Was anyone really surprised when Ned did a flip-flop on
tolls? Not me.
If you’ll remember when he first announced his candidacy for
Governor, he said he’d sign a toll bill his first day in office. Then he saw the polling data and
backtracked, saying he’d only toll trucks.
Trucks seem like such a convenient scapegoat. Sure, let’s blame them for our traffic and
bad roads. We’re not responsible, it’s
“them”. Everybody hates trucks, unless
they’re delivering my Amazon package. But just tolling trucks won’t get the money
needed, so the Governor gave lawmakers a second option.
Yes, lawmakers. It’s
the legislature that must pass a tolling bill before the Governor can sign it,
so that’s where the debate has quickly shifted, bringing out… the Zombies!
Usually when you lose an election you slink off in a corner
to sulk and regroup. But not the
Republicans. Their standard bearers
have risen again from the dead to lead a new fight, this time against tolls.
Bob Stefanowski, the guy who didn’t vote for 16 years and
then couldn’t decide if he was a Republican or Democrat, is now leading his
“party of NO” in a crusade to stop the “tolls tax”.
Scott Frantz who lost his Greenwich Senate seat to, gasp, a
Democrat...( and a woman !)... is said to be behind his town’s pushback on
tolling. And fellow GOP loser, Toni
Boucher of Wilton is still on social media fanning the flames of
discontent. It’s a trifecta of Zombie
losers who refuse to admit they were rejected by the voters.
Elsewhere, the GOP is organizing local “informational
meetings” with constituents to attack the Lamont budget. But if you look at who’s providing the
“information” you’ll see it’s just the GOP.
There are no voices in support of tolling, just the trolls who oppose
it.
The Zombies and Trolls are hoping to find new political life
on an issue they campaigned and lost on, big time.
When 88% of the voters said “yes” to a Lockbox on the
Special Transportation Fund last November, we witnessed a sea-change in voters’
attitudes toward raising revenue for our roads and rails. People understand that tolls are not a “tax”
as the Zombies would have us believe, but a user fee.
If you don’t want to pay tolls, don’t. Take mass transit. And when the anti-toll trolls now complain
about how unfair it is to charge tolls to working men and women just trying to
get to their jobs, where is their sympathy for the hours they now waste in
traffic each day?
Even Stefanowksi mentor Arthur Laffler understands the issue
of supply and demand: we have a limited
supply of highway and insatiable demand.
Tolling will moderate our greed.
Mind you, with the Zombies and Trolls now running lose
across the state I’m seriously underwhelmed at our new Governor’s inability to
sell his vision on tolling. His budget
speech was fine, but there’s been no follow through. Let’s get cranking Ned!
It’s time for Governor Lamont to sell the reality and
necessity of tolling and finally put a silver stake through the heart of the
Zombies and Trolls.
Posted with permission of Hearst CT Media
No comments:
Post a Comment