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| 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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