“No man's life,
liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session” -- Gideon
Tucker
The headline of the story was worth a thousand words: “As State Budget And Tolls Stall, Mushroom Hunting And Hate Crimes Bill Among Proposals Passed." Connecticut Democrats, who still control
the General Assembly, were unable to marshal sufficient votes to pass a frequently unbalanced budget
that is in all probability unbalanced.
But the mushroom hunting bill – never mind what it’s about – passed like a hot
knife through butter. The budget failed to pass only 21 days after Connecticut
citizens celebrated, if that is the word for it, tax freedom day, that point on
the calendar at which Connecticut tax survivors have satisfied the insatiable lust
of politicians for more revenue.
“Connecticut remains,”
the Yankee Institute points out, “dead
last in the nation for the Tax Foundation’s annual Tax Freedom Day report, which calculates when the residents of each
state have collectively made enough money to pay all their tax bills.”
Progressive
Democrats are steaming inside that Republicans have not yet bowed to their
superior but dwindling numbers. The collapse of Republican spines has been the spur
to increased taxing and spending for decades. This time, one senses a hearty
opposition rooted in two politically useful perceptions. The first is that a
real corrective, long term spending cuts, will never become a reality so long
as further revenue increases remain a live option. The second is that a
reversal of Democratic hegemony in the General Assembly depends upon vigorous Republican
campaigns, which will depend upon a roster of candidates willing to lead and the
lucid presentation of programs that will pull Connecticut up by its own bootstraps.
In mid-June, Florida
Governor and job-poacher Rick Scott threaten in a posting to revisit
Connecticut. The Danbury News Times reported:
“Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and other
public officials ‘out of touch’ with business leaders, as the state government
works overtime this June to complete a budget that has been strapped by
lower-than-expected revenue from income taxes.
“’Connecticut has lost more adjusted gross income and people to Florida
than any other state in the nation,’ Scott stated. ‘Connecticut simply cannot
compete with everything Florida has to offer.’”
It is hardly a
sufficient answer to such job-poachers to retort that Florida is miles away
from New York and Massachusetts, while Connecticut is geographically situated
between the two, when the governors of Massachusetts and New York, one a
Republican and the other a Democrat, also are poaching jobs from Connecticut.
In the matter of revenue production from job growth, geography does not determine
destiny. More often than not, public policy is the salvation and ruination of states.
And Connecticut, over-reliant on tax increases and portable rich people living
in the state’s “Gold Coast,” has been tottering on its pins for decades. Warning
flags have been unfurled for years, the Democrat dominated General Assembly has
for years been pursuing a ruinous tax and spend policy, and the state’s
immunization system has for as long a period of time been compromised through excessive
regulations and special-interest stroking Democrats.
The question on
everyone’s lips as the political season unfolds is: can Connecticut Republicans
win back the governor’s office and attain a majority in at least one House of
the General Assembly? Republicans just now are very close in the Senate,
membership in the chamber being evenly split – 18-18. And the governor’s office
is up for grabs. Progressive Governor Dannel Malloy, who has mismanaged the
state during his somewhat autocratic administration, has lame-ducked himself.
Will he and his accomplished wife join former Governor Jodi Rell in Florida
when he leaves office? If so, he certainly will be a feather in Scott’s cap.
The answer to the question
above is, as Nobel Prize literati Bob Dylan once sang, “blow’n in the wind…” How
many times can politicians in Connecticut turn their heads and pretend that they
just don’t see?
There is a hard wind
at the back of Republicans this election season. For the first time in years,
bill payers in Connecticut, both citizens and corporate entities, are in open
revolt. Those who have shaken the dust of Connecticut from their feet and moved
to Scott’s more welcoming state can be said to have voted with their feet
already. When a person just graduated from any of Connecticut’s tax endowed
colleges moves permanently out of state, Connecticut does not only lose its
educational investment. Demographers tell us that the average lifespan in
Connecticut is 80 years. Assuming graduation from college at 22 and retirement at
75, Connecticut will lose more than 50 years of tax revenue when college
graduates leave the state – more than likely pulling other taxpaying members of their
families along with them.
Those who can do the
math, certainly NOT the folk who compute Connecticut’s perpetually out of
balance budgets, will do the math.
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