Democrats put off a
vote on tolling during the recently concluded legislative session because,
plain and simple, they did not have the votes to pass a tolling bill.
But hope springs
eternal.
House Speaker Joe
Aresimowicz thought he may have had the votes to pass the measure in the House,
but passage was still an iffy proposition.
Mark Pazniokas
writes in the Hartford
Business Journal, “Aresimowicz’s comments reflect a belief
among lawmakers that the Lamont administration botched the rollout of tolls in
February, giving Republicans, the trucking industry and others an opportunity
to frame tolls as just another demand on residents.”
Speaking through his
chief of staff Ryan Drajewicz, Lamont agrees that a “message rebooting” is in
order. “I agree with the speaker in the sense of a reboot,” said Drajewicz. “Now
that we are out of session, the boil is now coming down to a simmer and
eventually cooling off. What we want to do is really go back to where we
initially started, where this is too big of an issue for the administration
itself to take on. What we want to do is convene leadership from both sides of
the aisle.”
Being included in a
decision-making venue will be a welcome change of pace for Republican Leaders
Len Fasano in the Senate and Themis Klarides in the House. As his predecessor
Governor Dannel Malloy had done, Lamont and Democrat leaders in the General
Assembly this session made nearly all their important legislative decisions
without Republican participation; this despite Lamont's insistence that his
door was always open to Republicans for discussions. There is a difference
however between discussions and bilateral decisions. Budget decisions this time
around have been made by Democrats alone, and discussions on the budget were
the result of negotiations between radical and less radical Democrat progressives.
The
Day editorial board got it exactly
right: “The $43.4 billion two-year state budget approved last week was a
compromise deal struck within Connecticut’s divided one-party rule. The
negotiations were between the moderate Democrats, headed by Gov. Ned Lamont,
and the progressive Democrats, who comprise almost half of the 92 members of
the House Democratic Caucus. The Republican minority, marginalized in the House
and Senate by a drubbing in the 2018 elections, provided sideline criticism but
were powerless to influence the outcome.”
What legislative
Democrats need from Republicans is some form of assent to tolls, a new revenue
stream that will allow legislators to avoid long-term permanent cuts in
spending. Even commentators in the state favorable to progressive goals – ever
increasing taxation that allows the redistribution of funds to progressive
entities such as state employee labor unions – realize that labor unions in
Connecticut, the state’s unelected fourth branch of government, have become
untouchable third rails in state politics.
Thanks to former
Governor Dannel Malloy, who pushed out SEBAC contracts until 2021, union
honchos in Connecticut need not succumb to the blandishments of a Lamont regime,
however persuasive, because the state cannot use salary and benefit reductions
or layoffs as a prod in negotiations. The terms of the SEBAC 2017
AGREEMENT between STATE OF CONNECTICUT and STATE EMPLOYEES BARGAINING AGENT
COALITION (SEBAC) are written
in contractual, court enforced stone: “From the July 1, 2017 and through June
30, 2021, there shall be no loss of employment for any bargaining unit employee
hired prior to July 1, 2017.”
Malloy’s giveaways
to unions leave Lamont no instruments of force to use in his upcoming labor
negotiations. In negotiations with SEBAC, Lamont soon may understand the
frustration suffered by Republicans who lack the numbers in the General
Assembly to force the Lamont/Looney/Aresimowicz progressive regime to deal
responsibly with them.
Opposition to
tolling in Connecticut is fierce and unrelenting for several reasons. Because
of previous tax increases during the Malloy administration, even marginal
increases in future taxes threaten the budgets of middle class taxpayers. The
Lamont administration promises more revenue increases, and permanent, long-term
spending cuts are nowhere present in Lamont’s budget. The Lamont administration
has chosen to increase consumption taxes by “broadening the tax base,” an
Orwellian euphemism that sends a signal to in and out-of-state businesses that the
cost of business in Connecticut is about to increase – again -- the burden of
taxation falling this time on the middle class and the working poor.
In addition, the
Malloy/Looney/Aresimowicz toll scheme is a pig in a poke. No one can be certain
that the recently released draft toll plan will be accepted by a federal
government charged with financing gantries that reduce congestion, the whole
purpose of congestion tolling. Connecticut’s tolling plan seems on the face of
it to have been designed to increase state revenue; indeed, that is why the tax
hungry Lamont administration recently diverted to the General Fund revenues
destined to be placed in a so called transportation fund “lockbox.” Federal decision
makers may not be amused by such efforts. And toll opponents certainly have
caught on to the grand design and purpose of pro-toll spendthrifts and progressive legislators whose ONLY solution to
debt caused by political mismanagement is to increase the burden of taxation,
which has not in the past served to reduce deficits or to force a greedy state
to pare back spending.
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