We Are Being Looted

Pillaged. Turned upside down and shook out.
State and federal treasuries are nothing but corncribs full of rats, divvying up the proceeds of your work to their friends, and they despise you for it.

The State of Connecticut has this thing called an Underground Storage Tank fund**, which is meant to insure for environmental remediation claims for Connecticut gas stations, in the case of spills.

EPA no longer will recognize the fund’s ability to guarantee cleanups, and Connecticut’s gas stations must find other means to insure against spills, a costly proposition.

“Private insurance is available,” said Chris Herb, vice president for the Independent Connecticut Petroleum Association. “But it is expensive, and not every gas station can get it.”

Meaning, about a third of our gas stations- mostly the Mom n' Pops- will be unable to pay and will close.

Currently, there are $17 million in approved claims against the fund, and another $81 million in pending claims. That adds up to a responsibility to provide $98 million in environmental remediation work.

The Underground Storage Tank Fund currently possesses $250,000.

Because, you see, it has been looted.

Legislators, other people in government; they see all this money effortlessly being raised for another purpose, and they can't help themselves. They see it, they want it, and they have no self-control. They are like little children left alone with a big bag of Halloween candy. They are like...stereotypical tax and spend Democrats.

Hundreds and hundreds of millions of dollars have been collected in taxes for this fund over the last 20+ years that it has been in existence.

Over the past decade, the state legislature gradually decreased the portion of the gross receipts tax slated for the fund, diverting the money to the general fund. Even though the tax generates nearly $350 million annually, the underground storage tank fund receives less than 1 percent of that money.

Still, they should have some more money than 250K, right?
Wrong.

The tank fund is run by an independent 11-person board of government appointees and administered by DEEP staff. Because the program received a surplus of funding in the early years, this administration developed inefficiently, Brown said.

In the state budget, the tank fund will receive $1.25 million, but $1 million is devoured [LOOTED -Ed.] by staffing and administrative costs.

My emphasis. I am literally shaking with rage. If I were a gas station owner tasked with collecting this tax for the State of Connecticut for twenty damn years, I'd be, I don't know what.
Having a stroke, I guess.

Appointees.

Appointed. By other government folks.
The people of Connecticut have been overtaxed God-Knows-How-Many Billions of dollars to pay for environmental remediation, but instead of cleanup, they're getting...appointees.

For a bunch of environmentally-conscious liberals, they sure leave a lot to be desired when it's time for the rubber to hit the road, eh? Even protecting Gaia pales in importance beside getting a nice no-show paying gig for your idiot nephew, I guess.

Why, it's almost as if all their pious environmental posturing and punishing of businesses and taxpayers are all just really handy excuses to transfer money from your family to their friends.

LOOTED.

**I got this from the Hartford Business Journal because The Hartford Courant, our local leftist newspaper of record, no longer reports information that is embarrassing to the Dem-controlled legislature or Democrat Governor's office. I drove by the Courant building recently and was not surprised that very little is moving within.

posted by Laura. at 12:23 PM

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