Yesterday, we talked about the wink-wink-nudge-nudge falsehood that 38 Studios bonds were actually an investment in the videogame company.  Today, we get another yeah-sure moment as Speaker of the House Nicholas Mattiello (D, Cranston) attempts to claim that a budget gimme for local truck drivers isn’t an attempt to offset the cost of tolls for them in a preferential way:

With the national trucking industry threatening to challenge the constitutionality of the truck tolls in court, after the first gantry goes up, House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello was insistent on Thursday that the registration-fee cuts in the newly unveiled budget bill have nothing to do with the tolls.

“I don’t want to connect the two,” House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello said Thursday.

But “if it’s a Rhode Island company with a Rhode Island registration they are going to benefit from this new plan which cuts their registrations in half. If they are registered out of state, they won’t receive that benefit,” he told The Journal, moments before a public briefing on the budget bill got under way.

Well, that’s great.  When courts strike down the tolls as a targeted tax and public outrage makes politicians weak kneed about implementing car tolls, no doubt the General Assembly will keep this nice benefit for in-state truckers.