Connecticut’s gubernatorial “debate” – Where are Lincoln and
Douglas when you need them? -- between Ned Lamont and Bob Stefanowski appears
to be stuck on a single “how” question: How will Stefanowski implement his
campaign pledge to eliminate Connecticut’s income tax, once considered a final
solution to the state’s debt problems, now a millstone around the neck of
Connecticut.
The media coverage of the debates has been diverting, but most
reports have been stuck in a single groove, playing over and over the same starkly
abbreviated section of a larger unheard song, rather as if inconvenient
questions launched in Lamont’s direction will upset the precariously balanced
apple cart that has been constructed over a period of three decades by the Democrat General Assembly hegemon in charge of
state finances. Stefanowski has said his pledge to eliminate the income tax
within the space of eight years is an aspirational goal that will become
operational two years into his gubernatorial administration, which means, yes,
Stefanowski will reduce taxes and – much more importantly – reduce spending.
Spending in Connecticut has increased threefold within the
space of four governors: present Governor Dannel Malloy, a progressive
Democrat, two Republican Governors, Jodi Rell and John Rowland, who, it will be
recalled, pledged during his first run for governor to axe the tax – Rowland
had second thoughts once he had been elected – and Lowell “instituting an
income tax during a recession would be like pouring gas on a fire” Weicker, a
nominal Republican who was in fact more Democrat than the Democrat pope of
Connecticut at the time, movie mogul Chris Dodd.
Stefanowski's idea is this: Taxing and spending are causally
connected. If you increase taxes, spending increases will follow. In fact, that
has been the rule in Connecticut’s economy ever since Weicker in 1991 poured
gas on the fire. The Weicker tax saved state legislators the necessity of
reducing spending, and the gals and guys in the state legislature – dominated
for the last 30 years by progressive “we need more” Democrats – are very
grateful indeed.
The good times now are gone. Businesses in the state have
fled a government that cannot reverse its perilous race towards the yawning
abyss; companies in Connecticut are looking towards a barren future under unappeasable tax-starved progressives, which further will reduce company profits – the
surplus money that makes it possible for businesses to expand, hire more
workers, increase wages and contribute a “fair share” in taxes to Connecticut’s
dwindling state coffers. As a consequence of runaway spending, Connecticut’s
economic growth is now the laughing stock of the nation.
So then, here are five “how” questions rarely, if ever, put
to Lamont by Connecticut’s strangely incurious media:
1) How will Lamont curb spending, permanently and long term,
in Connecticut? We have passed the point at which the state’s economy will
respond positively to revocable tax credits, or to bribes given to homegrown companies
to remain in the state, or to seed money given to outside companies to put down
shallow roots in the state’s parched ground. A voting public that has come of
age in the age of pointless political effusions made by politicians trolling
for votes has, one hopes, developed an internal resistance to political
posturing. Since spending is driven by ever increasing taxation – which is, in
a nutshell, the whole history of Connecticut since 1991 – would Lamont favor
legislation requiring a super-majority in the General Assembly to increase
taxes? No effusions please. A “yes” or “no” will be sufficient.
2) Lamont has winkingly proposed a toll tax on heavy trucks
in Connecticut to provide money for the transportation fund, which – big
surprise – is out of cash – big surprise -- because a Democrat controlled General Assembly has raided dedicated funds across the state to satiate its largely political
need to provide salaries and benefits to state workers in return for votes. Border toll installations, as Lamont well knows,
cannot be re-erected without costing the state more money in penalties than his
tolls on trucks would bring in.
Therefore, any tolling in Connecticut must be congesting tolling, which
means mucho tolling gantries throughout the state. Assuming the tolling
infrastructure has been assembled, how long does Lamont think it would take
before tolling is applied to grandma in her 1991 Chevy? One month? Two months?
3) Isn’t the precipitating cause of increased taxation in Connecticut
the unhinged appetite among non-Stefanowski progressive legislators to move
entrepreneurial capital from the private to the public sphere, the better to
satisfy the insatiable appetite of state unions for salary and benefit
increases? How will Lamont curb this appetite? Remember, largely owing to the
pro-union efforts of Malloy in SEBAC agreements, salary increases are “fixed”
until 2027, and Governor Lamont will not be able to use threatened layoffs as a
bargaining chip in his negotiations with state unionized workers. Connecticut
is one of the few states in the union that sets state worker salaries and
benefits through negotiations between its governor and union honchos. Should
the legislature present Lamont with a bill that sets salaries and benefits
through legislation instead, will he sign it?
4) Over a period of three decades and more, “fixed costs” in
the state – those costs over which the General Assembly has unconstitutionally
abandoned all control – have steadily increased; so that, presently, the
General Assembly has effective governance over only half of its expenditures, according to a Yankee Institute study. How will Lamont increase this figure to, say, 100 percent?
5) Finally, how do Lamont’s policy prescriptions differ from those of
the departing governor Malloy, approval rating 21 percent,
which is 21 percent lower than that of President Donald Trump at 42 percent?
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