“A $10 million boondoggle” and “a dumb idea”

(Please read and share the attached Waterbury Republican-American editorial. Then, contact me asap at [email protected] to say “NO!” to Malloy’s attempt to waste and borrow MORE of YOUR money…. as he’s walking out the door. Include your name and town, and I will get your message to Malloy and the Bond Commission before the Wednesday vote.)

Highway-toll proposal: A $10 million boondoggle 

(Waterbury Republican-American Editorial)

There are encouraging signs that members of Connecticut’s State Bond Commission might grow spines, at least temporarily.

At least one Democratic member, state Comptroller Kevin P. Lembo, said Wednesday he will vote against Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s proposal to borrow $10 million to finance a study of reinstating highway tolls.

Funding this study would be a dumb idea even if Connecticut could afford it – which it can’t.

It also would be anti-democratic, as House Minority Leader Themis Klarides, R-Derby, noted in a letter to Gov. Malloy on Thursday. “Advocates for tolls in the current General Assembly have been unable to garner enough votes to allow tolls back into Connecticut,” she wrote, calling the proposal “a blatant circumvention of our democratic process.”

Her Senate counterpart, Republican President Pro Tempore Leonard A. Fasano, of North Haven, called out lame-duck Gov. Malloy on Wednesday for proposing an “irresponsible and egotistical waste of money as he heads out of office.”

And Mr. Lembo wrote Wednesday: “I do not support financing this study through bonding without legislative directive. These decisions should be left to the next governor and legislature.” That’s a powerful bipartisan triumvirate standing between Connecticut taxpayers and an inadequately considered spending proposal.

Here’s the cold reality of 21st-century tolling in Connecticut – where no highway tolls have been collected since 1985, after a 1983 crash at the Interstate 95 toll booths killed seven people. Connecticut voters and taxpayers probably would accept border tolls on interstates 84, 91 and 95, designed to capture revenues from truckers and others passing through the state. But under federal regulations, tolling would be limited to the purpose of controlling congestion – not the larger objective of increasing revenues for road and bridge maintenance and repair.

So Connecticut would have to scatter tolling booths and gantries around the state, concentrating them in chronically congested areas. 

As a result, an estimated 72 percent of toll revenues would come from the pockets of state residents.

The obvious solution is to seek a waiver from the federal government to allow border tolls.

Good luck with that.

With Congress and the White House in the hands of Republicans, Connecticut’s all-Democratic delegation and Democratic governor would have little leverage in Washington, D.C. The walls they’ve built between their constituents and President Trump, as a result of their frequent, usually gratuitous and often hysterical condemnations of the president, also would stand in the way of any relief they might request.

Bottom line: Tolls are a nonstarter.

What the feds might allow, residents and a majority of their representatives in the Capitol would oppose; what residents and lawmakers find acceptable, the feds would block.

Maybe in January 2019, if a Republican governor is ensconced in Hartford and perhaps even a bipartisan congressional delegation in Washington, border tolls may have a shot.

Until then, however, Connecticut leaders need to look elsewhere for additional highway cash.

http://www.rep-am.com/opinion/editorials/2018/07/20/highway-toll-proposal-a-10-million-boondoggle/