Yankee Institute statement on Gov. Ned Lamont’s new transportation plan

“We appreciate Gov. Ned Lamont abandoning previous plans calling for 50 to 80 tolling gantries throughout Connecticut and seeking a variety of ways to leverage federal dollars in order to fund transportation projects in our state. But we are dismayed that his newest plan — once again — relies on tolls to raise a reported $320 million per year on the backs of Connecticut’s residents.

This is a tax increase, plain and simple. And it comes just months after the governor and legislature raised taxes by $1.4 billion and diverted money from the Special Transportation Fund. It is unacceptable. 

No sensible person can believe the claim that these tolls would be temporary, given Connecticut’s long history of “temporary” taxes that have turned out to be permanent.  What’s more, the governor is seeking to impose this new money grab without having fulfilled his campaign promises to cut the cost of government; address the high cost of transportation projects; correct structural deficits created by Connecticut’s fixed costs; or secure concessions from state employee unions, which continue to receive massive wage increases virtually unknown in the private sector.

Connecticut’s taxpayers simply cannot trust politicians’ promises to save money in the future as they slide their hands into our pockets today. Our state’s overtaxed residents should refuse to pay even one cent more until their representatives in Hartford have made meaningful and lasting reforms to address our state’s fiscal crisis.  Until then, Yankee Institute stands firmly against tolls and any other attempt to institute a new tax on the hard-working people of Connecticut.”

Statement by Carol Platt Liebau, President of Yankee Institute