2/15/2019
Q: It’s February 2019, only a few months after Ned Lamont
has been sworn into office as governor, and I have lots of questions.
A: I’m sure I do not have lots of answers.
Q: I’ll ask the questions anyway.
A: You always were persistent, still a virtue among good
reporters.
Q: You were a reporter once.
A: No, a columnist. Reporters dig up the truffles,
columnists make use of them in their pâtés.
Q: When did you start publishing Connecticut
Commentary?
A: About 2004, thirteen years after then Governor Lowell Weicker
destroyed the character of Connecticut, once a magnet for companies seeking to
escape the withering hand of autocratic government, by instituting his
ill-advised income tax.
Q: And you were writing columns back then as well.
A: Before then. I’ve been fulminating for about forty years.
The income tax, a new revenue stream saved the Democrat dominated General
Assembly the necessity of pruning back spending over the long term. It has led
to a catastrophic, uninterrupted increase in spending, the efficient cause of
the recurring budget deficits from which we suffer today. State employee labor
costs in Connecticut are punishing. Instate businesses have their eyes on the
exit signs, and out-of-state businesses now treat Connecticut as if it had the
pox.
Q: As a political cynic, you believe there is no
hope.
A: Well, not exactly. A political cynic is someone who
believes that the path to Hell is strewn with false hopes. If your expenditures
exceed your revenue, you are Mr. Micawber. You remember the Charles
Dickens character in David Copperfield? I like to believe that Micawber was summarizing important points made
by Adam Smith when he said, “Annual income twenty pounds, annual
expenditure nineteen [pounds] nineteen [shillings] and six [pence], result happiness.
Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and
six, result misery." Just now, Connecticut’s Governor Elect, Ned
Lamont, is looking for a new revenue stream, and he appears to have found one
in prospective tolls. We are told he met with Weicker to query how Weicker had
pushed the income tax through a resistant General Assembly.
Q: And, having written for Connecticut papers for 40 years,
well before Weicker became governor, you know how that happened.
A: Yes. Weicker pushed and shoved and offered tidbits to
this or that politician, the usual polite bribery; then he vetoed three
non-income tax balanced budgets presented to him by the General Assembly. The
New York Times was obliged to cover the event on August 2,
1991. “Gov. Lowell P. Weicker Jr.,” the Times wrote, “vetoed a budget for
the third time today, but in a scornful veto message he offered legislators no
clear options except to override it or give up their opposition to an income
tax. The whole Coalition III is a gimmick," he [Weicker] said, referring
to the name given to the third budget without an income tax passed by a
coalition of Republicans and Democrats. "Actually,’ he said, “’gimmick’ is
the kind word for what is the shame and scandal of our generation."
We now know that the income tax, promoted by Weicker as a
fix for the state’s recurring deficits, simply was a permission slip to
shameless legislators to continue their spending – which, of course, produced further
deficits and more tax increases. The
last no-income-tax budget under Weicker’s predecessor, Governor William O’Neil,
was a modest $7.5 billion, and even the gargantuan size of that budget gave
O’Neill’s predecessor, Governor Ella Grasso, many a sleepless night. The bottom
line of the present biennial spending plan is about $24 billion, and climbing.
And the present budget deficit is around $4 billion. The “scandal” to which
Weicker referred, the budget deficit that prompted him to impose an income tax
on Connecticut was, the Times reported, a little under $1 billion. Sorry to
throw these figures at you. As is the case with many other reporters, you are
math averse, something you share with most nutmeggers.
Anyway, it was a shame and scandal to oppose the suicidal
dictate of a puffed up neo-Republican. Prophetically, the Times noted,
“Connecticut accumulated a $937 million deficit in the last fiscal year as
spending continued to increase while the recession ate away at sales-tax and
corporate-profits tax revenues. What has been clear for months is that a
billion dollars in new and replacement revenues had to be found, in any budget,
to avoid a similar deficit this fiscal year.”
Spending was then and is now the culprit. Weicker knew this.
But, with the help of the Hartford Courant, the culprit wore a mask. It was
only more than a decade later that the Courant was forced to acknowledge that
Connecticut had a spending, not a revenue, problem. And from time to time,
conscience stricken editorial writers at the Courant note, in passing and
perfunctorily, that the spendthrift legislature dominated by Democrats for more
than a half century perhaps should address itself to spending cuts.
Asked if he intended to propose an income tax during his
campaign as an Independent, actually a repentant Republican in the fashion of
Jacob Javits, Weicker forswore the tax. Implementing a permanent, long-term tax
increase during a recession, he said, would be “like pouring gas on a fire.” It
was clear that a majority in the state did not want an income tax. Bill Cibes,
whom Weicker tapped to head his Office of Policy Management, ran for governor on
an income tax platform and had been soundly defeated. A majority of legislators
did not want an income tax and voted for a non-income tax budget three months
in a row. The income tax, when passed, was the occasion of the largest rally in
the nation.
Weicker got his tax – and we are left crying in the ashes.
Following the third veto, Weicker appealed to the better natures of resistant
politicians: With an income tax, they would not have to struggle with recurring
budget deficits year after year. This prediction fell far short of
expectations. The cost of government four governors after O’Neill tripled, and
the budget deficit doubled, not an unmitigated success.
I recall, several years ago, attending a conference at which
Weicker was present as a panelist. Someone mentioned the acceleration of
spending and the appearance of recurring deficits, at which Weicker’s head
drooped like a water deprived flower, and he muttered aloud, “Where did it all
go?” Immediately after the imposition of the tax, the state had realized budget
surpluses for a bit. A businessman sitting next to me, not yet a cynic,
mumbled, not quite to himself, “They spent it all, you ninny.” That man today
is likely a cynic or a Connecticut expat. We know what has happened in
Connecticut and are fully aware of the consequences of stupid decisions. The
only question is: Are we insane in Einstein’s sense?
Q: Incidentally, it was not Einstein who said “insanity is
repeating the same mistakes and expecting different results.” The quote first
appeared in 1981 in a Narcotics Anonymous document warning its members that
continuing to use narcotic drugs and expecting to be able to stop on their own
was folly.
A: Even more appropriate. Narcissistic behavior is a
narcotic. Taken to an extreme, solipsism is sometimes fatal to everyone but the
solipsist.
Q: I think you would agree that Lamont is not a solipsist.
A: Not yet. But we know power corrupts. Lincoln said,
“Nearly all men can stand adversity, but if you want to test a man's
character, give him power.” Some men adapt to the usufructs of power more
quickly than others. The founders of the Republic may have thought they had
created a system of government that would allow for a healthy turnover in
legislators. Connecticut’s own Roger Sherman, the only founder of the Republic
who had signed all four foundational documents – the Continental Association,
the Declaration of Independence, the Articles of Confederation, and
the Constitution -- held at least four different political positions
before he died: Justice of the Superior Court of Connecticut from 1766 to 1789,
treasurer of Yale College, professor of religion for many years, Mayor of
New Haven from 1784 until his death in 1793.
Consider the path taken by his modern counterpart. U.S.
Representative Rosa DeLauro leapt from college directly into politics. The Dean
of Connecticut’s US Congressional delegation, DeLauro has clung to her position
as “U.S. Rep. for life” since 1991 -- 27 years. And she is the rule, not the
exception. Most members of Connecticut’s U.S. Congressional Delegation are well
on their way to life sinecures.
Q: I sense a turn in the discussion towards term limits.
A: I’m happy to oblige. Progressive politicians
like DeLauro want change in everything but their own careers. I would hazard a
guess that many of DeLauro’s constituents have suffered a number of changes in
their work environments since they were first employed. It took 20 years and a
crane to lift Attorney General Dick Blumenthal into the U.S. Senate.
Unfortunately, he has carried few of his virtues and many of his vices into the
new office with him.
Q: So, from your point of view, the election of Ned Lamont
as governor is déjà vu all over again?
A: Republicans in the General Assembly might be forgiven for
viewing it as a giant step backwards. They had made impressive gains in both
houses of the General Assembly. The Senate had been tied 18-18, and Republicans
were only a few seats from a tie in the House. This election returns the General
Assembly back to Malloy’s ascendancy. Democrats now command all the Constitutional
offices, the entire U.S. Senate delegation and the governor’s office, as
complete a sweep as any hegemonic Democrat could desire.
Q: And the future is bleak?
A: If it resembles the past, yup.
Q: Will it?
A: I’ve been asked that very question numberless times by
disappointed Republicans, joyous Democrats and bewildered non-affiliated,
timorous cowards.
Q: And the answer is?
A: I wrote in a column just before Lamont was sworn into
office that the only politician in the state who could save Connecticut from a fate worse than deja
vue all over again is Lamont, and he will have to buck his own party
to do it. So, the answer to your question is the usual journalistic one: We’ll
see.
5/29/2019
Q: Why must Connecticut have tolls? And has Lamont bucked
his own party?
A: The governmental apparatus needs tolls – essentially, a
new revenue stream -- because it is running out of revenue, this despite
massive tax increases. The state is running out of revenue because spendthrifts
in the General Assembly, pushed forward by progressive Democrats, continue to
spend revenue increases, which necessitates more taxes, which leads ineluctably
to more deficits and higher taxes. The solution to this continuous escalation
is permanent, long-term cuts in spending. Progressive governors and General
Assembly members have so far declined to apply the obvious solution: If you
make major cuts in spending, you needn’t raise taxes.
Q: According to pro-toll Democrats, the state needs tolls to
repair its crumbling transportation infrastructure.
A: The unanswered question is this: What happened to the tax
funds dedicated to the repair of the state’s infrastructure? Initially, the gas
tax was supposed to be used for infrastructure repairs. That fund has been
ransacked by governors and members of the General Assembly. If Connecticut’s so
called “dedicated funds” represent a black hole -- and they do -- why should we
pour more scarce tax funds into a relabeled black hole? Transportation funding
has for years been rerouted into the state’s General Fund, from which it is
quickly allocated to Friends of the Democrat Party. Most recently, funds
destined to arrive in a so-called transportation fund “lockbox” were diverted before
they reached their destination. As the old adage has it: “Fool me once, shame
on you; fool me twice, shame on me.” I recall saying in one of the columns that
a lockbox has yet to be crafted in Connecticut that could not be picked with my
grandmothers bent hairpin. No one trusts this government any longer – not even
the people who voted it in.
Q: It’s been six months since Ned Lamont has been elected
governor. During our last meeting, when I asked you to reflect on the future
under a Lamont regime, you said “We’ll see.” What do you think now?
A: Lamont comes to us from the business world. He has had no
direct experience in governing. What can this mean other than he will be the
plaything of leaders of the Democrat Party? During the last election,
eat-the-rich progressives gained an impressive foothold in the General Assembly;
nearly half the members of the Democrat majority are progressives. President Pro
Tem of the Senate Martin Looney is a big city New Haven progressive. Speaker of
the House Joe Aresimowitz is a progressive employed by a major union. The great
German social critic Karl Krauss used to say about psychiatry that it was the
disease it purported to cure; the same may be said more justly of
progressivism, which is timorous socialism. With Connecticut’s cast of
characters, Lamont must row very hard if he wants to turn the state’s ship of
state in a moderate direction. If Lamont were a John Bailey, the last boss of
the Connecticut Democrat Party, he might be able successfully to defy what
Lenin once called “the correlation of forces,” but Lamont is a business man
from Greenwich, and the moment of decisive party bosses has passed us by.
Q: Greenwich used to be solidly Republican; not any longer
it seems. And the same would seem to apply to other former Republican redoubts
such as West Hartford.
A: Yes. The opposition from Republican towns always has been
soft. There is a difference between opposition and resistance. To resist the
forward thrust of progressivism in Connecticut, two conditions must be met: you
must proceed from firm, tried and true principles, and you must be in power.
Republicans in Connecticut meet neither of these conditions.
Democrats have commanded the four major cities in the state
almost without interruption for a half century, and it is the tail – Democrat
cities – that is wagging the Connecticut dog. With brief and unimportant
interruptions, the General Assembly has been controlled by Democrats for as
long a period; all the constitutional offices in the state have been in the
hands of Democrats for many years; the seven members of the US Congressional
Delegation are Democrats; major courts in Connecticut, including the Supreme
Court, have been packed with Democrat appointments; the permanent bureaucracy –
what Trump has called derisively “the swamp” – lies under the direction of
Connecticut Democrat office holders. And, perhaps most importantly,
Connecticut’s media has long been favorable to Democrats. Such is the
correlation of forces in Connecticut. The media, partly for business reasons,
has been floating on the Democrat stream for decades. It takes strength,
courage and perseverance to buck the water’s flow. G. K. Chesterton warned
against an enfeebling lack of media opposition when he said that a dead thing
can easily go with the stream, but it takes a live thing to swim against the
current.
Q: The Lamont budget
was completed on May 31. It will soon be presented to the Democrat dominated
General Assembly. The top of the fold, front page story on that day in the
Hartford Courant reads: “Sides OK deal on $43B budget.” The “sides” that OKed the deal were not
Republicans and Democrats; they were different hues of Democrats on the
winning, progressive side of the
political barricades. There are three other stories of note on the same day:
“Lamont support slips in new poll” and “Connecticut home sales, prices slump in
April” and “University of Maine System hires Malloy.” Home prices have
been slipping in Connecticut for some time. The lede in that story
reads, “The Spring home buying market got off to a disappointing start in
April, as sales spluttered and the state marked the ninth consecutive month of
year-over-sale declines… So far in 2019, the four month trend for sales and
prices paid is disappointing for the state’s housing market, which has
struggled to recover from the last recession, which ended in March 2010.”
A: Yes. Former Governor Lowell Weicker did warn us during
his campaign that raising taxes during a recession would be tantamount to
pouring gas on a fire. Behold the real-estate fire.
Lamont’s slippage in the polls is not surprising. I did
notice in reading the first story you mentioned that a new expression has made
its way into Democrat oratory – “modernize” and its variants. Lamont said of
his massive sales tax increases, “Look, we’re gonna try and modernize our sales
tax structure… In fact, wanna know why sales tax revenues are already up
compared to what we had expected? That’s cause of sales tax applying to
e-commerce.”
First, Lamont is a graduate of high-priced colleges. So
what’s all this business about “gonna” and “wanna”? Do Harvard and Yale lack
speech teachers? The use of the word “modernize” is gonna become an Orwellian
catch phrase for “increasing and broadening sales taxes.” I don’t doubt for a
minute that this expression was hammered out by the smithies of Lamont’s
campaign advisors; it has the odor about it of Malloy’s campaign coach Roy Occhiogrosso, the Vice
President of Global Strategies. Ideas have consequences, and bad ideas have
bad consequences.
There is nothing “modern” about tax increases in
Connecticut. The state has done little else but raise taxes to discharge its
repetitive budget deficits. There is no indication so far that this destructive
process – raise revenue, spend revenue, raise revenue again – will not continue
at an accelerated pace in the Lamont administration. Lamont’s apple did not far
from Weicker’s tree. Weicker raised taxes; Malloy raised taxes – twice,
cumulatively the largest tax increase of any administration in state history;
Lamont has now raised taxes, though he boasts that he has not raised the income
tax. In all three instances, tax increases have led to spending increases,
which have led to budget deficits, which have led to further tax increases. Qui
bono? Who benefits by his process? Surely not taxpayers. Who then?
Q: Don’t let me stop you…
A: The number one beneficiary is cowardly politicians,
because increasing taxes is the least painless way leading to reelection.
Spending cuts produce an adverse reaction among those groups, most prominently
public employee unions, Democrats depend upon to retain their seats. I doubt
anyone on the left in Connecticut would recognize real reform if it bit them on
the bottom.
Q: What would real reform look like?
A: There are political problems best solved by politicians.
The General Assembly has lost control of its budgets, owing mostly to what are
called “fixed costs.” What is a fixed cost? It is a governmental cost that the
government refuses to address in its biennial budgets, a cost that must be paid
on a regular basis and cannot be adjusted through usual legislative means – by,
for example, cutting the cost. Fixed costs comprise an over-large portion of
Connecticut’s budgets. Here are some eye-popping figure for you taken from the Connecticut School Finance Project: “Connecticut's fixed costs have risen from 35 percent of General
Fund expenditures in fiscal year 2000 to 49 percent of General Fund expenditures
in fiscal year 2018, an increase of 14 percentage points. Additionally, fixed
costs have risen in terms of total dollars, from $5.17 billion in fiscal year
2000 to $9.15 billion in fiscal year 2018. This is a 77 percent increase in the
whole-dollar amount of fixed costs.” The Connecticut General Assembly has
surrendered control of half of its budget to auto-pilot, a “77 percent increase
in the whole-dollar amount of fixed costs” since 2000, according to figures
supplied by Connecticut’s Office of Policy and
Management and
the General Assembly’s
Office of Fiscal Analysis.
Now, it is true that little can be done to change the past,
which is fixed. But, going forward, these conditions can be adjusted. One commentator,
told that nothing could be done with fixed costs, said, “Well,
unfix them.” The General Assembly absolutely must regain control of its
future budgets. It does not help when the legislature pensions off its own
constitutional obligations to unelected bodies such as union management
arbitrators that decide money issues or, most recently, a “transportation
commission” tasked with deciding toll rates in the future, assuming tolling has
a future. In the future, all contracts involving dollars paid out by the state
should be decided by the General Assembly alone; no more negotiations with
unions. Never again should a single dollar be appropriated or expended by
the General; Assembly without a recorded vote in the legislature; no more voice
votes on any measure that involves getting and spending. This is a Back-to-Bach
reform that will re-constitutionalize state government and reestablish the
vital connection between legislative measures and the small "d"
democratic will of the people. Under a regimen of this kind, it would not be
possible for the General Assembly to assign its own constitutional powers to
unelected commissions, the devil in the details of tolling. There are lots of devils in there.
6/5/2019
Q: The deed has been done. The Lamont budget has passed both
houses of the General Assembly, Republicans and a handful of Democrats voting
against the measure. Republican leader in the Senate Len Fasano said of Governor Ned Lamont, “He has been steamrolled by this
legislature and this budget is proof of that. I'm very disappointed in the
executive branch. This is about, supposed to be about business and growing
business and families and I would argue this does the opposite." The
Lamont budget plan, Fasano has said, does not reduce spending. Tax changes and
new regulations will absolutely hurt small businesses.
Democrats, as you might imagine, are in a celebratory mood.
Lamont appears to have escaped some snares laid for him by progressive Democrat
legislators, but such measures can always be resurrected in the near future.
A: Yes, it’s an old political trick. If the warden tells a
prisoner his execution has been postponed for a month, the prisoner is likely
to be grateful. But time flies in such circumstances. Compared to what
is Lamont’s budget a relief? Compared to the worst possible scenario, we may
suppose. It is said Lamont has rebuffed millionaire-eating progressives, who
make up almost 50 percent of the caucus. Fasano is probably right; so are
Republican leader in the House Themis Klarides and Republican Representative
Gail Lavielle. The analysis generated by the Yankee Institute is reliable, much
more so than the usual left-slanted editorial commentary in the state. Long
term costs saving measures are missing-in-action in the budget.
Tolling in Connecticut, a new revenue stream – which is to
the Lamont regime what the income tax was to the Weicker regime, a method of
escaping politically dangerous spending cuts – has been put off to a future
date, probably because the Lamont tolling plan, if there is such a plan, may
not pass muster with the federal government. Toll gantries going up in
Connecticut must satisfy federal demands that tolling can only be collected to
reduce congestion, the whole purpose of “congestion tolling.” Fifty gantries
seem a lot. Massachusetts makes due with one toll highway, the Mass Pike. My
wife and I just took a trip back and forth to New Hampshire, a no-income-tax
state, and we paid a single manageable toll going and coming. In anticipation
of tolling, Democrat "Solons" have nearly emptied the state’s transportation fund
in violation of the old saw – don’t count your chickens before they hatch. Progressive
Democrats are utopian optimists who don’t quite understand the dangers of
unintended consequences. To every one of their actions, there can be only one
consequence – the one they desire. You may tax millionaires and they will take
no defensive measures. You may increase taxes without driving taxpayers into economic
distress. There are no final straws that break the camel’s back. Governmental
actions always benefit the public good, because government is always well-intentioned,
and there are no fatal slips between the intent of a legislative act and its real-world
consequences.
Q: The budget passed in the Senate by four votes, two
Democrats dissenting. As in the past, Republican legislators were not given time
enough to digest the 567-page budget that had already passed in the House two
days earlier. Democrat legislators, one presumes, were acquainted with details
in the budget during caucus meetings; they were herded to the floor by their
legislative leaders and voted in favor of the bill. It must have been “deja vue
all over again” for Republican leaders. Senator Len Fasano said after the vote,
according to a Courant story, “Republicans were never invited to any formal
budget talks, even though Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont had said repeatedly that
his door was open in his initial months as the new governor.” By now,
Republicans must be used to Democrat governors cuffing them in the neck and giving them the bum’s rush.
A: Yes. Malloy did it often, because he had the numbers in
the General Assembly to push legislation through the sausage-making machine
without Republican participation. Lamont’s budget, like Malloy’s, was a triumph
of political tactics over common sense.
Q: Following passage of the budget, Lamont said this: “This
budget is fair, balanced, promotes economic growth and support for working
families, and was delivered on time, enabling our towns and cities to know what
they can expect in their budgets over the coming biennium and plan accordingly.
Most of all, it further stabilizes our state’s finances, sending a signal to
residents and businesses alike that we are serious about getting our economy
growing again.”
A: The communications maestro who prepared that statement
for Lamont must have swallowed the tongue tucked in his cheek. I doubt anyone
but the tight band of political brothers minding Lamont will agree with the bit
about “sending a signal to residents and businesses alike that we are serious
about getting our economy growing again.” The chief mistake made by Democrats
is to suppose that the state is its governmental apparat; that
they are the state, in the words attributed to Louis XIV, the king of France.
That quote is attributed to him in legend. But on his deathbed, Louis was
recorded by several people as having said "Je m'en vais, mais l'État
demeurera toujours." -- "I depart, but the State shall
always remain." This is the secret of good governance. Every dollar taken
by the government, presumably to advance the public good, is taken from the
larger and more important state, which will remain after the lawgivers have
departed. There is little doubt that this budget will improve the lot of
legislators, but it is a fantasy to suppose that it will promote “economic
growth and support for working families” or send “a signal to residents and
businesses alike that we are serious about getting our economy growing again.”
We know it will do neither because, in the past, moving entrepreneurial capital
from the real state to state government
has retarded economic growth, prolonged Connecticut’s endless recession,
and sent working families on the road to states that have not made the fatal
error of conflating the real state with state government. You cannot make a
garden grow by pumping from the well the water used to water the plants.
Q: There are some odd twists and turns in this budget, are
there not.
A: Yes. Homer’s Odyssey begins with a description of
Odysseus as “a man of twists and turns.”
He was said to be clever in his various responses to an implacable fate.
The General Assembly has as many twists and turns in its course as Odysseus,
but it lacks forethought. It is much too concerned with re-election to be
sensible. For instance, toll revenues are subject to federal approval of
congestion tolling gantries. In constructing its budget, dominant Democrats in
the General Assembly are assuming that their tolling plan – if they have a plan
– will be accepted “as is” by federal authorities. That may not be the case.
Mercifully, the Lamont administration, in concert with Looney and Aresimowicz,
has put off a vote on tolling for the time being.
State government -- mindful of Ben Barnes’ notion that the Malloy
administration intended to levy a tax on hospitals because “that’s where the
money is” -- has decided to tax hospitals an extra billion dollars, but not to
worry; through complex accounting alchemy, the state will shuttle money
received from the federal government back to the hospitals. “The total tax
increase in the budget,” the Courant tells us, “is nearly $2 billion over two
years, including more than $1 billion from taxes charged to hospitals in a
complicated arrangement that involves increased federal funding and then
sending some money back to the hospitals.” What could go wrong here?
The Lamont administration intends to leverage tolling so
that it might acquire money from Wall Street, dumping it into a transportation
“lockbox” that Democrats, having diverted the sale tax on cars to the general fund, nearly emptied. Does anyone remember the housing collapse,
which occurred partly because clever politicians had turned houses into Wall
Street poker chips? Does anyone recall it was only a few weeks ago the
legislature intercepted funds destined to be tossed into the state’s
transportation fund “lockbox” and diverted the money into the General Fund?
We don’t know at this point whether the Lamont budget is
balanced, because budgets in Connecticut are constructed without reference to
secondary consequences. One of consequences of massive tax increases is that
people, perversely hanging on to their assets, tend to avoid all forms of
plundering; they hide their assets, or they move away from the plunderers. The
current budget seeks to imprison wealthy tax payers in the state by levying a
tax on the sale of their houses when they sell their homes to move out of
state. Senator Rob Sampson calls this ingenious device an “exit tax.” So then,
high taxes tend to drive people who can do so to leave the state for less
punishing states, and Connecticut’s Democratic controlled legislature proposes to
retain such people through an additional tax, as if people were
tax-wells rather than rational creatures who are able to devise ways to escape
difficulties thrown at them by tax hungry legislators.
Q: None of that sounds very dependable.
A: Deceptive governments are never dependable.
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