Connecticut needs to approve full tolling of major interstates. Any half measure (or one-fifth measure, e.g., truck tolling on certain bridges only) just perpetuates Connecticut’s reputation for its long-term record of kicking the proverbial fiscal can down the road.

That approach has put the state in the top five for some truly scary financial metrics, from its huge unfunded public employee pension debt, to its general debt obligation (fifth nationally, and that’s not per capita, that’s straight up debt).

Paradoxically, this record of fiscal irresponsibility is one of the fundamental reasons why Connecticut residents are so dubious about tolls, and it’s the reason why the state’s political leadership needs to pass tolling.

Here’s why: First, whether anybody initially likes it or not, it would illustrate to Connecticut citizens that political leaders in the state have the courage to take a gutsy political vote. This would be huge. The reason the state is in such fundamentally bad fiscal condition is that past political leadership has been unwilling to act on major long-range fiscal fundamentals.

So rather than insist on a fiscally responsible way to pay for pensions, elected leaders push off making actuarially sound contributions. Rather than practice actual fiscally responsible budget and spending policy, they borrow.

Second, and more practically, tolls would add in the neighborhood $800 million dollars to the state’s budget, $800 million that could easily be earmarked for the desperately needed infrastructure improvements the state requires, from roads and bridges, to ports, airports, and rail.

So passing full tolling could potentially indicate two things: First, that Connecticut’s political leadership actually gets why the state is in such perilous fiscal shape and has the political fortitude to begin turning things around. Second, that it can actually manage a new revenue stream in a way that proves the state can chew gum and spend money in a fiscally responsible way at the same time.

Could the problem be that politicians in Connecticut spend more time worrying about their re-election prospects than they do about fixing the state of the state?

This includes a string of elected executives who have proved particularly adept at ducking tough fiscal issues. Watching Governor Ned Lamont bob and weave on tolls has just been one of the more recent and painful spectacles of an executive who apparently thought making tough fiscal decisions and dealing with the heat would be easy, although his predecessors all proved equally adept at avoiding correcting upside-down fiscal basics.

In fact, when Dan Malloy was first running for governor, he committed to a new and basic system of revenue-raising and spending known as Results Based Accountability. RBA is a system that clearly ties revenue to results, a system that we believe would have started to inspire confidence in citizens that the state can actually be a responsible fiscal steward, and, therefore, make it easier to do things like, well, tolling. But he discovered that pushing such a system would require actual political wrangling (e.g., working with the legislature), and actual commitment (e.g., appointing department heads who would buy into such a system of accountability and then holding them accountable).

But it’s easy to blame politicians for this mess. Connecticut citizens themselves shouldn’t be left off the hook. For decades they’ve been AWOL on educating themselves about the basics of government, and then who among the candidates they’re considering actually would serve their and the state’s fundamental and long-range fiscal and civic interests.

Certainly with tolling there are areas of compromise that could ease the potential hardship on certain Connecticut citizens who might get hit too hard (different transponders, for example, can be programmed to toll at different rates). But right now, no one in power seems interested in investigating what those measures might be.

And this isn’t a partisan issue. Democrats and Republicans have been equally culpable when it comes to the state’s fiscal performance, which is why it always comes down to the same lowest-common-denominator and pointless political argument: Democrats want to spend, Republicans want to cut. Nobody seems to want to figure out what government ought to be doing and how to fund it in a way that promotes program efficiency and effectiveness.

We propose that Connecticut start with tolls. Let’s see what happens this legislative session.

Diana Urban represented the 43rd House District of Stonington and North Stonington for 18 years and was the chair of the Committee on Children, where she instituted an RBA Report Card on children’s issues. Jonathan Walters is the former executive editor of Governing magazine.