Baker & the Legislature’s Insatiable Tax $ Hunger More Spending, More Bonds, More Tolls … Unless We Stop Them

Not only has the Legislature been at it again, but Governor Baker too, ever trying to figure out ways to get more and more of our hard-earned tax dollars to cover their costs, plus the costs of the corrupt waste that they just won’t deal with; and, to make us pay them to control our lives. Baker has filed bills to take out almost $2 billion in new bonds, payable out into 2053, for highway infrastructure and to control your driving habits (e.g., H.4237 and H.4318, two House bills I currently know about).

Massachusetts highways cost four times the national average to upkeep, and seven times the administrative costs. Now I think that if you found out your neighbor only pays $2.47 a gallon for gas, but you’ve been paying $10 a gallon for gas, I think you’d try to figure out why; and, you’d quickly switch gas stations (or in this case, politicians); but, not the people in this state. How are they going to pay for those bonds? They’re currently attempting to expand the Mass. Pike electronic tolling system to the highways around us and slowly keep raising the tolls as they’ve done on the current Mass. Pike (please see nearby Senate bill S.1959).

Now, I tried to get ahead of this by filing ballot initiative 17-09 to end all tolling on Massachusetts highways. I filed the petition in good faith, but the State Attorney General’s Office gave me a declination letter based on flimsy arguments that don’t hold legal water (according to those who read it). Therefore, with the help of Jay McMahon (running for state attorney general), I have filed a First Amendment Redress of Grievance request with the State Attorney General’s Office, reminding them that I do have standing to sue the office, but all I really want is to give the voters the only chance they’ve had to vote on something that they were promised was only temporary in the first place.
Thanks to people like me collecting signatures, and people like Geoff Diehl running for U.S. Senate who started the ballot initiative, this state has saved over $2 billion in taxes since the voters repealed the Forever Gas Tax (which tied the gas tax to the CPI, so that one raised the other without limit), but liberty demands eternal vigilance. Now Governor Baker and the Legislature have determined that they’ll get that $2 billion the taxpayers saved, and they’ll use it to implement global government, whether the people like it or not.
I voted for Governor Baker to drain the swamp, but this has shown he’s actually part of it. That is why as a delegate to the 2018 Republican State Convention, I cannot support him as I did a delegate in 2014. That is also why I have decided to run as a state representative; that, and the fact that almost three quarters of the state Legislature vote identically as the speaker of the House over 99% of the time. That means that they, like my current State Representative Ronald Mariano (3rd Norfolk), are rubber stamps who don’t represent their districts, and I believe it’s high time we elect people who do.
You can find more details about Steve Tougas on his web site: www.stevetougas.com.

P.S. As a side-bar, I would say: Thank you to Jay McMahon for helping me with addressing the state attorney general’s improper and possibly illegal declination of my ballot initiative to end all tolling in Massachusetts (17-09) by helping me put together a First Amendment “Redress of Grievance” letter to the State Attorney Generals’ Office. Jay, like me, is not just running for office, but his helping me proves he is an activist working for the people (just like me), and this has shown that he will continue doing so, whether elected or not (just like me). He must be elected, if the people care about electing a state attorney general who demonstratively cares about them. ♦