Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey’s administration has a message for drivers in neighboring New Hampshire.
Ask not for whom the tolls come. They come for thee.
That’s according to Healey’s Transportation Secretary Monica Tibbits-Nutt, who told a pedestrian advocacy group she wants to install tolls along the border of the Bay State’s major access points — a move that would whack the wallets of Granite State commuters particularly hard.
“I’m going to talk about tolling,” Tibbits-Nutt said at one point during a live-streamed speech to the special interest group Walk Massachusetts Wednesday. “And when I’m talking tolling, I’m talking at the borders. I’m not talking within Massachusetts.”
For Granite Staters driving into neighboring Massachusetts, it would likely mean tolls at U.S. Route 3 in Nashua, Interstate 93 in Salem, and Interstate 95 in Seabrook.
Tibbits-Nutt said she’s leading a task force Healey created in February charged with finding new revenue sources “to meet our funding needs.” She told the Massachusetts activists Healey formed the task force because “this governor likes to fight.”
But Gov. Chris Sununu (R-N.H.) isn’t afraid of a political scrap either.
“Looks like Massachusetts has found yet another way to unnecessarily take your money,” Sununu said. “All the more reason for more Massachusetts residents to make the permanent move to New Hampshire.
“The Live Free or Die state continues to be the place to be.”
Sununu also took the Bay State all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court in a failed attempt to end a COVID-era policy of charging Granite States income taxes for remote work done on the New Hampshire side of the state line. That policy was foisted on Granite State commuters by Republican Gov. Charlie Baker.
The Healey administration shows no signs of backing down on its plans to target out-of-state commuters for more cash.
“We’re going after all the people who should be giving us money to make our transportation better and our communities better,” Tibbits-Nutt said. And she appeared to brag about the brazenness of her plan.
“This one (transportation funding task force) is actually different because we’re not censoring this,” she said, adding, “Once I say it, it’s there. I will 100 percent use that as a weapon because once I say it, it is now a policy. I have now weighed in.”
She added that Healey “has my back.”
Healey’s role is particularly problematic for New Hampshire Democrat Joyce Craig. The former Manchester mayor is running in her party’s primary for governor and she’s repeatedly touted the endorsement she’s received from the Massachusetts governor.
Craig would not respond to questions from NHJournal about Healey’s toll plan.
However, Democrats are opposing it — from the Massachusetts side of the state line.
State Auditor Diana DiZoglio, a Merrimack Valley native, said border tolls would result in “devastating impacts on our region, not just economically speaking, but also regarding the unmanageable congestion and infrastructural burden it would create on every local backroad.”
“Creating a border war is not the answer, and it’s definitely families within Massachusetts who would ultimately be hurt by this move — border communities count,” she added. “I strongly urge the administration to reject this approach.”
It’s not just higher tolls on the revenue table. Tibbits-Nutt also wants drivers to face fiscal repercussions for driving large pick-up trucks and suggested she would ban them if she could.
“We can’t price them enough that it’s going to stop the type of person who wants to buy that car,” she said of Ford F-150-style trucks. “And I’m 100 percent passing judgment on someone who wants to drive basically an 18-wheeler as their personal car.”
The two Republicans running for Granite State governor didn’t hesitate to express their horror over the Healey administration’s proposals.
“Instead of focusing on solving their dangerous billion-dollar illegal immigrant crisis, the Healey administration is planning ways to jack up their already high taxes and crack down on hardworking, law-abiding pickup truck owners. Give me a break,” said former U.S. Senator Kelly Ayotte.
“Unfortunately, these are the out-of-touch policies that my opponents would bring to the Granite State. We can’t afford to have their dangerous and expensive agendas in the corner office. I won’t let them MASS up our great state. Together, we will win in November and keep this craziness south of our border.”
Her rival for the Republican nomination, former Senate President Chuck Morse, also ripped the proposal.
“Democrats trying to squeeze Granite Staters with border tolls? Not on my watch,” Morse posted on X. “I’ve tirelessly defended NH from reckless taxation, attracting residents fleeing blue states’ burdens.
“Now, instead of fixing their horrible policies, those same states want to tax our families at the border – No way!”
New Hampshire Senate President Jeb Bradley (R-Wolfeboro) told NHJournal the proposal is “border BS.”
“There is a reason more people are leaving Massachusetts than staying—high taxes, reckless spending, and sanctuary city policies that are bankrupting the state.”
“They should be focusing on their sanctuary city policies that have resulted in illegal immigrants overpopulating their shelters and costing the state almost a billion dollars. Their problem is not with the New Hampshire border but with President (Joe) Biden’s open border policies that are overburdening Massachusetts taxpayers.”
The Healey administration released a report two days before Christmas projecting that the crush of illegal immigrants will wind up costing the state $2 billion over the next two years.
Meanwhile, Paul Craney, executive director of Massachusetts Fiscal Alliance, a nonprofit small government advocate, called Tibbits-Nutt’s comments “reprehensible.”
“You’d think the legislature might want a say in all these policies,” Craney told NHJournal. “I don’t think she belongs in government, and I think she should resign.”
A report released earlier this month found Massachusetts is currently seeing more and more of its long standing residents leaving the state.
“Were it not for offsetting growth from international migration, we’d have been losing population for years,” Peter Ciurczak, an analyst for the data research firm Boston Indicators, stated in the report.
The number-one destination for people permanently leaving Massachusetts?
According to the Internal Revenue Service, it’s New Hampshire.
