The trucking lobby is threatening to have drivers go around Connecticut because of the Highway User Fee. That’s fine. We’ll have less air pollution, safer and better quality roads, and less people with asthma. Looks like the Highway User Fee is already working. pic.twitter.com/yrVYROf0Qq
— Governor Ned Lamont (@GovNedLamont) June 10, 2021
May their grocery stores go empty and all deliveries in the state stop.
CT will use horse-drawn carriages and wagons to bring the hard goods in from the borders.
Apparently the ability to rub two neurons together isn’t a qualification for Governor of Connecticut.
when i lived in DC, they tried everything to additionally tax DC employees who were commuters from VA and MD; a miserable failure. this is may be worse.
part of the federal system is free travel among states, so go ahead erect numbing tolls at your borders and see what happens.
Somehow tolls don’t get shot down in spite of that. Neither do border checkpoints at the CA border where they take your fruits away because of bugs or some such BS excuse.
Tolls help pay for the highways (or so they claim) and have a long history (look up the origin of the word “turnpike”), and giving up your fruit to “prevent invasive species” is largely viewed as reasonable. Plus, those things are equally applied to all. Everyone who uses a toll road pays, and everyone who brings fruit loses it. If you don’t like that, avoid toll roads and don’t travel into CA with fruit. Neither option is difficult.
Singling out one sub-set of the population (truckers) to always pay a (presumably) hefty “tax”* that nobody else has to pay goes too far. It’s not a toll; it applies on freeways, too. And it’s not a ban on specific produce/products; it applies on any commercial tractor no matter what it’s carrying.
And it will have the opposite effect, plus some unintended side-effects: Sure, they’ll lower the number of semis, but one semi can transport a LOT of goods, and replacing each one with three or four V8-equipped cargo vans or box trucks will increase pollution levels. Alternatively or additionally, stores will go empty, prices will go up due to reduced supply, items will be harder to find, and since Connecticut is a small state consumers may opt to drive further (read: consume more fuel and add more pollution) to shop out-of-state…
… which will also reduce the sales tax revenues coming into the state coffers.
But hey, the intentions are good, and that’s all that matters to Democrats, right?
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* – Democrats aren’t too bright; they misspelled F-I-N-E.
Yes, but turnpikes were private property. I live just down the road from the Francestown Turnpike (in Mont Vernon, NH), a narrow country road, unusual only in how straight it is. NH has a bunch of those old turnpike roads; they haven’t been toll roads in well over a century, though.
They already get away with it on car rentals at airports. I have to go back to chicago area for 4 days and the taxes and fees are almost as much as the damn rental. Not kidding.
Look at NYC. They upped the “commercial “ tolls. I dont know if its stopped or not. I heard a guy on the radio say going to ny for delivery cost him over $100 a DAY. Yes go around ct. dont deliver there at all.
Man, if CT doesn’t have its own Amazon distribution center, this policy will be revoked ASAP.
Although it’ll be a race between them noticing the gas and grocery shortages before the lack of Prime deliveries…
Even if CT does have its own Amazon distro center(s), the goods have to get into the state somehow.
Unless Amazon somehow got an exemption carved out for themselves, they’ll be paying the tax, and they’ll find a way to pass it on to their “normal” (read: non-government and non-corporate) customers.
“people don’t get their food from trucks, they get food from grocery stores”.
One dimensional thinking.
This is brought to you by the people who think you should be happy about $5 a gallon gas, because it will cause you to ride a bike to work more often and exercise is good for you. (or some other BS reason.) It is the same mindset that taxes the life out of an industry (say the cruise industry) then are surprised when that industry stops coming to their state. (like the cruise industry deciding it is not worth stopping in your port, for example.)
And, of course, they cannot admit they screwed up, so they make statements about how losing a valuable industry or resource is actually a fantastic thing. Like losing your eyesight is wonderful because you will be so much more attuned to your hearing. (Sorry, charlie, but I want to have both. Do not try to BS me.)
These same people will make a policy, without regard for the consequences, then blame everyone except themselves for the problem. Or, as demonstrated above, claim victory for an abject failure.
Dammit don’t make me like unions!