|
Help save yourself
— join CLT
today! |
CLT introduction and membership application |
What CLT saves you from the auto excise tax alone |
Make a contribution to support
CLT's work by clicking the button above
Ask your friends to join too |
Visit CLT on Facebook |
Barbara Anderson's Great Moments |
Follow CLT on Twitter |
CLT UPDATE
Tuesday, October 31, 2017
CLT exposed The Takers latest
scheme, again
|
Every major highway around Boston would have
electronic tolls under a Lynn Democrat’s plan to fill the
state’s coffers by dunning drivers.
State Sen. Thomas McGee’s plan — which cites
fairness for those North Shore and Metrowest drivers who
already are hit with daily tolls — would direct state
officials to “implement a comprehensive system of tolling
and travel on and within the metropolitan highway system” by
the end of next year.
Affected highways would include Interstate
93 as it heads through Boston, Interstate 95 as it circles
Boston, Route 1 south of I-95, and Route 2 between Alewife
and I-95.
McGee said the tolls would be used to fill a
billion-dollar gap in the state’s transit spending — not
just for road and bridge maintenance, but for the MBTA,
commuter rail and ferry service....
A South Shore Republican — whose
constituents don’t currently pay tolls to commute to Boston
— cast McGee’s bill as the camel’s nose under the tent.
“This is not going to stop there, and once
they’re installed they’ll be there forever, and there’ll be
regular increases,” said state Rep. David DeCoste
(R-Norwell). “This will never end.”
Mary Connaughton, a former Massachusetts
Turnpike Authority board member and director of government
transparency for the Pioneer Institute, called the toll plan
a “money grab” and criticized pols for pursuing it.
“With massive tolling structures absent,
tolls these days seem more like an afterthought — that is,
until you get your credit card statement,” Connaughton said.
“The public has rejected additional transportation taxes and
it’s odd to think that legislators would embrace this
concept.”
The Boston Herald
Thursday, October 26, 2017
State senator’s bill paves way for expanded Mass. tolls
Citizens for Limited Taxation isn't
impressed with the idea of creating a "Metropolitan
Transportation Network" which it sees as a means to increase
costs for those using the state's highways.
Citing figures that show the cost of road
construction and maintenance here as above the national
average, CLT's Chip Ford notes: "Throwing more and
more taxpayer money at a failing and bloated transportation
system is not a solution — it’s
only digging the hole deeper.”
The Salem News
Friday, October 27, 2017
Weekly Political Potpourri Column
By Nelson Benton
One year after the lights went permanently
dark inside the Bay State’s remaining human-staffed
tollbooths, giving way to the era of all-electronic tolling,
a bill on Beacon Hill touted by a powerful Democrat from
Lynn would expand tolling throughout Greater Boston, with
high-traveled freeways like Route 128, Interstate 93,
Interstate 95, and Route 2 transitioning into tollways.
State Senator Thomas McGee, the chairman of
the Joint Transportation Committee, filed the bill, “An Act
Establishing the Metropolitan Transportation Network,” last
January. His bill was heard by the committee on Tuesday.
Testifying at the hearing against the bill was Citizens
for Limited Taxation’s spokesman Chip Faulkner....
CLT executive director Chip Ford
challenged the need for tolls and argued in a prepared
statement that the problem lies more with spending than with
revenue.
“Massachusetts desperately needs to get its
exorbitant cost of highway construction and maintenance
under control,” he said. “Throwing more and more taxpayer
money at a failing and bloated transportation system is not
a solution – it’s only digging the hole deeper.”
CLT has also pointed out that the state
Legislature’s three-cent-per-gallon gas tax bump extracted
more than $766 million out of drivers in 2016 alone, while
noting that according to a highway report published in
September 2016 by Reason Foundation, a libertarian think
tank, Massachusetts “spends 320 percent more than the
national average for every mile of state road infrastructure
built or maintained.”
The New Boston Post
Friday, October 27, 2017
Beacon Hill Democrats Looking to Add More Tolls to
Boston-Area Highways
Bay State U.S. Rep. Michael Capuano said a
debate over tolling every highway going into the city raises
“fair and reasonable” issues, as a key State House lawmaker
backs the plan and the mayor says he is open to it.
“I’m not gung-ho about tolls, but in order
to maintain and fix our roads and subways, we do need to
generate revenue,” Capuano (D-Somerville) said on Boston
Herald Radio’s “Morning Meeting” show yesterday.
He was responding to the proposal by state
Sen. Thomas McGee, chairman of the transportation committee,
to add tolls to Interstate 93 into Boston, Interstate 95
around the city, Route 1 south of Boston, and Route 2 near
Alewife and I-95.
“Tolls are one way to do it. ... There’s
also an equity issue. You do have people coming in from the
west and people coming over the Tobin bridge that do pay
tolls,” he said. “Why should they be the only ones paying
tolls when other people accessing downtown don’t? I think
it’s a fair question to debate.”
McGee’s proposal would include a plan for
“dynamic or peak pricing” that would change tolls throughout
the day....
McGee said earlier this week the additional
money would be used to cover the billion-dollar funding gap
the state is facing.
Critics have said the plan would open the
door to never-ending tolling with no limit on potential
price increases.
The Boston Herald
Saturday, October 28, 2017
Michael Capuano on new tolls: ‘fair question to debate’
BOSTON (CBS) – State Senator Thomas McGee
has unveiled a plan to expand tolling to multiple roads and
highways around the Boston area. He argues that under the
current setup, drivers coming from the North Shore or the
Metrowest area pay more than their fair share, shouldering
the burden for the sake of all Boston drivers. Do you think
this is a good idea, or just another opportunity for the
state to take your money?
WBZ Radio - AM 1030
Friday, October 27, 2017
NightSide with Dan Rea
A Toll is a Toll
Campaign season is underway in Massachusetts
and suddenly there’s a growing movement to spread the pain
of highway tolls all around the commonwealth. If that seems
counterintuitive, well, just follow the political
breadcrumbs....
But McGee represents North Shore communities
where residents have long been angered by toll inequity —
meaning, they have to pay them every day, while thousands of
commuters in other regions are spared. He also happens to be
running for mayor of Lynn. Lawmakers from Metrowest have
sponsored similar bills. Expanded tolling can be good
politics, at least for some.
Then there’s Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, who
this week told the Herald he’s cool with McGee’s toll
proposal. Well, why wouldn’t he be? His constituents aren’t
the ones who would bear the burden of daily, inbound highway
tolls, but the city would reap the benefits of more state
funding for roads and bridges....
Gov. Charlie Baker, meanwhile, has made
clear his firm opposition to new tolls. Hardly surprising
for a Republican governor facing re-election, particularly
one who knows that his state already spends far more than
almost every other state on its highway infrastructure.
The success of all-electronic, overhead
tolling on the Pike has made some Democratic lawmakers, who
have a never-ending thirst for more revenue, toll-happy.
They should realize that just because drivers don’t get
caught in tollbooth traffic jams anymore doesn’t mean they
are eager to feel more toll pain.
A Boston Herald editorial
Monday, October 30, 2017
The politics of tolls
|
|
Chip Ford's CLT
Commentary
As a CLT member (or, for some reading this, a former
member and past supporter) have you noticed the broad
posthumous kvetching now that the public hearing on toll
expansion is in the rear-view mirror?
At the invitation of state Rep. David DeCoste
(R-Norwell), CLT's Chip Faulkner
appeared before the
Transportation Committee last week and spoke on behalf of motorists and
taxpayers, unaware they were again being milked as the
state's herd of cash
cows. CLT represented an unaware public sure to oppose
expanded tolls — if they only
knew of the quiet scheme that was underway.
Lonely CLT was there standing tall when it counted.
CLT
published its "Paul Revere" news release across the state
that awakened at least some to this latest threat.
Isn't it curious that so few have recognized the tribune?
Even the esteemed State House News Service's report on the
Transportation Committee hearing last Tuesday, "Five-year plan
will offer 'great forum' for east-west rail, Pollack says,"
missed the plan to expand toll roads and focused its entire
coverage of the hearing on a bill to connect Springfield to Boston by rail:
Chris Trotta has traveled
countless times the roughly 100 miles from his
Longmeadow home to the Boston hospital where his
sons received treatment for kidney abnormalities. On
Tuesday he made the familiar trek to push for a new
link - by rail - between the state's capital and its
largest city west of Worcester.
Trotta was among roughly 40
people who joined Longmeadow Democrat Sen. Eric
Lesser aboard a bus from the Springfield area to the
State House where they implored the Transportation
Committee to advance the idea of high-speed rail
connecting Springfield to Boston....
Lesser's bill (S 1935) would
direct the Massachusetts Department of
Transportation to study the feasibility of a
high-speed rail connection between Boston and
Springfield, and legislation sponsored by
Northampton Democrat Rep. Peter Kocot would
establish a working group to advance the proposed
project.
[Full
report can be read below]
To be fair, our CLT news release e-mail bounced back as
"undeliverable" from all five SHNS contacts to which it was
sent along with our multitude of other media contacts who received
it. When I realized that the news releases to
them had bounced back I sent it out a second time to each SHNS reporter, individually. They got their copies an
hour after everyone else, and the reporter did contact me
much later. The tolls expansion bill still didn't make
it into their report — and today much of the state political
news reporting you read in your local papers is syndicated
by the State House News Service. The other media
sources which reported on the tolls bill got their heads-up
from CLT.
On Friday evening (8:00-midnight) on
NightSide with Dan Rea (WBZ Radio, AM 1030) Dan's topic was
"A Toll is a Toll" (you can
listen to the half-hour segment here). One of
Dan's callers had a creative suggestion: It's time to
update our state's shopworn nickname, "Taxachusetts," to
something fresh: "Massataxes." I like
it!
At least after we focused the spotlight on this scheme to
expand the number of toll roads, implementing it in the
light will be more difficult for Bacon Hill pols
— but not impossible, as this
is after all Massachusetts. As we saw with
their obscene $18 million pay grab last February, if
legislators want something badly enough they simply take it,
and damn public opinion.
One columnist I discussed this with offered that he'd be
more receptive to more and higher tolls if the gas tax was
repealed. I told him that will never
happen. It’s not that the gas tax doesn’t bring in
enough cash – Massataxes spends more on its highways than
all but two other states,
320 percent more than the national
average. The problem here is that more of our money is
never enough. At least increasing the gas tax
requires a vote by the Legislature. Once tolling is
established on an expanded highway system, increasing
automatic tolls simply takes someone at MassDOT punching a
few keys on a keyboard, entering the new rate, and
bingo it’s instantly hiked across the system; no muss no
fuss.
|
 |
 |
|
Chip Ford
Executive Director |
If you
still haven’t made a contribution to CLT yet this year,
still haven’t gotten around to it, with only two
months remaining in 2017, your support remains
critical to our ongoing efforts on behalf of taxpayers.
We can only keep rolling ahead with your support and that of
so many others. This update is just one more example
of CLT's value to you and to all Massataxes taxpayers.
Please send
the most generous contribution you can afford as soon as
possible, or
make one by credit card here.
|
|
|
|
The Boston Herald
Thursday, October 26, 2017
State senator’s bill paves way for expanded
Mass. tolls
By Dan Atkinson
Every major highway around Boston would have
electronic tolls under a Lynn Democrat’s plan to
fill the state’s coffers by dunning drivers.
State Sen. Thomas McGee’s plan — which cites
fairness for those North Shore and Metrowest
drivers who already are hit with daily tolls —
would direct state officials to “implement a
comprehensive system of tolling and travel on
and within the metropolitan highway system” by
the end of next year.
Affected highways would include Interstate 93 as
it heads through Boston, Interstate 95 as it
circles Boston, Route 1 south of I-95, and Route
2 between Alewife and I-95.
McGee said the tolls would be used to fill a
billion-dollar gap in the state’s transit
spending — not just for road and bridge
maintenance, but for the MBTA, commuter rail and
ferry service.
The plan does not propose any specific toll
amounts but does call for the state to
“implement dynamic or peak period pricing aimed
at easing congestion and maximizing
environmental benefits.”
Currently, drivers into Boston with an E-ZPass
have to pay 50 cents coming through the Allston
tolls, $1.25 going over the Tobin Bridge and
$1.50 going through the Sumner, Callahan and Ted
Williams tunnels.
McGee said he did not have any toll figures in
mind, but said new tolls would balance the money
his constituents pay when driving to Boston
while other motorists can travel to and from the
city without paying.
“In many ways we are paying our own tax and not
seeing the benefits, we need to be fair and
equitable about how we toll,” McGee said.
A South Shore Republican — whose constituents
don’t currently pay tolls to commute to Boston —
cast McGee’s bill as the camel’s nose under the
tent.
“This is not going to stop there, and once
they’re installed they’ll be there forever, and
there’ll be regular increases,” said state Rep.
David DeCoste (R-Norwell). “This will never
end.”
Mary Connaughton, a former Massachusetts
Turnpike Authority board member and director of
government transparency for the Pioneer
Institute, called the toll plan a “money grab”
and criticized pols for pursuing it.
“With massive tolling structures absent, tolls
these days seem more like an afterthought — that
is, until you get your credit card statement,”
Connaughton said. “The public has rejected
additional transportation taxes and it’s odd to
think that legislators would embrace this
concept.”
The New Boston Post
Friday, October 27, 2017
Beacon Hill Democrats Looking to Add More Tolls
to Boston-Area Highways
By Evan Lips
One year after the lights went permanently dark
inside the Bay State’s remaining human-staffed
tollbooths, giving way to the era of
all-electronic tolling, a bill on Beacon Hill
touted by a powerful Democrat from Lynn would
expand tolling throughout Greater Boston, with
high-traveled freeways like Route 128,
Interstate 93, Interstate 95, and Route 2
transitioning into tollways.
State Senator Thomas McGee, the chairman of the
Joint Transportation Committee, filed the bill,
“An Act Establishing the Metropolitan
Transportation Network,” last January. His bill
was heard by the committee on Tuesday.
Testifying at the hearing against the bill was
Citizens for Limited Taxation’s spokesman
Chip Faulkner.
Under McGee’s proposal, the following major
roadways would be affected:
The tolls would also feature a flex system, with
toll rates rising during designated mass-commute
hours in order to “take advantage of
all-electronic tolling technology” and “provide
incentives for motorists using the Metropolitan
highway system to use the Massachusetts Bay
Transportation Authority assets” like railways,
buses, and boats.
The flex system “implement dynamic or peak
period pricing aimed at easing congestion and
maximizing the environmental benefits to the
region served by the Metropolitan transportation
network,” with the intent of the new tolls being
to “establish toll charges that address the
operating and capital requirements of the
Metropolitan highway system.”
CLT executive director Chip Ford
challenged the need for tolls and argued in a
prepared statement that the problem lies more
with spending than with revenue.
“Massachusetts desperately needs to get its
exorbitant cost of highway construction and
maintenance under control,” he said. “Throwing
more and more taxpayer money at a failing and
bloated transportation system is not a solution
– it’s only digging the hole deeper.”
CLT has also pointed out that the state
Legislature’s three-cent-per-gallon gas tax bump
extracted more than $766 million out of drivers
in 2016 alone, while noting that according to a
highway report published in September 2016 by
Reason Foundation, a libertarian think tank,
Massachusetts “spends 320 percent more than the
national average for every mile of state road
infrastructure built or maintained.”
Capital and Bridges Disbursements per
State-Controlled Mile
Massachusetts $290,854
New Hampshire $79,385
National Average $84,494
Maintenance Disbursements per
State-Controlled Mile
Massachusetts $78,313
New Hampshire $19,906
National Average $25,996
Administrative Disbursements per
State-Controlled Mile
Massachusetts $74,924
New Hampshire $23,607
National Average $10,051
Total Disbursements (including bond principal
and interest, etc.) per State-Controlled Mile
Massachusetts $675,939
New Hampshire $186,194
National Average $160,997
Source: Reason Foundation Policy Study No.
448, September 2016, “22nd Annual Highway Report
— The Performance of State Highway Systems”
McGee claims the state is facing a $1 billion
transportation funding gap.
His bill does not identify what the toll rates,
if enacted, will be.
According to the Boston Herald, Boston Mayor
Marty Walsh has signaled his support for the new
tollways.
Walsh claimed that the new tolls “could
potentially cut down on traffic, people driving
in, maybe they’ll take the train.”
The Boston Herald
Saturday, October 28, 2017
Michael Capuano on new tolls: ‘fair question to
debate’
By Marie Szaniszlo
Bay State U.S. Rep. Michael Capuano said a
debate over tolling every highway going into the
city raises “fair and reasonable” issues, as a
key State House lawmaker backs the plan and the
mayor says he is open to it.
“I’m not gung-ho about tolls, but in order to
maintain and fix our roads and subways, we do
need to generate revenue,” Capuano
(D-Somerville) said on Boston Herald Radio’s
“Morning Meeting” show yesterday.
He was responding to the proposal by state Sen.
Thomas McGee, chairman of the transportation
committee, to add tolls to Interstate 93 into
Boston, Interstate 95 around the city, Route 1
south of Boston, and Route 2 near Alewife and
I-95.
“Tolls are one way to do it. ... There’s also an
equity issue. You do have people coming in from
the west and people coming over the Tobin bridge
that do pay tolls,” he said. “Why should they be
the only ones paying tolls when other people
accessing downtown don’t? I think it’s a fair
question to debate.”
McGee’s proposal would include a plan for
“dynamic or peak pricing” that would change
tolls throughout the day.
“That’s used around the world in many different
places,” Capuano noted. “It’s a controversial
way to do it, but it is used. London uses it;
Shanghai I know, and New York has considered it.
So I think it’s a reasonable thing to discuss.
As to how to control traffic, how to spread the
tax burden of people paying tolls ... those are
fair questions. I don’t think they presume an
answer. But I do think it’s a fair question to
have a debate about.”
Mayor Martin J. Walsh on Thursday said he is
open to the idea of adding new tolls to major
highways to Boston, saying the plan could
provide the state with much-needed revenue at a
time when federal infrastructure funds are up in
the air.
“We’re looking at tens of millions of dollars of
money needed for infrastructure for our roads
and bridges and the MBTA,” Walsh said. “We have
to look at all options.”
McGee said earlier this week the additional
money would be used to cover the billion-dollar
funding gap the state is facing.
Critics have said the plan would open the door
to never-ending tolling with no limit on
potential price increases.
The Boston Herald
Monday, October 30, 2017
A Boston Herald editorial
The politics of tolls
Campaign season is underway in Massachusetts and
suddenly there’s a growing movement to spread
the pain of highway tolls all around the
commonwealth. If that seems counterintuitive,
well, just follow the political breadcrumbs.
State Sen. Tom McGee (D-Lynn) is the sponsor of
a bill that would require the Baker
administration to introduce new tolls throughout
the metropolitan highway system. Seems like the
kind of controversial measure a lawmaker would
try to avoid during an election year.
But McGee represents North Shore communities
where residents have long been angered by toll
inequity — meaning, they have to pay them every
day, while thousands of commuters in other
regions are spared. He also happens to be
running for mayor of Lynn. Lawmakers from
Metrowest have sponsored similar bills. Expanded
tolling can be good politics, at least for
some.
Then there’s Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, who this
week told the Herald he’s cool with McGee’s toll
proposal. Well, why wouldn’t he be? His
constituents aren’t the ones who would bear the
burden of daily, inbound highway tolls, but the
city would reap the benefits of more state
funding for roads and bridges.
(Walsh also said some toll-free options for
getting into and out of the city would have to
be preserved. Yes — they’re called
already-jammed secondary roads, and his
constituents wouldn’t be happy about the toll
evaders clogging them even further.)
Gov. Charlie Baker, meanwhile, has made clear
his firm opposition to new tolls. Hardly
surprising for a Republican governor facing
re-election, particularly one who knows that his
state already spends far more than almost every
other state on its highway infrastructure.
The success of all-electronic, overhead tolling
on the Pike has made some Democratic lawmakers,
who have a never-ending thirst for more revenue,
toll-happy. They should realize that just
because drivers don’t get caught in tollbooth
traffic jams anymore doesn’t mean they are eager
to feel more toll pain.
State House News Service
Tuesday, October 24, 2017
Five-year plan will offer "great forum" for
east-west rail, Pollack says
By Andy Metzger
Chris Trotta has traveled countless times the
roughly 100 miles from his Longmeadow home to
the Boston hospital where his sons received
treatment for kidney abnormalities. On Tuesday
he made the familiar trek to push for a new link
- by rail - between the state's capital and its
largest city west of Worcester.
Trotta was among roughly 40 people who joined
Longmeadow Democrat Sen. Eric Lesser aboard a
bus from the Springfield area to the State House
where they implored the Transportation Committee
to advance the idea of high-speed rail
connecting Springfield to Boston.
While Greater Boston's economy and real estate
market are in the midst of a sustained boom,
western Massachusetts businesses and households
have become quieter as parents expect children
to forge their careers elsewhere and workers are
forced to venture farther to find work after
local layoffs, Lesser told the Transportation
Committee.
High-speed passenger rail would "greatly reduce
the burden" on Trotta and his wife for their
regular drives to Massachusetts General
Hospital, he said. And a transit connection to
more affordable communities around Springfield
would also provide some relief to Boston, Lesser
said.
"We cannot sustain a Commonwealth where almost
all the growth is hyper concentrated in just a
few square miles," Lesser told the committee. If
growth remains concentrated around Boston,
further economic success there will be stymied
by skyrocketing rents and "endless traffic," he
said.
Pioneer Valley residents are not alone in
calling for a rail link to Boston. People in
Fall River and New Bedford have long pushed for
the South Coast Rail, and the state has
undertaken some construction work on that
corridor, and developed plans to offer rail
service to the South Coast as early as 2022.
The proposal for high-speed rail to Springfield
is farther behind. The Senate endorsed a budget
provision to study the proposal, but failed to
win the support of the House.
More recently, House Speaker Robert DeLeo
expressed some support for the idea in a meeting
with The Republican newspaper of Springfield but
cautioned that he "cannot promise anything."
Lesser's bill (S 1935) would direct the
Massachusetts Department of Transportation to
study the feasibility of a high-speed rail
connection between Boston and Springfield, and
legislation sponsored by Northampton Democrat
Rep. Peter Kocot would establish a working group
to advance the proposed project.
The idea has bipartisan support from the area.
"We'd like the opportunity to be able to study
this issue," Warren Rep. Todd Smola, who is the
ranking Republican on the House Committee on
Ways and Means, told the committee.
Gov. Charlie Baker has emphasized repairing and
upgrading existing transportation assets, but
his administration has also made firm
commitments to expand the Green Line trolley
into Somerville and Medford, just north of
Boston. Transportation Secretary Stephanie
Pollack told reporters some consideration will
be given to east-west passenger service in a
comprehensive rail plan and a draft of the plan
is due in the next few months.
"We are doing on a five-year cycle a statewide
rail plan. That looks at freight rail statewide
and it looks at passenger rail outside the MBTA
district specifically, so it will be looking at
passenger rail for western Massachusetts,"
Pollack said. "We'll have a draft of that
document out before the end of the year. That
will be a great forum to have that conversation
about the potential for rail in western
Massachusetts."
Rep. William Straus, the House chairman of the
Transportation Committee, said the idea raises a
number of considerations, including exactly how
fast trains would travel on the proposed route.
"There's a lot of complication as you know, and
of course that's the purpose of requesting a
study like this," Straus said.
Lesser said that while a rail link would not be
a panacea for the region, passenger service that
was fast enough and reliable enough for people
to commute on it would be a "game changer."
"The modern economy relies on connectivity,"
Lesser told the News Service.
|
| |
NOTE: In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this
material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior
interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes
only. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml
Citizens for Limited Taxation ▪
PO Box 1147 ▪ Marblehead, MA 01945
▪ 508-915-3665
BACK TO CLT
HOMEPAGE
|