Charlie Baker’s gas tax cements his RINO legacy

Gov. Charlie Baker was against automatic gas tax increases before he was for them.

These photos are from 2014, when Tall Deval was running for governor as, believe it or not, a friend of the taxpayers.

Boy, have times changed.

Now the imperious RINO fraud is cheerleading for the TCI — the Transportation Climate Initiative — which makes the automatic gas tax hike of 2014 seem like an outpouring of pure Athenian democracy. 

I mean, in 2014 the hacks at the State House at least tried to engineer their heist via a constitutional mechanism, to wit, legislation, which could then be repealed by everybody standing around that “Stop Automatic Tax Hikes” sign.

And that’s exactly what happened. Even though the payroll patriots outspent the working classes 30-1, the automatic gas tax was repealed 53-47 — a much wider margin than Tall Deval enjoyed in his 40,000-vote squeaker over gubernatorial opponent Marsha Coakley.

To put it another way, five years ago Tall Deval needed us a lot more than we needed him.

And now, this is how he repays the favor — by trying to jam through a second gas tax, on top of the already outrageous 44.9 cents (federal and state) per gallon. It’s all in the guise of an arbitrarily imposed “carbon fee,” which is going to be a lot harder, if not impossible, for the taxpayers to repeal via the referendum process.

Of course Tall Deval and the rest of his shameless, tax-fattened greedheads are claiming this immediate 17 cent per gallon hike is to protect the polar bears, but no one’s buying that.

Like the ill-gotten gains they were conniving to grab in 2014, much of this latest highway robbery is in reality destined to bail out the MBTA pension fund, i.e., the Bulgers, at least two of whom retired with full pensions while in their mid-40s.

I don’t know which of these photos is my favorite — maybe the one with Tall Deval grimacing as then-Rep. Geoff Diehl excoriates the takers and defends the makers. Back then we always wondered if Baker was as committed to repealing the automatic gas-tax increase as people who worked for a living — and this photo makes us remember why we were so skeptical.

At least five years ago he knew what it was like to actually have to pay for filling up your car. Check out those prefracking prices — $3.99 for high-test. Right now those are the bad old days. If Tall Deval gets his way now, they’ll be the good old days.

California’s already got this scam going. Gas prices are close to five bucks a gallon. That’s Charlie Baker’s dream for Massachusetts, and our nightmare.

This TCI tax is a regional scheme — the hacks are acting like the worst kind of mob, trying to screw up their courage to screw the taxpayers up and down the Eastern seaboard all at once, on the grounds that we can’t stop all of them. To more fully understand the outlines of this multibillion-dollar heist, go to massfiscal.org.

It really smells. That’s why Tall Deval is leading the charge.

Thank goodness New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu has already said no way. I asked him Wednesday night if he thought the TCI was a scam.

“Let’s just say it’s … scammy,” Sununu said.

You’ll never see Tall Deval at a gas pump again — or in front of a pro-taxpayer sign, for that matter. But given his deep commitment to fighting climate change, I’m sure his New Year’s resolution is to give up his State Police car and ride into the city every morning on the T’s commuter rail — preferably on one of those wonderful Depression-era cars where the heat only kicks in every third day.

Shouldn’t be a problem for Tall Deval though. Hacks like him are so full of hot air they can keep the entire train nice and toasty.