Posted on 03/20/2013 7:38:59 AM PDT by Puppage
HARTFORD, Conn. (WTNH) -- At the State Capitol some are pushing for a new tax that they say will help you save money in the long run. It's aimed at the hundreds of thousands of Connecticut homeowners that heat their homes with oil.
The Governor says he wants no new taxes but others say this isn't really a tax.
More than half the people in the State of Connecticut will stay warm tonight by burning home heating oil.
"We already tax businesses on heating oil. This tax is aimed one-hundred percent at the consumer and the homeowner," said Kate Childs of Tuxis-Ohr's Fuel in Meriden.
"Heating oil is being unfairly singled out and the people who use it and the people who use it are being singled out and they don't have any opportunity to switch, in most cases," said Peter Aziz of Bantam Fuel in Bantam.
Home heating oil dealers from across the state came to the Capitol today to urge lawmakers to vote against a proposal that would tax home heating oil.
It would start July 1 at a penny-and-a-half a gallon and hike to 3-and-a-half cents a gallon over the next two years.
Those pushing for the tax say homeowners using heating oil will benefit by continuing to get low cost energy audits that help them lower the amount of fuel they use. That's what the tax would pay for.
"In other states, just to have the audit done without the full service, it can be 3 to 4-hundred dollars. Right now people that heat with gas and electricity pay 75," said Raquel Kennedy of Victory Energy Solutions.
That's because the fee is already charged on electric and gas bills but the heating oil dealers say they already do a lot of this work for their customers.
"We have lowered the average home owner's consumption by forty percent in the last forty years and we continue to do that," said Clay Bassett of Northfield Fuel in Greenwich.
"Some of the things like the rebates for insulation, the equipment replacement, will not be available for those oil heat customers," said Douglas Cahill of Competitive Resources.
"Do you think this argument that because this fund has been raided in the past, what's to keep them from raiding it again," asked News 8's Mark Davis.
"There's nothing that keeps the legislature from raiding any fund," said Democratic Sen. Gary LeBeau, Commerce Committee.
That's what has happened to this fund in the past. Lawmakers who face tight state budgets end up using this so-called 'dedicated fund' for something else and the programs it was intended for get starved for cash.
Huh? What?
Are you kidding me?
trying to enrich the government by ‘persuading’ people to be colder in the winter.
this is almost reverse robin hood - taking from the poor adn giving t the rich, the greedy, the government.
make it hurt..........
“freezing to death in the dark” is not just a slogan when it comes to Democrat notions ~ it’s a PROMISE!
So the government gives me a “free” energy audit which says I could save money heating my home with a new furnace and new windows, but because I have to pay more to heat my house to pay for the free audit I can afford neither. Sure makes sense to me.
Forget staying warm in the winter serfs, you must freeze in the dark to keep your elected government afloat, comrades. It’s for the common good. When did the original 13 colonies become the equivalent of the eastern soviet bloc countries? If these idiots go for this, they deserve their fate, keep the rest of US out of it.
Because you're too stupid to know you're paying too much now, they'll make it extra costly with a new tax! Then it will be cheaper?
It is just like the government and activists(prodded by car manufacturers?) demanding you scrap your car that uses $200 a month in gas , but that is paid off, for a new car that burns $125 in gas but also requires you to make $279 monthly car payments and more costly insurance.Despite doubling or trebling YOUR monthly expense for transportation they try to convince everyone it is a saving in the long run.Ha.
Remember when Joe “Foot-in-Mouth” Biden said a couple of years ago that we have to spend money to save money? WTF?!! Liberals say that raising taxes on consumers’ home heating oil will save them money in the long run and they say it with a straight face. It’s like Obama saying that lifting your wallet from your back pocket is good for you because it makes you weigh less and that’s good for your health, right?
Nothing these “radical progressives” say or do is honest and they always mean the opposite of what they say. When they are speaking with their left hand and say that they are doing something to help you, watch their right hand closely because they will be screwing you with it. The DemoRat agenda is all smoke and mirrors and sleight of hand which always results in unintended consequences and failures.
even when it’s in a specific account only able to be used for one intended thing, libtards will still raid the funds. Happened here in Wisconsin under Doyle raiding the transportation funds. Hundreds of millions of dollars gone for libtard programs.
you have to say no to any more taxes period. Doesn’t matter what the reason, they’ll use it for other things claiming emergencies. Even if the law says they can’t. they will. It’ll go to their state supreme court and whatever the ruling the money is gone.
They’re even floating the idea of bringing back the tolls to offset the state gasoline taxes. WTF?
they won’t offset anything. It’ll be money that will be used for other things. This is just a twist on the “we have to cut the police” deal, because they’ll pass this crap, then trot out a few crises they know are coming - ie not enough coming in to pay for existing programs - then cry emergency and raid this new money source.
I foresee an energy tax on firewood. Even if you take it off your own land as I do.
I don't know for sure that Doyle started it but it was a classic "camel's nose under the tent flap deal"! There was something like $150 million in the "highway fund" when the democrats decided they could pull a million out for some other worthy project like subsidizing the Milwaukee Transit Authority to keep bus fares at 50ȼ. The next year they grabbed two million. The following year four million...fast as jack sprat it was all gone and they wanted to raise taxes because the highway infrastructure was crumbling and the 'Trust fund" was broke!
Regards,
GtG
There was quite a bit of twitter when it was found that encyclopedias started selling well in second hand shops in the UK - because it was a low cost fuel for old fires.
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