(Stamford Advocate Letter to the Editor) “Bravo to state Sen. Toni Boucher”

Editorial as it appeared in the Stamford Advocate

To the editor,

Bravo to state Sen. Toni Boucher for her op-ed (“How would you use $190M?” July 2). I do not know what political party Boucher belongs to and will not look it up until I have finished composing this letter and send it on its way. But her explanation of what has been happening to our states transportation fund, while not revealing any new information, is refreshing to read. After all, most politicians would rather cover up and sugarcoat the truth. There is no sugarcoating in her words and plenty of truth.

The truth is that Governor Malloy has been raiding the transportation fund over the last four years to the amount of $190 million. But this is not a condemnation of only the Democratic Party. Both parties have been guilty of siphoning off funds from the transportation fund for other purposes. This practice has gone on for years, if not decades, and needs to be stopped.

Even now we have a Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy (a Democrat), calling for higher gas taxes to raise money to fix our ailing infrastructure. He seems to ignore that in Connecticut we already pay some of the highest taxes for gas and that Connecticut regularly raids the transportation fund to pay for non-infrastructure expenses.

Boucher has been unsuccessful in passing legislation to “put a lock box on state transportation funding.” Let’s hope she is successful in her future attempts. Its time our elected officials stop keep their greedy fingers off of our money. The money is collected to improve and maintain our infrastructure. Let’s use it for that purpose.

Mark Plotzky

Stamford