Opinion

Bottleneck is only temporary

When people pay state income taxes, they pay for services rendered. Granted, they seldom get their money's worth, but taxes do finance government expenses beyond the welfare state, the slush funds, and waste, fraud and patronage.

The same is true when they pay sales taxes, gasoline taxes, etc., and when they renew their car registration or driver's license or pay other state fees — taxes by another name. Though the state requires businesses and municipalities to act as uncompensated or undercompensated tax collectors, these transactions, strictly speaking, are between the people and their government.

Not so with bottle and can deposits. Except for regulatory expenses funded by business taxes and fees intended to cover those costs, the state's involvement in the process began and ended with the imposition of the bottle bill in 1980 as unfunded mandate on businesses. With the flowering of curbside recycling, the bill since has grown into a needless burden on businesses and consumers.

Still, the bill created a strictly private-sector transaction. Every year, however, consumers sacrifice about $25 million by choosing not to reclaim their deposits. This week, the governor and legislature came close to confiscating that $25 million, oddly enough in the name of the people who didn't want the money in the first place. Rep. Christopher Caruso, D-Bridgeport: "That money belongs to the consumers. ... It's the people's money." If so, why aren't Gov. M. Jodi Rell and lawmakers talking about refunding it to the people instead of spending it on state expenses that heretofore were financed by taxes and fees?

With the state's fiscal meltdown worsening by the day, it's only a matter of time before they pull off this thievery. When it happens, watch how fast $25 million grows to $50 million. The racketeers will take the $25 million, effectively from the people, by stealing it from businesses. Unable to absorb a loss that great, businesses will resort to some combination of price increases, job cuts and reduced compensation for employees. With wages and disposable incomes thus reduced, the economy will get knocked down another peg, and receipts from income, sales and other taxes and fees will decline further. Additional strain will be put on public services, adding to the more than $5 billion in social spending the state already can't afford.

What's more, with bottle and can deposits flowing into the state revenue stream, the bottle bill will become a vessel for stealth tax increases. For example, the state could raise the deposit to a dime or expand the bill to include water and juice containers. And for every dollar in new bottle taxes, $2 will come out of the people's pockets.

Here's the real beauty of this artifice: Just before they stick it to taxpayers again, the governor and lawmakers can say they're doing it to protect the environment and avoid a tax increase when they're really covering their hyperactive-spending cans. What a racket.

http://www.rep-am.com/articles/2008/11/28/opinion/382395.txt