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More Progressives, More Taxes, More Spending, More Taxes

Len Fasano

“How about tolls, governor?”
-- Paul Choiniere, The Day

When writing about taxes, many commentators in Connecticut are not very quick on the uptake, even though the evidence of systemic destruction lies right under their noses -- indeed, in the headlines of their morning newspapers: “Metro-North considering doomsday cutbacks as commuter rail ridership plummets during coronavirus pandemic; Connecticut ridership down more than 75%.”

The rail line is now screaming for federal aid. Such a large drop in ridership necessitates cost saving measures, and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority intends to meet its debt by slashing service and dumping 900 jobs. This is the usual remedy for debt everywhere but in government, which is constitutionally authorized to conduct permanent raids on taxpayers’ wallets and, far less often, to cut costs by letting go union protected government workers.

Government may also float bonds, a somewhat desperate measure to pad budgets. Governments that resort to such measures too often find their bonds devalued by rating agencies.

Revenue may also be increased by spurring business activity. There are two organic ways to spur business activity: reduce regulations, and reduce taxes. President John Kennedy did both in 1964 and, as expected, the ensuing rising business tide lifted all the boats. The same high tide also replenished disappearing federal revenues. Presidents Ronald Reagan and Donald Trump both repeated the trick during their term in office with similar results. This is a measure that in Connecticut has never been tried and found wanting; it has never been tried. Instead, governments that repeatedly have  raised taxes pretend to be surprised when, as a result of business slowdowns, state revenue is diminished, providing the culprits with the opportunity to raise taxes once again in order to, the tax gatherers say, provide relief by spurring the economy with artificial monetary stimulants.

Connecticut commentators understand well enough that the state is laboring under a weighty debt – about $68 billion, not chicken feed, as the few farmers left in Connecticut will tell you. The farmers, who live day to day on a slim profit line, are also in debt, which is why many of them have been forced over the years to sell off their farms to land speculators.

The usual route for property rich nutmeggers wishing to avoid repeated plundering is to sell their assets and join their children in one of the other 49 states where the cost of living is less punishing, taxes in Connecticut representing a larger than normal chunk of living costs. Betsy Smith’s song has remained a staple years after the Great Depression had been disposed of: “Them that’s got shall get, them that ain’t shall lose; so the Bible says, and it still is news.” And New York lawyer Gideon John Tucker told us more than a century ago, “"No man's life, liberty or property are safe while the Legislature is in session."

Among those who get – from farmers and others – are politicians who have gotten their own.

U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, recently re-elected to her 15th term in Congress, is a multi-millionaire, politics being a more profitable venture than farming. And, of course, U.S. Senator Dick Blumenthal, net worth $70 million, is the 5th richest Senator in Washington DC.

Blumenthal got his the old way, through marriage. King Henry lopped off the heads of his brides because they could not bear him a male heir to the throne. His wives married well and lost their heads in the transaction. The post-modern, woke politician marries well and then proceeds to pad his or her spouse’s bank accounts through political measures fair or foul. Some reporters who receive their stories from multi-term incumbents do not wish to disturb a mutually beneficial business relationship by mentioning such indelicate matters.

Recently, Choiniere, received some blowback in his own paper from retiring Republican State Senate leader Len Fasano, who wrote that he had met several times with Choiniere “regarding multiple Republican no-tolls, no-tax hikes transportation plans developed in recent years. I sent him a detailed narrative of how our alternative to Gov. Ned Lamont's job-killing tolls proposal would work.” Choiniere had written in The Day’s editorial that Republicans had no plan to balance the budget in the absence of tolls. Additionally, Fasano had corrected Choiniere personally “when he has mischaracterized the latest Republican plan — FASTR CT — as a “borrowing” plan. The Republican plan has no new borrowing and actually has less borrowing than any of Gov. Lamont’s toll proposals. In fact, our plan actually pays down on unfunded liabilities, while maintaining over $2 billion in the rainy day fund, and uses the savings associated with the retired debt to pay for the building of Connecticut’s transportation infrastructure.”

Concerning “Choiniere’s further attempts to mislead when he writes that ‘Republicans proposed borrowing with no new revenue source,’" Fasano noted, “Since the Republican plan is not a borrowing plan, there is obviously no new revenue source needed.”

Since journalism is 20 percent thought and 80 percent repetition, Fasano’s thoughts are not likely to be repeated ad nauseam in Connecticut’s pro-tax, anti-cost cut media. And the overwhelming, nearly veto-proof Democrat progressive contingent in the state’s General Assembly makes any rationally sustainable answer to Fasano’s beef with left of center misreporting quite unnecessary. Whenever has the  throne felt compelled to answer the majority suffering under its misadministration?  

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