appear to be unresponsive to taxation lashes, 3) a loose
confederation of business folk who continue to supply election funds to a
legislature increasingly progressive and hostile to business interests, 4) millionaires
along Connecticut’s shrinking “Gold Coast” who seek to buy their way into the
affections of eat-the-rich politicians, and 5) a media that has, largely for
business reasons, allied itself with the reigning power. Among Connecticut’s
media, there is no enemy to the left.
One of the most progressive Democrat leaders in the General Assembly
is legislation gate-keeper President Pro Tem
of the Senate Martin Looney, the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of Connecticut
progressives. Looney is New Haven based, a turnstile of flawed
progressive ideas and rusty machine politics.
Cowardly Democrats and Republicans having emptied many lockboxes and dedicated funds of their riches over the years, Looney now has his
eyes set on Municipal government treasuries. The unstated operative principle
of progressives in Connecticut is that state government, acting through largely
imaginary regional organizations, can manage municipal finances better than
Connecticut’s towns. County government was abolished in Connecticut in 1960 in
favor of municipal government. The ghost cannot be resurrected from its grave,
but this has not prevented progressive governors and members of the General
Assembly from proposing a governing structure for schools that looks suspiciously
like county government without an elected administrative arm. The financing and administrative arm of Looney’s
new regionalized school districts will be – guess who? -- Looney and his
progressive cohort in the General Assembly.
Looney’s plan not only envisions the looting of town
treasury pots. His is a raid on the sovereignty of municipal government itself
and – perhaps more importantly – it strikes a fatal blow at the principle of subsidiarity
that lies at the very root of republican government, a tenet which holds that nothing
should be done by a larger and more complex organization that can be done as
well by a smaller and simpler organization. Financing is the indispensable sine
qua non of all political action, which is why public school parents and municipal
leaders should insist that the larger organization, the state of Connecticut,
should keep its hands off the means by which towns finance their educational
operations. Property taxes should not become yet another lockbox plundered by
a state that is incapable of balancing its own books.
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