By in Rhode Island’s Future
On February 10th, after 7 hours of debate on the House Floor, I voted for legislation to invest in our state’s crumbling infrastructure and establish a sustainable source of revenue to maintain and repair our roads and bridges. As a proud progressive, I am happy to stand by that vote.
We’ve seen some loud opposition
to the truck tolling plan, and I understand where some of this hostility is
coming from.
For
example, I get why the rightwing Center for Freedom and Prosperity would seize
on this issue – they, like their benefactors, the Koch brothers, are philosophically opposed to the
whole premise of taxing private property for the public good, so asking
truck companies to pay their fair share for infrastructure maintenance is
naturally going to rub them the wrong way.
Similarly,
it makes sense that my friends and colleagues in the Republican Caucus – who
have strenuously fought against every policy I’ve put forward to improve wages
for low-income workers, to strengthen the social safety net for struggling families,
and to create a more progressive tax structure – would argue against a proposal
like this, and instead push for more regressive alternatives like privatizing
our roads and bridges.
But I have a lot more trouble
wrapping my head around the handful of progressive voices who have come out
against this public investment and jobs initiative.
To me, the situation seems
pretty straightforward: our infrastructure is in disrepair, and the
responsibility for that disrepair is not evenly distributed throughout our
state.
Big
trucks do a lot of damage to our roads and bridges. In fact, a government study
found that one 40-ton
truck causes as much damage as 9,600 cars.
Yet the folks who own these trucks are not paying for the consequences of their damage – all of us are.
It’s
a negative externality on a public good, not so different from a factory
polluting a river or a smoker’s second-hand smoke.
And
in the same way that I support environmental regulations and smoke-free
workplaces, I believe it’s completely reasonable to require the businesses who
are deteriorating this shared public good to the greatest extent to pay their
fair share for our infrastructure’s upkeep and maintenance.
So I stand
by my vote to invest in our state’s economic development, to invest in the
livelihood of our workers, and to invest in the future safety of our young
people.
And while I would never claim to be the final arbiter
of what is and is not progressive (that age-old question we love to argue about
on the left), I will say that in my personal opinion, RhodeWorks passes that
test easily, and those of us who care passionately about economic, social, and
racial justice have better targets for our energy and outrage than the
placement of a $20 toll on a million dollar truck.
Aaron Regunberg is a community
organizer in Providence and a state representative in House District 4.