Free Republic

I recently had the privilege of representing residents in eastern Connecticut that were opposed to the construction of the proposed state police gun range immediately adjacent to Pachaug State Forest. I personally thanked Gov. Ned Lamont for keeping his word in opposing this project. In politics, you are only as good as your word. That is why Lamont must also keep his word and not institute tolling on cars in Connecticut. Leaders in Hartford are missing the mark when it comes to tolling. They always seek to find alternate revenue sources through taxes or fees before first examining priorities, spending...

---snip--- The saga of Philadelphia’s soda tax war is about more than arcane tax policy, and it’s about more than who may be up and who may be down in this year’s mayoral election. It really gets to a big philosophical question: Just what does it mean to be progressive nowadays? Mayor Kenney and his allies speak the lingua franca of progressivism, but when what you hold up as your signature accomplishment is a tax, as opposed to the program it might fund, and when that leads to the expansion of a food desert in a city with the worst...

WINCHESTER — The Frederick County Transportation Committee on Monday expressed concerns that the county may not get the Interstate 81 improvements it needs to reduce traffic congestion and accidents. The Office of Intermodal Planning and Investment, the Virginia Department of Transportation and the Department of Rail and Public Transportation are studying the entire length of the I-81 corridor in the Virginia, as directed by the General Assembly, to identify changes that will reduce traffic backups and crashes as well as find the funding to make those changes. The I-81 study team identified 105 projects — valued at $4.25 billion —...

The Arkansas Department of Transportation (ARDOT) marked the fifth anniversary of the Connecting Arkansas Program (CAP). CAP, the 10-year highway improvement program, is busy with construction projects throughout the state, according to a news release. “Since July 2013, ARDOT has completed 11 construction projects and has another six under construction, equating to more than 85 miles of highway and interstate improvements. Another eight projects with 60 miles of widening or new-alignment construction are scheduled for bid openings later this year,” according to the release. CAP is one of the largest highway construction programs ARDOT has conducted. The work is a...

For too long the state has held our roads and bridges hostage while increasing spending on other priorities like Medicaid expansion, hoping we taxpayers get so frustrated by traffic we’ll agree to a tax increase. Well, this fall voters will have a choice. As the Denver Chamber of Commerce pimps a 21% state sales tax increase for transit, roads and a slush fund for cities, there will be an alternative as our Fix Our Damn Roads initiative will also be on the ballot. It will force the state to use its large surplus funds and re-prioritize less than 2 percent...

Online shoppers could find costs going up after the Supreme Court did away Thursday with a decades-old precedent limiting the ability of states to collect sales tax on certain out-of-state Internet purchases. The 5-4 ruling called the current rules “unsound and incorrect.”

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court says states can force online shoppers to pay sales tax. The 5-4 ruling Thursday is a win for states, who said they were losing out on billions of dollars annually under two decades-old Supreme Court decisions that impacted online sales tax collection. The high court ruled Thursday to overturn those decisions. snip “Each year the physical presence rule becomes further removed from economic reality and results in significant revenue losses to the States. These critiques underscore that the physical presence rule, both as first formulated and as applied today, is an incorrect interpretation of...

Sales Tax: $0. Online shoppers have gotten used to seeing that line on checkout screens before they click "purchase." But a case before the Supreme Court could change that. At issue is a rule stemming from two, decades-old Supreme Court cases: If a business is shipping to a state where it doesn't have an office, warehouse or other physical presence, it doesn't have to collect the state's sales tax. That means large retailers such as Apple, Macy's, Target and Walmart, which have brick-and-mortar stores nationwide, generally collect sales tax from customers who buy from them online. But other online sellers,...

Gov. Phil Murphy is set Tuesday to unveil a state budget proposal -- his first -- that will include more than $1.5 billion in new revenue from taxes and closing loopholes, including a small spike in New Jersey's sales tax, NJ Advance Media has learned. The extra revenue would also come from a proposed millionaires tax, closing tax loopholes used by corporations, and a plan to legalize marijuana, according to multiple sources briefed on the budget.

A coalition of local leaders backed by the Denver Metro Chamber of Commerce wants voters to approve a sales tax increase on the November ballot to pay for projects like the widening of Interstate 25 and the buildout of bike lanes. The group filed four ballot measures with the Secretary of State on Thursday that would raise between $500 million and $1 billion for transportation projects, according to the chamber, and allow that money to be used to pay for bonds, which would generate even more upfront cash. A booming population across the Front Range has created traffic snarls on...

HARRISONBURG, Va. (WHSV) -- A group of 16 Virginia lawmakers has penned a letter to Virginia's Congressional Delegation (comprised of Senators Tim Kaine and Mark Warner and Representatives Bob Goodlatte, Barbara Comstock, and Morgan Griffith) asking for federal assistance to improve Interstate 81. The interstate has long been a source of frustration for people in the Shenandoah Valley, with the Virginia Department of Transportation reporting at least a 12-percent increase in traffic in just the past five years and a 55-percent increase of delays from crashes, construction, or bad weather. In 2014, Delegate Steve Landes introduced a state budget item...

The Supreme Court agreed Friday to decide if states should be able to collect taxes on internet sales, which would generate billions in revenue for local governments, but also raise the cost of online shopping for consumers. Just over a quarter-century ago, the court ruled that a state could not force mail order catalog companies to collect sales taxes unless they had a physical presence in the state. Led by South Dakota, 36 states want the court to take another look at the issue, arguing that the 1992 decision was issued “before Amazon was even selling books out of Jeff...

Now that the long Memorial Day holiday is over and legislators and the governor have returned from their road trips, we hope they have a better sense of the condition of highways around the state and a renewed sense of urgency on the need for upgrades and repairs. The first order of business, it would seem to us, is to come to some agreement on a state transportation budget for the next two years. Hopefully, hopefully, when that is done they will also take a longer-term view of Wisconsin’s highway construction needs and how best they should be met —...

DENVER (AP) — Colorado's legislative leaders knew they faced a hard sell when they unveiled a bipartisan measure to ask voters for a sales tax hike and a bond issue to generate billions of dollars for transportation. That hard sell was on full display before the Democrat-led House initially approved the bill on party lines Thursday. Even after that approval, Republicans kept trying to change the bill.

The Trump administration, at work on a new plan for tax reform, is reportedly considering a plan to cross into one of the most dangerous territories in American politics: fiddling with the Social Security system. According to multiple reports, the administration is entertaining the possibility of eliminating the 12.4 percent payroll tax, which would require it to find a new dedicated funding source for the retirement checks that millions of Americans count on in their old age. The plan, first reported by the Associated Press, would be part of a major overhaul of the tax code that would make the...

FEBRUARY 17, 2017 WEEK THREE We are starting to have a few bills working their way through the system, but at this point nothing of any major impact. There are, however, the beginnings of discussions in some subject areas that will have significant implications. Having said that, the real issues taking front stage are the budget and the projected deficit. From that perspective I took a look at the bills that have been assigned to the House Revenue committee to see how many tax increase measures were there. I counted 38, but I have since been told there are now...

More than a year after Texas voters approved routing billions in state sales taxes to roads and bridges, some lawmakers are questioning whether the first payment of $5 billion should move forward as planned. Texans voted in 2015 to boost funding for state’s public roadways and bridges, which have strained under the state’s growing population. Proposition 7 — loudly cheered by top Texas leaders and supported by 83 percent of voters — changed the state constitution to route some taxes collected on car sales to the State Highway Fund. But in an unusually tightfisted legislative session, some Texas lawmakers are...

Larry Hauth has a farm in Coffey County and a daughter in Wichita. Good roads are kind of important to him. So he’s disturbed by the ongoing and accelerating trend of the state taking money out of the highway fund to balance the rest of its budget. “One of the things Kansas has going for it, compared to our surrounding states, is our road system,” Hauth said. “When they built them in years past, they were thinking ahead. I don’t think we’re thinking ahead right now. We’re trying to tread water, at best.” Gov. Sam Brownback wants to take nearly...

New Jersey’s low gas prices are about to get more expensive after Republican Gov. Chris Christie on Friday signed legislation raising the gas tax by 23 cents per gallon, from the 49th highest in the nation to the sixth, to pay for an expired transportation trust fund. The gas tax, though, is still lower than the gas tax in neighboring New York and Pennsylvania. The hike is set to go into effect Nov. 1. Christie also rescinded an order that shut down transportation projects in the state. He first issued the order when the transportation trust fund expired months ago....

Retail sales in Texas boomed for five years straight, from March 2010, their low point during the Great Recession. Sales tax collections jumped 46% from the first half of 2010 through the first half of 2015 – dizzying growth for a mature market! Given the size of the Texas economy, it helped prop up US retail sales. But by May 2015, 10 months into the oil bust, things began to sag. Sales tax collections in September for sales that occurred in August dropped 3.5% year-over-year, according to the Texas Comptroller of Public Accounts. And in August, sales tax collections had...