Scott Shepard

House Speaker Aresimowicz has dismissed toll opponents and sceptics as “emotional” in their attachment to “perceived details.” But details from a new working draft of the tolls bill that may dominate the final struggle over this issue for 2019 demonstrate that toll opponents have the details right, while Aresimowicz’s and the governor’s camouflage of promises seeks desperately to hide ...

Should I stay or should I go now?If I go there will be troubleAnd if I stay it will be doubleSo you gotta let me knowShould I stay or should I go?                                                 — (apologies to) The Clash (1982) Well, they’ve told us. Nearly four decades later, the Connecticut General Assembly ...

The Governor and legislative leaders have promised us a paid FMLA plan that will cost only one-half-of-one-percent of each worker’s payroll. They have also promised that the benefit will cover up to $900 or $1000 per week in lost wages for 12 – and sometimes more – weeks every year.  As we demonstrated earlier ...

The administration and legislative supporters of tolls have marketed their proposal with claims that a statewide tolling plan, including significant discounts for in-state drivers, would result in the state collecting high levels of revenue from out-of-state drivers. This, they have said, justifies the extremely high construction and maintenance costs of tolling, ...

Tolls can be user fees, depending on how they are conceived and implemented. As proposed in Connecticut, however, they will not be user fees, but rather a massive wealth transfer:  in short, another giant tax increase.  Politicians trying to hide a huge tax increase under another – any other – label is depressing, but not surprising. What is ...

Requiring municipalities to take more responsibility for their teachers’ pension costs makes some sense – if those towns have the power to lower those pensions or the teachers’ other compensation. To do so any other way is old-style taxation without representation, of the sort for which we gave King George the boot.  ...