Bait and Switch Bridge Toll Commission?

At its first meeting Thursday, the study commission, whose mission was advertised as finding an alternative to tolls on the Sakonnet River Bridge, not only is not limiting its scope to one bridge but appears to be actually making the case for tolls around the state.

From the Fall River Herald News.

Rhode Island has the worst roads and bridges in the nation, state officials say.

Fixing them will cost almost $1 billion over the next five years, budget analyst John Verducci told a panel of legislators.

Those legislators will try to figure out how to pay that bill.

A special commission of legislators met for the first time on Thursday to come up with a plan to pay for the state’s roads and bridges.

The commission was appointed by the General Assembly in June when legislators added a 10-cent toll to the Sakonnet River Bridge with the possibility of increasing the tolls in April.

And from Turn To Ten/WJAR/NBC10:

East Bay residents say the toll is a burden, but transportation officials say it’s necessary to support bridge maintenance.

“Without a doubt it’s a burden,” the commission’s chairman, Rep. Helio Melo, D-East Providence, said of the toll. “But we need to have the funds to maintain these bridges.”

The direction is appallingly clear.

Remember that tolls resurfaced at the end of the last session via a tricksie tricksie maneuver (more here) by Speaker Fox and Senate President Paiva-Weed, in part, to provide cover for the East Bay legislators on the toll situation but mainly to keep their own tracks in the 38 Studios debacle well covered by ensuring that the state’s first payment on the bond default was made and they wouldn’t be compelled to answer any awkward questions about the matter — especially under oath.

Decades of highly questionable spending, policies and promises by a super-majority Democrat controlled General Assembly has gotten Rhode Island, currently, the sixth highest state and local tax burden in the country. Whether just in the East Bay or around the state, it would be outrageous for the General Assembly to now add to that burden, albeit via a toll rather than a tax.

The taxpayers of the state are maxed out tax and revenue-wise. Though it may be the eleventh hour for Rhode Island economically and budgetarily, the General Assembly needs to look inward and start living within its means. The eleventh hour – isn’t that when they prefer to do most of their work, anyway?

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