Even in the face of life or death issues, Hartford won’t give up it’s addiction to pork. Yesterday Governor Rell and House Speaker Amann sparred over the governor’s proposal to put $100 million into bridge repair. Amann countered with the oh yeah, whaddabout our fix-it first proposal. They coulda been vaudeville performers. Brian Lockhart reports:
“We ignore the fundamentals of our transportation system, roads and bridges at our own peril,” Amann, D-Milford, said at a news conference at the Capitol.
And the skit is on.
“The governor rejected our plan, saying it’s unaffordable. It’s a shame it takes a tragedy and press conference to wake this up,” he said. “I challenge the governor to work with us in trying to make this funding available.”
“It is shameful that Speaker Amann is throwing another political tantrum,” Rell spokesman Rich Harris told The Associated Press. “A tragedy occurred in Minnesota last week that has claimed the lives of at least five people.”
Rell, her office said, has taken the lead on transportation initiatives in the past, including a 10-year, $3.6 billion total package approved in 2005 and 2006 that tackled additional commuter rail cars to targeted highway improvements.
In the latest negotiations over bonding, Rell had proposed spending $40 million to increase the frequency of bridge inspections and repairs over the next two years. On Sunday, she upped that figure by $60 million, for a total of $100 million.
“If Speaker Amann can find the funds to do more - without raising the gas tax and without imperiling the state’s credit rating - then the governor is certainly willing to consider all ideas,” Harris said.
On Sunday, Rell said, “There’s a lesson to be learned from the recent tragedy in Minneapolis. We must take aggressive action now.”
State budget director Robert Genuario of Norwalk yesterday called Amann’s comments disrespectful. Amann and the Democrats never explained how they planned to fund their $150 million initiative, Genuario said.
“They can say whatever they want in terms of how much they were willing to borrow,” he said. “They were never willing to pay for it.”
Genuario said Rell’s $100 million bridge investment is manageable through bonding, but legislators must give up some of an estimated $208 million in “personal pet projects.”
“It’s ball fields, athletic fields. A lot of local streetscape projects. Some gazebos, skate parks and the like,” Genuario said.
Amann denied yesterday that his party had a substantial number of pork projects on the table for bonding.
The legislature must weigh other means of establishing a reliable income stream for financing transportation maintenance, he said. Amann said he’s willing to consider higher gas taxes or some form of tolls, such as an EZ Pass system, to upgrade Connecticut’s roads and bridges.
What next from these talking blowhards, that someone’s proposal involved dog fighting in Michael Vick’s backyard? Note the dance around the heroin like addiction to the gas tax, the one tax that logically should go exclusively towards transportation projects yet gets diverted in some way to the general fund. But they have an idea up there in the land of 8 lane highways;
Following Amann at the podium was R. Nelson “Oz” Griebel, president of the Metro Hartford Alliance and former chairman of the state Transportation Strategy Board.
The state must consider tolls and privatizing roads, Griebel said.
The speaker who followed Griebel, Michael Riley, president of the Motor Transportation Association of Connecticut, said “I was all set to agree with Oz until he said the ‘t-word’ (for tolls).”
Riley said the state must recommit itself to using all gas and petroleum tax revenue for transportation issues.
Tolls and privatizing roads. Yegads. They want more money from the drivers of the world, and want it when drivers have no alternatives. Kinda like the 18th century pirates who would ply the shipping lanes looking for easy targets. Business suits aren’t the appropriate outfits in Hartford, swashbuckling eye patches, sabers and the tricorner pirate hat. Then at least we’d know what they really wanted when they got up to speak.
So here’s a novel idea, put to the gas tax into a transportation use only fund, and gut the management of the DOT, since they’ve managed to waste millions on crooked deals and incompetence. Better yet, fix the DOT first, then redirect the funds. I’m sure that this is way to simple to be implemented. There’s that pork addiction to feed.
source: Advocate, Speaker, governor spar over bridge repair funds, , August 7 2007
