Attorney General Dick Blumenthal, the closest thing Connecticut has to a Delphic oracle, has said that the 90 per cent tax Democrats want to levy against AIG bonuses is constitutional. Now, helpfully, a law professor at Quinnipiac, William Dunlap, has written a piece in the Hartford Courant [“There’s Nothing Illegal About Tax to Take Back Bonuses”] that asks and answers the question, “Is confiscatory taxation constitutional?”
Short (honest) answer: It’s okay, if Democrats do it.”
Another professor, Ken Dautrich in the Department of Public Policy at UConn, asks a question dear to the heart of every Democrat, “Is Dodd Beatable?”
Short answer: Maybe yes, maybe no.
On the plus side, Dodd has money, fame and the good will of much of Connecticut’s liberal press. On the downside, there is Kevin Rennie.
“Is Mrs. Rell ‘Dishonest?’” asked the authoritorial Hartford Courant in one of its editorial epistles.
Short answer: We just don’t know.
Is the state budget deficit $7.4 billion, Mrs. Rell’s figure, or $8.7 billion, a figure favored by Senate President Pro Tem Donald Williams?
We just don’t know.
The editorial makes no attempt to answer the question: “How, after the institution of an income tax favored by the Courant in the early 90’s of the last century, did we end up with a defict larger than the last pre-income tax budget? And answer to that question might make interesting reading, and it also might point the way out of Connecticut doldrums. But, alas, such an answer might point a crooked finger at past Democrat controlled legislatures and gubernatorial offices controlled by the moderate Republicans the paper so idolizes.
Which brings us back to Blumenthal. Could he not sue someone to liquidate the defict?
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