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The State of Connecticut is considering implementing tolls on Interstates and the Merritt Parkway in a transparent attempt to raise revenue to make up for pastpoor management of the State's budget and economy. Not only does this break long-standing understandings and promises between thet state and the driving public in CT about maintaining free roads, it further increases (and rightfully so!) the mistrust and contempt which the citizenry has for goverment, as this serves as yet another typical example of legislative myopia which serves no one's interests other than bailing out legislators who have for decades failed to do their jobs.
Please take a few moments to tell your local representatives and lawmakers in Connecticut that you reject Governor Lamont's transparently false choice between tolls and more taxes, and that if the State were to truly dedicate all gas tax revenues towards road projects only there would be no need for tolls or additional revenue for road infrastructure -- the tolls are just more fungible money for the state to spend, and a pretext to increase the overall incidence (amount) of taxation, mainly of CT residents, to pay for past mistakes without properly adressing their root causes and overall poor fiscal policy.
Even if you don't live in Connecticut, or drive there, if Connecticut (or neighboring Rhode Island which recently put up legally suspect truck-only tolls), is allowed to put up tolls on a road paid for and maintained by taxpayers of all states by the Federal Gas Tax, and motorists who drive there via the state gas tax, sets a dengerous precedent where states (where allowed to by the Federal Government) can simply put up tolls to make up for their administrative and budgetary incompetence so that both residents and non-residents alike (who have no say in how the state is run) are forced to pay for state government's past mistakes.
Stopping Connecticut tolls (as well as Rhode Island's) will put other states on notice that the public is outraged and fed up with yet another money grab to cover up for lawmaker's who couldn't and can't do their jobs, and that it will not longer allow them to write essentially a blank check to themselves by putting up privacy-violating electronic toll gantries wherever they choose when additional funding is needed.
Use this special LobbyByFax alert (it's special since the Legislature in Hartford only has 4 fax machines for the entire body, divided by party - one for Democrats and one for Republicans) to tell your state delegation in Hartford to vote NO on tolls. Out-of-state motorists may use the same alert to send the Tranportation and Finance Committees a free fax to committee members.
The US Senate delayed a vote on Friday, 4/27/2013, on the so-called Marketplace Fairness Act, commonly referred to as the Internet Sales Tax.
The Internet Sales Tax/Marketplace Fairness Act is an ill-conceived plan by the largest online retailers and the 50 State and DC tax agencies to ensure that consumers pay sales tax for all online purchases. It also forces businesses to accept oversight from all 50 states (not just their own as they do now), and to report all online sales to each state and/or to large corporate "tax clearinghouses", which could potentially store and share the information on conusmer purchasers without the consent or even knowledge of the purchaser.
Small busisness and small business owners would be forced to comply with paperwork requests from all 50 states, DC and US territories and could be subject to audits from states which the business owner has no connection (nexus) with but which, under the Marketplace Fairness Act, can compel any given business in any given state to file tax returns and divulge information without any effective recourse or oversight.
The bill effectively is a give-away to cash-starved states who (naturally) do not want to appear to be raising taxes but instead, typically, want someone else to do it for them, and they have found willing partners in large online retailers who can use the Marketplace Fairness Act as a means to surpress and/or keep tabs on their smaller competition.
If states are so concerned about so-called brick-and-mortar merchants, they can pass laws to lower or eliminate sales taxes on them to give them an advantage over online retailers (who also have to pay for shipping and processing charges with brick-and-mortar retailers do not). But of course no state will actually lower sales taxes to help brick-and-mortar merchants they can partner up with large online retailers to bully smaller retailers and small business to collect a tax for them, no matter what the cost is to small businesses and their employees!
Use the LobbyByFax System to send a free fax to your elected officials in Congress telling them to vote no on the Marketplace Fairness Act/Internet Sales Tax Bill!
The complete constituent letter in raw-text form is available for viewing here.
Current MTA/TBTA tolls are onerous enough, serve to distort traffic patterns, and result in a more insular and parochial City which benefits no one in the aggregate. Adding new tolls to the East River facilities are an obvious and cynical attempt to fund an important and compelling state interest. Instead of a money grab from the easiest group of people from whom the MTA can get a new source of lucrative revenue, it is about time that the State of New York realize the importance of an effective, efficient, and viable mass transit system for the "downstate" region, and find equitable and sustainable solutions to funding mass transit instead of continuously pitting the motorist against the transit rider as a short-term, short-sighted, solution.
Use the LobbyByFax System to send a free fax to Governor Cuomo and members of the New York State Senate and Assembly opposing any new tolls on currently free bridges in New York City. (Note: Please select New York state from the initial drop-down state-selection page.)
The complete constituent letter in raw-text form is available for viewing here.
The State of Maryland is considering expanding the use of photo radar within Montgomery and Prince George's Counties and to other areas of the state, and to increasing the speeds at which they can be used to 45 and even 55 on highways in Prince George's County. (See: Senate Bill 269/House Bill 364.) Photo Radar and other automatic enforcement mechanisms violate such basic constitutional tenets asnotice, due process and the right to confront and question an accuser, and are in actuality easy to implement revenue generation services masquerading as safety measures by cynical and cash-strapped officials who speak of safety when in fact they have done little to actually promote it. Photo radar forces the owner (not the driver) of the vehicle to defend themselves in court (wasting time and effort), and is subject to malicious "cloning" where plates are copied and run through photo enforcement to force the owners to appear to defend themselves for something they had no part in. Photo enforcement also effectively creates a "pay to speed" or "pay to run red light" system, where motorists who are in a hurry will opt to speed, konwing there is a minimal fine and no criminal effect. Finally, these automated systems can lead to an even greater degree of automated monitoring of traffic movements and driving patterns, where the state, if taken to it's ultimate conclusion, can monitor (and penalize) the movement of motorists on significant aspects of its road network.
Use the LobbyByFax System to send a free fax to Governor O'Malley and members of the Maryland State Senate and House of Delegates opposing the expansion of the photo-radar and photo enforcement program! (Note: Please select Maryland from the initial drop-down state-selection page.)
The complete constituent letter in raw-text form is available for viewing here.
Spam is quite simply waste of time, becoming and increasing annoyance, and causing the potential of the Internet to be severely handicapped by effectively forcing people to spend more time deleting spam and/or losing desired messages to "spam filters" in an effort to keep ahead of this scourge, rather than in actually communicating efficiently and effortlessly via e-mail.
Take action with LobbyByFax to immediately fax your Congressional delegation urging them to enact meaningful, effective and enforceable national legislation, potentially in conjunction with extra-national anti-spam laws, to stop these offensively opportunistic mass e-mailers from plauging everyone's mail and ruining the Internet.
We should not tolerate, and Congress should not allow, the onerous restrictions which the Recording Industry wishes to impose upon us as the cost and loss of utility which such restrictions will create are incalculably greater than the minimal benefit in terms of higher profits which will be generated for the Industry.
Use LobbyByFax.com to send a free fax to your Congressional Delegation urging them to oppose and stop any of the Recording industry's attempts to further restrict use of the Internet to further their purely remunerative aspirations.
A complete list of all current LobbyByFax Alerts to the US Congress, State, Local, Administrative and other Jurisdictions is available here.
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Last modified 03/27/2020
