The Democrat plan to “to have cities and towns share in the
cost of public school teachers’ pensions,” as the Hartford Courant put it in a recent
story, continues to be “controversial,” perhaps the understatement of the year.
The plan would “cost municipalities a combined $73 million a year and would
lead to property tax increases across the state.”
The principal spokesman for the Connecticut Conference of
Municipalities, Kevin Maloney, has characterized the plan to shift to towns some
cost of pensions without giving the towns the opportunity to cut spending by
reducing teacher salaries and benefits as “the largest unfunded state mandate in
recent memory,” and the executive director of the Connecticut Council of Small
Towns Betsy Gara has said, “Shifting $73 million in pension costs onto the
backs of already overburdened homeowners and other property taxpayers will
diminish housing values, undermining our state and local economies."
Local government relies on property taxes to run municipal
governments, and here too the state plans to partly deprive these rival
municipal governments of their means of financing through a series of measures:
eliminating property tax on cars, raising the tax on home ownership by boosting from 70% to 100% the assessed value of houses, and more.
The characterizations of Maloney and Gara, though true, are
not likely to move the legislative needle, now stuck on "Democrat."
Municipal cries of pity from under the hobnailed boot of
state government will not matter for reasons Governor Ned Lamont and the two
most important decision makers in the General Assembly, Speaker of the House Joe
Aresimowicz and President Pro Tem of the Senate Martin Looney, are not inclined
to discuss. Public discussions that do not lead to actionable, ameliorative,
bipartisan solutions in a representative government are exercises in fatuity. There
is no point in having a debate or discussion with an arsonist who cannot be
prevented from burning down the house. The debate might be entertaining and
even instructive, but it will always end in ashes. The assault on municipal
governments by the prevailing powers in state government has been going on for
some time.
Progressivism has simply widened the gap between an
accommodating center-right in Connecticut’s General Assembly and an aggressive left,
which in Connecticut commands all the decision making political offices in the
state: the governor’s office, the General Assembly, the entire membership of
the state’s US Congressional Delegation and all the state’s constitutional
offices.
Puffing out his progressive chest, the state’s new Attorney
General, William Tong, wants to broaden the prehensile grasp of a metastasizing
office to allow him to pursue civil rights violators, and he has a strong wind
of 287 employees at his back. King Tong also is engaged in suing a US President,
although there is no warrant for doing so either in Connecticut’s Constitution
or the statutes that may give life to his newest Frankenstein. In Connecticut
just now, only the reach of government is permitted to grow without impediment;
everything else is highly regulated or ruthlessly taxed by an omni-incompetent
state government. Connecticut is still in a recessionary mode, although the national recession ended in the
later part of 2019, ten years ago. The prolonged recession has been attributed
by some rational economists and political commentators to a disinclination on
the part of state government to rein in out-of-control state spending, which
has increased threefold since the Lowell Weicker income tax was launched in
1991.
The progressive movement, both nationally and in
Connecticut, is interested in ruling rather than governing in a republican,
small “r”, fashion. Town governments in
Connecticut stand as republican sentinels preventing rule by an autocratic state.
Governor Lamont will continue to call Republican leaders in for private
discussions, but none of their input will result in nonpartisan solutions.
Lamont and the progressive leaders of the General Assembly are willing to lend
an ear to Republicans, but the ears of progressive Democrats are not attached
to their governing hands.
After Democrats had swept the boards in the recent
elections, people in Connecticut were waiting patiently to see – who rules?
They now have their answer.
Connecticut
House Republicans, who prefer spending reductions to tax increases, have now released “a complete list of new taxes,
including those put forth by the governor’s office and those approved by the
action of Hartford’s majority party in the Finance, Revenue and Bonding
Committee.
Here is the list:
- A new
2% Tax on Capital Gains
- Property
Tax Credit – Removed Scheduled Expansion
- Tax
for Rideshare
- Increase
in Sales Tax on Meals
- 10%
Tax Increase on Alcohol
- Increase
Tax rate on Movies 6% to 6.35%
- Eliminate
5 year, $500 credit for STEM college graduates
- Tax
interior design services
- Tax
dry-cleaning and laundry services, incl. coin-operated
- Tax
parking
- Tax on
digital downloads from 1.0% to standard 6.35% rate
- Tax
Safety apparel
- Maintain
current 10% business surcharge set to expire in tax year 2019
- Tax
E-Cigarettes liquid at 75% wholesale
- Increase
Minimum Markup on Cigarettes
- Increased
Sales due to Ecig Excise
- Maintain
Hospital User Fee at FY 2019 level of $900 million
- Implement
recommendation of ambulatory surgical center tax study
- Surcharge
on Plastic Bags of 10 cents
- Increase
annual filing fee for LLC’s and LLP’s from $20 to $100
- Eliminate
increased exemption for social security income
- Eliminate
exemption for pension and annuity income
- Eliminate
the sales tax free week
- Tax
legal services
- Tax on
accounting services
- Tax on
architectural services
- Tax on
engineering services
- Tax on
real estate activities and agents/brokers
- Tax on
veterinary services
- Tax on
barber shops and beauty salons
- Tax on
massage therapists and electrology services
- Tax on
sports/recreation instruction and industries
- Tax on
horse boarding and training
- Tax on
travel arrangement and scenic transportation
- Tax on
services to buildings and dwellings
- Tax on
waste collection
- Tax on
Renovation and repair of residential property
- Tax on
Repair or maintenance of vessels
- Tax on
Winter boat storage
- Tax on
Increase tax on boats from 2.99% to standard 6.35% rate
- Tax
Increase hotel occupancy tax from 15% to 17%
- Tax on
Trade-ins for vehicles
- Tax on
Non-prescription drugs
- Tax on
Text books, college & professional schools
- Tax on
Newspapers and magazines
- Tax on
Connecticut credit unions
- Tax on
Campground rentals
- Tax on
Bicycle helmets
- Tax on
child car seats
- Tax on
vegetable seeds
- A new
25 cent deposit on wine and liquor glass bottles
- A new
Add 5 cent bottle deposit to nips
- A new
tax on payroll to fund state-run Family Medical Leave
These are straws added to an already tax-burdened camel’s
back. And we know the answer to the question “who rules?”
Lamont, who continues to morph into his political padrone
Weicker – the toll tax is to Lamont what the income tax was to Weicker -- is
by no means an independent political actor. He is being led through a now
visible ring in his nose into a leftist utopia heralded by big city politicians
such as Looney and union employed stooge Joe Aresimowicz. And Connecticut’s news media?
Well now, the so-called “tribunes of the people” have been dozing at their computer
screens for decades, which is why Connecticut, now the land of progressive
habits, is caught in the quicksand of uncontrolled spending.
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