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It’s not only money, but energy as well, that makes things
go. A headline in a Hartford paper, “House extends gas tax cut,” drives
home the point, although the headline itself is a bit convoluted.
What happened was this: There was a considerable energy
shortage after President Joe Biden assumed office, largely because the incoming
president had declared a war on energy as we know it.
Biden has said several times since assuming office – the
infamous “insurrection” at the U.S. Capitol on January 6 had not been successful,
and Biden was sworn into to office shortly after the electoral count showed he had
prevailed over outgoing President Donald Trump – that there would be no more fossil fuel development so
long as he was president.
We all know that if you reduce the supply of a consumable
product, the price of the product will increase so long as demand is constant.
The demand for fossil fuel was constant, and once the COVID pandemic began to
recede, the price of gas at the pump increased.
Here in Connecticut and elsewhere, Democrats were
temporarily alarmed by this development, mostly because the 2022 off year
elections were peeking over the horizon and discontent was rising along with
the rise in gas prices.
Something had to be done. Connecticut taxes gas twice, once
at the incoming port and again at the pump. The state, post COVID, ran massive
surpluses thanks to Biden, who had both borrowed huge gobs of money and inflated
the currency by printing money in order to provide Connecticut Democrats with
election insurance.
Democrats, who had been ruling the General Assembly for
nearly a half century, and Governor Ned Lamont decided to take a temporary hit
on the gas tax until December, a month after the elections. In truth, the hit,
because it was temporary, was barely felt among ruling Democrats at the
Capitol. The price of the consumable product had increased, and the state
treasury was realizing a corresponding increase in revenue. In the longer term -
say, three or four decades hence – all fossil fuel production , Biden has
numerous times promised, would come to an
and, along with it, state tax revenue. But then, in the long run, we are all
dead.
Things happened. Son of Stalin, Vladimir Putin of Russia,
invaded Ukraine and gas shortages to western Europe soon appeared. Because of
cutbacks in fuel production at home, the United States was no longer prepared
to soften the blow to its NATO partners. The war on Ukraine has continued for
several months, along with increased gas prices and supply shortages.
Connecticut Democrats have now pledged to revoke the
temporary gas tax cut that was due to expire in December. In New England,
December may be “the cruelest month” -- and never mind that T.S. Eliot has
designated April as the cruelest month in his 1922 poem The Waste Land:
April is the cruelest month, breeding
Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing
Memory and desire, stirring
Dull roots with spring rain.
Winter kept us warm, covering
Earth in forgetful snow, feeding
A little life with dried tubers.
December in New
England will be wintery – and expensive -- so too January, February, March and
April. We are not lilacs. Winter will keep us warm only if we can count on a
source of energy more reliable than Democrat House Speaker Matt Ritter’s latest
pronouncement.
Pointing to a massive
“Rainy Day Fund,” the largest in state history, $4.3 billion last year and
$2.8 billion for the current fiscal year, Republicans want Democrats in the
General Assembly to be just a wee bit less -- What’s the word? -- greedy. Why
not extend the 25 cent cut in the gas tax to the fiscal year on June 30?
Niet, said Democrat
House Speaker Matt Ritter, as quoted in CTNewsJunkie. “We just kinda litigated this whole issue.
Voters had a chance to weigh in. The [Republican} amendment today is, let’s do
the whole thing until June 30, well that was a platform that somebody ran on
and got 42% of the vote… [The bill includes] sustainable policies that benefit
people. That’s the difference between reckless amendments that you can’t pay
for.”
Ritter’s underlying
message should be plain to every overstressed Connecticut taxpayer. The
progressive Democrat majority in Connecticut’s General Assembly, the all
Democrat U.S. Congressional Delegation, and the state constitutional offices,
all occupied by Democrats, are committed to the following inflexible rule: Tax
cuts must always be temporary, tax increases and spending must always be
permanent. So it has been for the last few decades, so it will be in the
future. And a majority of Connecticut citizens have decided, by consistently
voting Democrats into office – “litigating” the point, as Ritter put it – that
they want perpetual increases in taxes and spending.
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