The Transportation & Climate Initiative (TCI) is scheduled to put out its initial memorandum of understanding (MOU) today, which the northeastern states will consider signing in order to impose a new gasoline tax on their residents.  It was therefore helpful of Democrat Governor Gina Raimondo to be so clear and direct about her intentions for Rhode Island, during a recent Providence Journal interview:

“Yeah, there is going to be some element of a fee on fuel. Now, how do you assess it? What do you assess it at? … What do you [do] with the proceeds? That still needs to be figured out,” she said about the plan, which is modeled on the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative program for the energy sector.

What’s her message to Rhode Island drivers about the costs of the program being passed on to drivers at the pump?

“It is a fact we have to get off of gas-guzzling cars for the existence of us,” she said. “If we don’t do it, we will all be in much bigger trouble because climate change is here and it is real and we need to meet the challenges.”

She doesn’t know how much the fee will be, how it will be collected, or even what it will be used for.  The whole point is to make gasoline more expensive so you have to give up your car.

She added, “By the way, there will be benefits to consumers. This money will result in more, better, faster electric trains, more electric forms of busing and public transit.”

Isn’t that wonderful?  You lose the ability to afford your car and the freedom that comes with it, and you’ll get public transit in exchange — along with a requirement to trust in and rely on a government that can’t seem to do anything right.

Wealthier people (like Gina Raimondo) will be able to buy electric cars (thus transferring their fossil fuel consumption from gasoline to energy production), which raises the question of whether this is a power grab or a condescending statement.  Is the governor pushing you into a lower class, or is she saying she doesn’t trust you to use freedom responsibly because you are already of lower class?