Never use a scarecrow as your brain trust

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do i have to draw you a venn diagram, kid? just get on the bus and shut up.

Curtis: There's this very odd, disturbing, and -- frankly -- cringeworthy habit Leftist women have: they speak down to voters like we're kindergarteners. Kamala Harris does it. So does Gwen Walz. Back in July, we told you about this cringey TikToker who embodies the Nanny state.

Here's another Kamala supporter who treats rally attendees like children:

And this:

And this:

And this is what that same crack team came up with after she refused to attend the Al Smith dinner: pure genius

Nicht so schlau

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Ich bin ein Dummkopf

Huge, state-of-the-art fire station burns down because they didn't have any fire alarms

A fire station in Germany, a state-of-the-art, multi-million dollar fire station, along with ten fire trucks, burned to the ground this week ... because they hadn't installed fire alarms.

The new fire station, in Stadtallendorf, was hailed by Oberhessische Presse, the town's local newspaper, as a "modern, state-of-the-art" building when it opened last year.

But months later, Stadtallendorf firefighters, and others in the region, found themselves in the embarrassing situation of trying to put out a blaze at their own premises.

While there hasn't been an official statement about the source of the blaze, it appears as though a lithium ion battery charger started the inferno.

That’ll teach ‘em not to let immigrants store their stolen e-bikes in the station.

There's nothing so delicious as watching the Left engaging in riotous autosarcophagy

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Park Slope Food Co-op members face anti-Israel, antisemitic hate from their fellow liberals

The Park Slope Food Co-op has devolved into a hotbed of antisemitic and anti-Israel hate, with members spewing Nazi slogans toward Jews and sneering they “smell of Palestinian blood,” according to a complaint filed with the state. 

….The crunchy co-op, founded in 1973, requires its roughly 16,000 members to work 2.75-hour shifts every six weeks, in exchange for the privilege to purchase heavily discounted groceries, in addition to voting on store policies.

In the wake of Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023 attack and the ensuing war in Gaza, however, several members began pushing to strip the store’s shelves of products linked to the Jewish state, such as Sabra hummus, with the spicy scuffle soon permeating campaigns for the co-op’s board of directors election earlier this year. 

In May, a Jewish co-op member who was standing outside the store and trying to inform those strolling by about the boycott effort was confronted by a shopper, who called her a “Nazi,” according to Maislen’s complaint. 

The odious member began walking away, but not before shouting “Sieg Heil” at the 35-year-old, according to the complaint.  

“I’ve had antisemitic stuff happen to me, but like that publicly, that brazen, with that language … I was really shaken up,” the woman told The Post. 

The co-op, she said, is “not a welcoming space anymore, for Israelis, for Jews,” she said. 

Anti-Israel hostilities continued a week later, when Maislen, who unsuccessfully ran for a board of directors seat on the anti-boycott platform, was harassed by an unhinged member outside the co-op, who barked at him that Zionists “can’t have empathy,” the complaint noted.  

And in late June, an Israeli-Jewish co-op member who was discussing the pro-boycott candidates during her shift was harassed by another woman espousing antisemitic conspiracy theories, including that Jews celebrated young Palestinians being raped and killed, according to the complaint.

The unhinged member seethed that she couldn’t work or stand next to the Jewish woman because she smelled “of Palestinian blood,” the complaint read. 

This article from The Jewish Forward provides a taste of what life among the woke is like:

In theory, co-ops are the ideal of democracy, where everyone gets a say on everything; a society built on community, compromise, collaboration and shared values. But the reality tends to be less utopian; without an ultimate authority, every decision, no matter how small, can erupt into a chaos of a thousand opinions. 

And though the Coop is a beloved neighborhood shop, it’s also a huge, profitable company; it has tens of thousands of members, many of whom commute from other neighborhoods or even other states to shop and work their shifts, making it the largest member-run co-op in the country. (Other cooperative companies, like REI, do not run on member labor; they are only coops insofar as members have some limited voting power.)

Those tens of thousands of members make for tens of thousands of opinions and rules — and zealous enforcers. Each change in operations is a battle. …. Members battle over which food additives are acceptable, the volume at which music can be played over the store speakers, what kind of meat to sell — and whether the Coop should sell meat at all. (It does, but my colleague, who has been a member since 1985, recalled a temporary compromise involving separate meat and non-meat shopping carts.)

In the letters to the editor section of the Coop’s newspaper, the Linewaiters’ Gazette, for the last several months, topics of contention included “the amplified collision of plastic” caused by the store paging system and pickle sourcing. And BDS is more controversial than any of those issues. 

A Jewish woman reported feeling afraid that another member would yell at her when she bought Jerusalem-made matzo before Passover. Another mentioned a beloved tahini brand that the store carries. “Did you know it’s made by an Israeli Arab who champions LGBT rights?” she asked. The rest of the letter is devoted to a tahini smoothie recipe: “Pour into a glass, take a sip, and savor the creamy goodness of standing against BDS and supporting products that promote unity and understanding.” Many, many letters accuse the store of being unwelcoming to Jews — members wearing keffiyehs while working their shifts is a common theme — and the Gazette of antisemitism for even publishing letters about BDS.

Meanwhile, others argue that the Coop is an inherently political project, and that it has boycotted other products and countries — Coca-Cola, Nestlé, South Africa, Chile — in the past. They speak of their guilt in eating good produce from the Coop while children in Gaza starve. Several letters accuse the Coop of being unwelcoming to Muslims for not having Ramadan foods on display — and for fomenting anti-Muslim sentiment by printing letters that accuse BDS of antisemitism.

Things have gotten so bad that, in the same issue, the Gazette published back-to-back letters in which both a pro-Unity and a pro-BDS member reported being called a Nazi. 

Ah, for the good old days, when Leftists could all just get along; so long as they all agreed with each other.

$12,162.16 per "underserved" customer vs $600.00 for satellite service; guess which one our Hartford Looters are going with?

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Starlink satellites fly over greenwich, unused

Greenwich gets $1.8M from state to upgrade broadband internet, most of any municipality in CT

GREENWICH — Verizon has been awarded $1.8 million from the state to upgrade its internet infrastructure all over town.

Oh — the money’s going to a nice, generous-to-politicians corporation like Verizon? Notice my shocked face.

The money will improve broadband internet access for 148 local businesses and residences that meet the federal government’s definition of “underserved” because current internet speeds are so slow.

The upgrades are for Verizon FIOS — the company’s wired “fiber-to-the-premises” connections — not Verizon Wireless.

Fiberoptic, no less; no plain ol’ cable for the underserved, if undeserving (in fact, there’s no means test for receiving this gift from the taxpayers, so the mana will fall into the homes and businesses of the rich and poor alike: Equity!)

Here’s a daring thought: do impose a means test, require business proprietors and those living in multi-million dollar back country homes and to pay for their own cable, fiber or otherwise, and buy $600 Starlink receivers for the handful of peasants shivering in unheated, cableless hovels down in Chickahominy Hollow.

The locations were selected based on the Federal Communication Commission's National Broadband Map, which included 152 residences and businesses in Greenwich that lack reliable broadband speeds as of Dec. 31, 2023.

Verizon did not seek any financial contribution from the town of Greenwich on the project, instead securing the funds with help from the town's three representatives in the state house. The work must be completed by Dec. 31, 2026 per the grants rules.

Reps. Rachel Khanna in the 149th District, Stephen Meskers in the 150th and Hector Arzeno in the 151st all supported the grant application. All three are seeking reelection in November.

Gee, if only there were a less expensive way to get high-speed internet service to these 148 households. Well, after spending 5 years and millions and millions of federal dollars paying the state’s cable providers to expand into rural locations, Maine’s Democrat governor Janet Mills had to throw in the towel and look to the heavens for relief from the cost of extending service to the last, most-remote 9,000 homes and businesses. Oh, how that must have hurt!

Maine will give Elon Musk’s satellite dishes to remaining homes without internet access

Maine will offer Elon Musk’s Starlink satellite dishes to the roughly 9,000 homes and businesses in the state that still lack internet service.

The Maine Connectivity Authority shared that plan Thursday while launching the Working Internet ASAP Program that will help the state fulfill its goal of offering internet connection options to all Mainers by the end of this year.

To bring service to the 1.5 percent of Maine homes and businesses without it, the state will coordinate the purchase of Low-Earth Orbit satellite hardware and service reservations from Starlink, a subsidiary of SpaceX, the aerospace company founded by Musk.

What’s a news article from a liberal rag like the Bangor Daily News without a gratuitous bit of editorializing?

“Musk, the world’s richest person whose ownership portfolio also includes Tesla and X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter, has not shied away from touting Starlink while also courting controversy as he stumps for former President Donald Trump.”

Now, back to the regularly scheduled broadcast:

Starlink has already brought internet to rural parts of Maine in recent years, though early users in 2021 complained of high prices and dropped connections. The Maine Connectivity Authority said Thursday it selected Starlink following a competitive bid process this summer.

What’s the cost: Brian Allenby, the connectivity authority’s senior director of program operations, said the total cost of purchasing the equipment along with offering free shipping and professional installation is still not set, especially given not all households may take the offer. Allenby cautioned a broadband-focused news outlet’s report on how the equipment alone likely will cost $5.4 million [$600 per terminal] does not capture all considerations [we’re talking a government contract here, after all].

The outlet, Broadband Breakfast, said Maine is possibly the first state in the nation to provide free Starlink satellites to unserved residents. Starlink terminals currently cost around $600. Maine will not cover Starlink’s monthly $120 service charge that comes with unlimited data.

So why would Connecticut choose to pay Verizon $1.8 million, $12,162 per household, to provided high-speed internet service that could be obtained from Starlink at a total cost of just $88,800? Reached for comment by FWIW, Greenwich’s representatives in Hartford, Khanna, Meskers, and Arzeno (would probably) respond: “who’s paying our salaries, Verizon or Musk? Besides — Musk’s politics? We hate that guy!”

Meskers tried to distance himself from his colleagues, insisting, “I not a crook, I’m just stupid”. Embrace the power of “and”.

Your tax dollars at work (well, Alaskans', but I'm sure there's a federal grant buried in the snow here somewhere)

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happy shopper in anchorage

Shocker: Homeless Alaskans More Likely to Suffer Cold-Related Injuries. Who Knew?

Ward Clark, RedState:

Thank you, Captain Obvious.

Cold exposure injuries like frostbite and hypothermia are eight times more common for unhoused people in Alaska than those with secure housing, according to recent research by the Alaska division of epidemiology. 

Riley Fitting, an epidemiologist with the state, said cold exposure injuries can be serious. 

“Just because we’re in Alaska and we’re hearty, and we understand the winter, and we know things are cold, but we still go out and do things in the cold, it’s important to realize that not everybody can warm up,” Fitting said. “And if we can’t warm up, we’re at much higher risks of these lasting health outcomes.”

He said about a quarter of cold exposure injuries were caused directly because people were unhoused. He also said the rate of cold injuries for unhoused people has increased over the past several years, likely because of recent harsh winters.* But in harsh winters, people with homes aren’t similarly at higher risk of cold-induced injury.

Clark:

So, people sleeping on the sidewalks of Anchorage, Alaska, are more likely to suffer from cold exposure injuries than people who sleep indoors, in a bed, under blankets? Gotcha. I never would have figured that out if an epidemiologist with the state of Alaska had not helpfully informed me. Heck, do you suppose this is true in other places? Could it be true that people sleeping on sidewalks or in doorways are more likely to suffer from exposure than people who sleep indoors?

*So we can expect global warming to fix this by, say, 2028? That’s great news (CF)

From Cuba, to Detroit, to the dark halls of academia, no one learns; they can't, or won't

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Fascinating story here

The Embarrassment of Success

Richard Fernandez

For those who believe "property is theft," success as exhibited by SpaceX's catching of a huge booster or South Korea's prosperity compared to the north is prima facie proof of guilt. How could anything be so successful without diabolism? By contrast, destitution and dysfunction are irrefutable signs of virtue because failure is -- to some people's way of thinking -- caused by victimhood. Recently North Korea blew up some of the few roads it had in rage at the unfairness of it all. Self-multilation enhances the virtue effect because the previously pitiable become even more so.

There is a theory is that people, states and institutions are unsuccessful because failure is imposed on them. Hamas, for example, justifiably committed ordinarily unspeakable atrocities on Oct 7, 2023 because they were driven mad by decades of settler colonialism. Criminals are flooding into the US from all over the world because America has made the rest of the world unlivable. "It's your fault for being richer than Venezuela." Not theirs. Victims are never at fault.

….

Because the pie is only so big North Korea -- and in a larger sense Hamas -- must be poor because their opposite numbers have left them with so little. That means extreme wealth is evil. A Guardian columnist thinks this should be self evident: "The fact that we are even having this debate is a depressing indication of the extent to which extreme inequality has been normalised. Of course billionaires shouldn’t exist. This shouldn’t be a remotely controversial thing to say; it shouldn’t even be considered a leftwing thing to say." The evil of material success is not worth debating.

If we want to abolish failure one must perforce abolish success. Then society will move into the sunlit uplands more slowly, but surely at the speed of the slowest ship, a convoy commanded by the right thinking. Success only makes future unfairness inevitable. SpaceX's technical achievements are unleashing inequity on a cosmic scale.  JD Vance openly proclaims, "I believe the destiny of this country is to conquer the stars. Whatever your views of Elon's politics, this is something that should inspire all of us." Can Vance hear how evil that sounds? Destiny. Conquer. Could the danger be clearer? SpaceX is extending settler colonialism to the universe, exporting "surfacism" to the new "sacrifice zone." 

…..

Unless the American billionaires are stopped the US will seize or claim the inner solar system before North Korea or Africa even put a man into orbit. Something must be done or success will unleash poverty -- or so the argument goes. But then the question arises: why then do new industries arise without the intervention of government? Why doesn't old wealth dominate forever even with the help of government? Could success be due to something other than ripping the poor off?

The evidence that economics is more than just about dividing pies is overwhelming. It is also about finding better ways to make bigger pies. In the 1950s, after political partition, North Korea was considerably richer than South Korea. Today per capita income in South Korea is 30 times greater than in North Korea. But South Korea didn't victimize North Korea. They're not even connected, and if they were the connecting roads are now blown. During the first Arab-Israeli war in 1948, Israel was far from dominant. In fact it was ludicrously outmatched by the Arabs in manpower, weaponry and in Western trained regular units. Where did Israel's present superiority come from despite the fact that the Arabs had oil?

The change in the composition in the Fortune 500 between 1994 and 2022 is even more intriguing. In 1994 General Motors topped the Fortune list. Today it is not even in the top 20. Amazon, Apple and Google are currently much bigger than General Motors. Did they victimize General Motors? But perhaps the most dramatic challenge to the pie theory of economics is the saga of SpaceX versus Boeing.

This is a test of evolutionary fitness. 

Boeing epitomises the end of the late industrial era. It is burdened by bureaucracy; it relies on regulatory and political capture; and it has taken management theories like outsourcing past the extreme to the absurd. The firm has dispersed R&D and manufacturing across a global network of suppliers – a strategy that yielded quality issues and, at times, had fatal consequences. 

In contrast, SpaceX embodies the vertically integrated model of the Exponential Age, with in-house production that delivers rapid innovation and dramatic cost reductions in space launches. 

Since its founding in 2002, SpaceX has brought down the cost of space launches into low Earth orbit by 90%. Ten years ago, Boeing received a $4.2 billion contract from NASA to develop crewed launch vehicles with zero success. The same year, SpaceX got a $2.6 billion contract and has completed nine crewed launches so far. The tenth will be the rescue of the astronauts stranded by Boeing.

Boeing should have been poised to conquer the stars. It had the advantage of size, government support and even tradition.  "Instead SpaceX will do 80% of all mass to orbit this year. China will do 12%. The rest of the world will do 8%. That includes Boeing, Lockheed, and everyone else." Perhaps the Left have got it wrong. Maybe success is principally the result of getting things right and failure the outcome of getting things wrong. That's why the Fortune list keeps changing, because some get it righter than others. Perhaps victimhood is not so much due to what other people have done to others, but what one has failed to do or failed to learn.

(Somewhat) Related, over at Instapundit:

DON’T THINK THIS HAS GOTTEN THE ATTENTION IT DESERVES: Will the XAI 19 Day Data Center Miracle Win the Future of AI?

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang knows exactly how long it takes most companies to build an AI data center using Nvidia GPUs. He describes how his Nvidia team worked with xAI and Elon Musk to build a complete AI Data Center with 100,000 Nvidia H100 GPUs in 19 days. Elon Musk has said it took 122 days from start to finish.

Jensen said this would normally take 4 years. It would take 3 years for the planning and getting the site and permits and then it would take one year to build it and get it working and everyone trained. This means XAI took about 103 days for the planning and other non-GPU planning and other tasks.

The removal of most of the 3 year planning and preparation requires leveraging Elon’s Tesla team and processes they have worked out for factories and the prior setup of 20,000 GPUs used for Grok 2. . . . Tesla can completely design, build and test and certify a car in one hour. Other car companies take a year or more. If xAI has converted the installation, building and testing of a 100k GPU cluster from a 365 days process into a 19 day process and shortened the planing and preparation from 3 years into 100 days then this could be an unbeatable level of speed for xAI and for Tesla AI.

Leftists: “Elon doesn’t do anything he just buys companies.”

Oh, how the truth hurts!

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Say it, sister: Pop star Lizzo ripped online after saying ‘the whole country will be like Detroit’ if Kamala wins

Pop star Lizzo was ripped online after she claimed that if VP Kamala Harris is elected president “the whole country will be like Detroit” at a rally for the Dem candidate in her hometown.

Harris appeared with the “Truth Hurts” singer at a rally in the motor city Saturday where the two sang the city’s praises after former president Trump had disparaged it at an appearance at the Detroit Economic Club last week.

“I mean, the whole country is going to be like — you want to know the truth — it’ll be like Detroit… Our whole country will end up being like Detroit.”

You want the truth? I don’t think you do.

The Greens’ socialist, carbon-free dream reaches fruition

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Communist Cuba shuts down schools, state-owned workplaces as huge blackout leaves millions in dark

A massive outage left millions of Cubans without power and prompted the government Friday to implement emergency measures to slash demand, including suspending classes, shutting down some state-owned workplaces and canceling non-essential services.

Cuban officials said that the blackout, which started late Thursday, saw 1.64 gigawatts go offline during peak hours in the early evening, about half the total demand at the time.

“The situation has worsened in recent days,” Prime Minister Manuel Marrero said in a special address on national television in the early hours of Friday.

“We must be fully transparent … we have been halting economic activities to ensure energy for the population.”

During his address, Marrero was accompanied by Alfredo López, chief of the state-owned utility, UNE, who said the outage stemmed from increased demand from small- and medium-sized companies and residences’ air conditioners, as well as breakdowns in old thermoelectric plants that haven’t been properly maintained and the lack of fuel to operate some facilities.

Update at PJ Media:

Communist Cuba is in total darkness today thanks to a power outage due to a lack of oil and a dilapidated energy infrastructure which has forced the government to shut down almost everything. The Antonio Guiteras thermoelectric power plant in the city of Matanzas suddenly and inexplicably shut down. Repair crews are desperately trying to get the plant working again with no timetable as to when power might be restored.

Schools, industry, and "cultural and nonessential activities" such as bars and discos are shuttered at least until Monday. The outage follows a late-night TV address by Cuban Prime Minister, Manuel Marrero Cruz on Thursday night.

“We have had to paralyze the economy to guarantee a minimum of electrical service,” Prime Minister Manuel Marrero said in an announcement. 

Early Saturday morning, after power was slowly being restored, another catastrophic failure occurred and the island was once again plunged into darkness.

Venezuela has been supplying Cuba with about 80% of its oil in recent years. But now, the Venezuela oil industry is also suffering from neglect and poor maintenance and those deliveries to Cuba have been cut in half. Cuba has tried to buy from Mexico and Russia, but they can't pay in Cuban worthless pesos and its hard currency reserves are needed to buy food.

Totally unrelated, right?:

Cuba slashes size of daily bread ration as ingredients run thin

By Reuters

September 17, 20242:44

HAVANA, Sept 16 (Reuters) - Cuba's communist-run government on Monday slashed by a quarter the weight of its subsidized ration of daily bread, the latest shortage to strain a decades-old subsidies scheme created by the late Fidel Castro.

The bread, one of a handful of still subsidized basic food products in Cuba, will be reduced from 80 grams to 60 grams (2.1 oz), or approximately the weight of an average cookie or a small bar of soap. Its price, too, was slightly reduced, to just under 1 peso, or 1/3 of a cent.

Still, many Cubans, who earn around 4648 pesos a month, or around $15, can scarcely afford to shop for more expensive bread on the private market, leaving them with few alternatives.

"We have to accept it, what else can we do?" Havana-resident Dolores Fernandez told Reuters while she stood outside a bakery on Monday. "There's no choice."

“Viva Fidel! Viva socialism!

Who remembers CT's "Windfall Profits Tax"? Almost no one, although it's still adding to the price. And that’s typical of these state-coffer enrichment schemes

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A Washington State Home Heating bill, 2022 and 2024

In seems that, for some reason, politicians don’t want to boast of their successes in raising the price of fossil fuels for consumers, even though forced use reduction is the keystone in the battle to save the world from global warming, a goal many, even most American voters say they want to achieve. Odd, eh?

In California, where gasoline currently costs $1.50 more per gallon than the national average, the state’s new carbon regulations are going to add 65 to 85 cents per gallon, heading to $1.50 by 2035. Fantastic! Go Greens! But instead of gloating (publicly) the CARB regulators are obfuscating and denying that any such thing is going to happen; at least, not until next month’s elections.

Out in the not-so-sunny state of Washington, a “carbon sequestration” scheme has sent fuel costs sky-high, yet, again, no one wants to claim credit.

Virginia Taft has the story:

Outgoing Gov. Jay Inslee promised to "lower the price of gas" for running vehicles and heating homes, costing Washingtonians "only pennies," by instituting a carbon rationing scheme. That was a big fat lie, which he knew because his own economist predicted an at least 40 cents a gallon increase in the price of gas. 

Within weeks of the first carbon auction the price of gas at the pump increased by as much as 50 cents a gallon on top of "I Did That!" Joe Biden's climate price increases. The price of everything went up dramatically because that "everything" comes by truck. 

Then came the chicanery. The state economist was then forced from the government. Then, the guy who wants to replace Inslee, Attorney General Bob Ferguson, ordered energy companies to hide the carbon tax line item from consumers' bills.

Cui Bono?

(In digging around for more information on Washington’s law, I came across this enlightening bit of history on who sponsored it, and what that person is up to now: just like every other do-gooder law sponsor, from BLMers, to illegal immigration champions, to ethanol boosters, he’s cashing in):

“Reuven Carlyle, a former Democratic state senator from Seattle, sponsored the legislation, and said he was purposely vague on how the money should be spent.

“My goal politically was to get the budget writers salivating with opportunity and anticipation about how to leverage those dollars for federal dollars and for private investment,” said Carlyle.

“The new law has gotten a boost since it was signed because the federal Inflation Reduction Act included big investments in climate change that include matching federal funds, said Carlyle, who has since founded a start-up to help businesses hit climate goals.”

So, can we now please discuss this windfall tax you claim to remember?

All of which, finally, brings me around to Connecticut’s “windfall profits tax” enacted in 1980 during one of the recurrent gas shortages back then (why there were shortages is easily answered, but that’s for another time), with the promise that oil companies would be forbidden to pass the cost of that tax on to consumers. At the time, legal scholars (and even legal dolts like myself) warned that the pass-through ban would not pass constitutional muster, yet the Democrats rammed the law through, with full knowledge that a catchy phrase like “windfall profits” and a false promise that oil companies, not consumers, would have to pay “their fair share” would be hugely popular with their uninformed constituents.

The law went into effect and as predicted, the pass-through ban was struck down by the courts, and CT drivers have been paying the tax — now 26.4¢ per gallon ever since: 44 years. Connecticut gasoline retailers briefly tried to bring this tax and Connecticuts additional road use tax (spent on everything except road maintenance) of 25¢ to the attention of customers by affixing stickers to their gas pumps. The state immediately banned the practice, a ban that, like the tax itself (now renamed with the equally-duplicitous moniker of “wholesale

Here’s an interesting thing: I tried to find information on the history of Connecticut’s windfall profits tax using Google and DuckDuckGo, and the results were scattered and difficult to assemble into a coherent narrative. So I went to the free version of chatbox, and got back this summary in less than a second; I’m impressed.

Question: what is the legislative history of Connecticut's Petroleum Gross Receipts Earning Tax; include the court decision invalidating the law's initial ban on pass-through of the tax to consumers, and the state forbidding gasoline dealers from showing taxes on fuel pumps

ChatGPT said:

Connecticut's Petroleum Gross Receipts Earnings Tax has evolved significantly since its inception. Here's a summary of its legislative history, including key court rulings and amendments:

1. Initial Enactment and Tax Structure

  • Year of Enactment: Connecticut first enacted the Petroleum Gross Earnings Tax in 1980. The tax was imposed on the gross earnings of companies engaged in the refining or distribution of petroleum products within the state.

  • Purpose: It aimed to generate revenue for the state, particularly to fund transportation projects and other state infrastructure needs.

2. Ban on Pass-Through of the Tax to Consumers

  • The original law prohibited companies from passing the tax directly onto consumers, intending to protect consumers from bearing the burden of this tax. However, petroleum companies argued that it was impractical and inconsistent with the realities of business operations.

3. Court Decision Invalidating the Ban on Pass-Through

  • A Connecticut court decision eventually struck down the prohibition on passing the tax to consumers. The ruling, which stemmed from legal challenges by petroleum companies, found that the ban violated constitutional or state legal principles, such as the right of businesses to set prices based on operational costs, including taxes.

  • Case Example: One notable decision is Texaco Refining & Marketing, Inc. v. Commissioner of Revenue Services, where the court sided with the petroleum industry, emphasizing that while the state could impose a tax, it could not interfere with pricing strategies.

4. State Regulation Forbidding the Display of Taxes at Fuel Pumps

  • In response to the court's decision, Connecticut implemented further regulations that prohibited gasoline dealers from explicitly showing the Petroleum Gross Earnings Tax as a separate line item on fuel pumps or on customer receipts. The intent was to maintain transparency about pricing while avoiding direct association of the tax with the state or the fuel price consumers paid.

  • This regulation aimed to prevent consumer confusion [uh huh - Ed] and reduce potential backlash against the tax by making it less visible at the point of sale.

5. Subsequent Amendments and Changes

  • Over the years, Connecticut adjusted the tax rate multiple times in response to fluctuations in petroleum prices and state budgetary needs.

  • The state also refined its laws to ensure compliance with both federal and state constitutional standards, ensuring that while businesses could pass the tax on to consumers, the state maintained a degree of control over how the tax was presented to the public.

Summary

Connecticut's Petroleum Gross Earnings Tax has been a significant revenue source for the state, but its implementation has faced legal challenges and changes, particularly around its pass-through provisions and the display of taxes at gas stations. The ongoing adjustments and court rulings reflect the state's balancing act between generating revenue and managing consumer impact.

For more detailed and specific legal citations or case names, I can further explore Connecticut's case law and legislative records on this matter.