Transportation funds will require sacrifice

The newest iteration for highway tolls didn’t fare any better with the riskaverse Democrats in the Senate.

If highway tolls are dead again, as seems to be the case following a meeting between the governor and Senate Democrats on Wednesday, the state is left with vanishingly few options to deal with what all sides agree is a decrepit, outdated transportation system.

Gov. Ned Lamont introduced his plan just days ago to charge tolls at 14 state bridges and use most of the proceeds to finance a series of highway repairs and transit upgrades. This followed the quick death of his plan earlier this year for dozens of toll gantries on highways all around the state, but the newest iteration didn’t fare any better with the riskaverse Democrats in the Senate.

“I think we all want to move forward on a plan, we just have got to figure out how to fund it,” Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff, DNorwalk, told the CT Mirror.

The Lamont plan, whatever its shortcomings, is very clear on how to fund it. Senate Democrats simply don’t like it.

It’s not that they don’t agree on the necessity for transportation upgrades. They’re mostly worried about losing their jobs, and they’re frightened of being portrayed as stereotypical taxandspend liberals, especially having lived through the Dannel P. Malloy years. That era featured a constant barrage of attacks on Democrats for twice raising taxes and, despite that, failing to generate much in the way of economic growth.

You’d never know that Democrats held onto their legislative majorities through all that even as Malloy was replaced by a fellow Democrat. The worst outcome for the party was a short powersharing agreement when the Senate found itself in an 1818 tie in 2016.

On Thursday, Republicans released their own plan for paying for transportation upgrades, and it includes plenty of borrowing, as expected, plus a deep dive into the state’s budget reserve. This is the same budget reserve the state has painstakingly rebuilt to gird itself for what nearly everyone agrees is a recession that will likely arrive in the near term.

The competing plans — and the lack of same from Senate Democrats — can’t paper over an incontrovertible truth, which is that the money has to come from somewhere. The transportation system is a burden on the state’s economy. But paying for its overhaul will require an influx of funds, and that will require sacrifices in one form or another. Republicans, with their plan, seem to want to sacrifice the ability of the state to weather the next economic downturn. Lamont wants the money to come from people who use the roads, including outofstate drivers who otherwise get what amounts to a free ride on Connecticut highways.

Senate Democrats need to do better. It would be a tough vote, as Lamont has acknowledged, and they are well within their rights to complain about the spending portion of the plan. Too much is geared toward highways, to name one major problem.

But the revenue has to come from somewhere. Senate Democrats either need a funding plan of their own — quickly — or they need to gird themselves to take a tough vote for the good of the state, no matter what that means for their political futures.