Elephant walk

Take a toll hike

by Seth Gitell

More bad news for those who want to eliminate tolls on the Mass Pike: a new survey of fiscal conservatives shows weak support for a ballot question that would reimburse taxpayers for tolls.

The polling results come just days after the news that the state wants to raise the cost of tolls on the Pike to pay for Big Dig cost overruns (see "Quick Fix,"), although the poll itself was conducted before news of the overruns was publicized. The survey, conducted by the conservative Beacon Hill Institute at Suffolk University, queried some 210 "fiscal conservatives with an interest in public-policy issues." Only 47 percent of those polled support the measure. Thirty-three percent oppose it.

Those results stand in contrast to the respondents' strong support for a ballot question that would cut the state's income tax to five percent. The poll confirms Governor Paul Cellucci's strategy in dealing with both issues: he's spending his political capital on the income-tax-cut measure and all but ignoring the efforts of those who want to get a toll-reimbursement measure on the ballot.

David Tuerck, executive director of the Beacon Hill Institute, says the results show what a bind a turnpike ballot question would put Cellucci in. "This [turnpike] measure doesn't help him any. We're looking at a $2 billion revenue loss in the budget between the two ballot measures," Tuerck says. "By having this on the ballot, the governor is in a tougher position in trying to sell his tax cut."

The executive director of the Tax Equity Alliance for Massachusetts, James St. George, says he's surprised that any conservatives would support the toll measure. "We would expect fiscal conservatives to be against this every bit as much as less conservative people. There's nothing conservative about creating a fiscal crisis," says St. George, who also believes, along with his conservative counterpart, that the governor would like to see the turnpike question disappear. "You've got to imagine that the governor would rather have a clear shot at his own proposal," he says, adding that the new poll results aren't "going to convince the 'Free the Pike' people to take their measure off the ballot."