Life went on. The federal debt increased at a rapid pace under both Presidents Bush The Lesser and Barack Obama.
Mr. Obama has in seven years added $6.463 trillion to the national debt, at
55.4% the largest debt increase of the three presidents. By the end of his term
in office, George W. Bush had doubled the debt passed along to him by the
Clinton administration, adding $5.849 trillion to Clinton’s $5.8 trillion.
Here in Connecticut, Governor Dannel Malloy promised,
shortly after he had instituted the highest tax increase in state history, not
to repeat his politically painful performance. Mr. Malloy’s first tax increase
was, everyone was led to believe, a one-time whipping. However, the one-off tax
increase was soon followed by the second highest tax increase in Connecticut’s
history, and unsurprisingly Connecticut’s economy has taken a long term tumble
during the Malloy years. We are the only state in the union that has not yet
recovered from what has been called The Great Recession, and we are the only state
in the union that has lost population during the reign of Barack the Munificent
and “no tax increase” Malloy.
General Electric only recently departed for Boston
Massachusetts, and the general feeling in the state is that the door has been
left open, allowing other companies fleeing high taxes, high energy costs,
burdensome state regulations and a dunderheaded Democrat dominated General
Assembly, to bolt whenever propitious opportunities are dangled before them by
out-of-state poachers. In addition, Mr. Malloy has inaugurated his legacy
project, a gold plated 20 year $30 billion infrastructure repair program. The
spendthrift General Assembly is desperately in search of a slush fund from
which they might draw from time to time to discharge continuing deficits, and
the sweetest money pot is one that can be charged to future generations:
Connecticut citizens yet unborn are unable to register a NO vote on projects
created long before their emergence from the birth canal.
The root of Connecticut’s problem is, of course, declining
revenues, which are dipping in the state for a host of reasons. Connecticut is
heavily dependent for its revenue on financial operatives, hedge fund managers
and the like whipped and scorned this political season by Democrat Socialist
candidate for President Bernie Sanders; these would be the same redundantly
rich, upper middle class workers who contribute about 40 percent of
Connecticut’s revenue to state coffers -- and loads of loot, Mr. Sanders
continues to remind us, to Hillary Clinton’s presidential ambitions. Donald
Trump, the leading Republican candidate for President, is a self-financing
financier, and Mr. Sanders, a millionaire, is financed by the proletariat.
For years, Democrats in Connecticut, along with a compliant
media, have operated under two false premises: 1) that the state was suffering
continuing deficits because it had a revenue problem, not a spending problem;
and 2) that, given enough time, revenue contributions in the state would return
to “normal” levels, and never mind the causal connection between high
regulatory bars, ever higher spending levels and diminishing revenues. Higher
business costs lead ineluctable to reduced revenues. Businesses move away from
high costs pretty much in the way Mr. Sanders’ campaign has moved away from
ordered thought. Mrs. Clinton has not yet mentioned in her primary struggles
with Mr. Sanders that Venezuela, once the Paris of Latin America, is now
suffering from a shortage of toilet paper after having adopted Socialist
solutions to economic problems during the reigns of two autocratic socialist
Presidents, the late Hugo Chavez and his successor President Nicolás Maduro,
formerly a bus driver.
Leftists Chavezistas in Connecticut’s increasingly progressive General Assembly want to adjust the
state’s income tax to make it more progressive, but their efforts have been
thwarted – so far – by Mr. Malloy, querulous Democrats in the legislature and
pretty much the entire Republican Party contingent in the General Assembly. But
surely some way, other than increasing marginal taxes on the rich, may be found
to fill depleted tax coffers.
How can left of
center politician raise taxes without moving their lips?
Of course! The trick
is done by reducing state payments to “rich” towns: A reduction of money sent
by the state to a town amounts to a tax increase – because the “rich”
municipality must levy additional taxes to fill its own depleted town treasury.
Republicans in the
General Assembly, who have been waiting for the trap to be sprung, are sadly
disappointed but not surprised by the move. And Carol Liebau, President of the indispensable
Yankee Institute, as well as State Rep. Gail Lavielle, have asked the right question following the destructive
Democratic hat trick: “If Hartford imposes
cuts to municipalities rather than reforming state worker compensation,” shouldn’t
it reduce costly mandates at the same time?
Democrats in the
General Assembly should – but they won’t.
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