Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

Don’t tax you. Don’t tax me. Tax that fellow behind the tree -- Russell Long Connecticut has suffered – precisely the right word – from three massive tax increases.   The first was the 1991 Lowell Weicker Income Tax, which sent a clear message to contiguous states and businesses both inside and outside our borders: Connecticut has surrendered a no income tax hedge that had given it an advantage over bordering states such as New York and Massachusetts; and the state had committed itself to increases in taxation and spending. The Weicker body blow was repeated twice during the administration of Governor Dannel Malloy, approval rating 28 percent. Mr. Malloy, who lame-ducked himself last week, is the author of both the largest and second largest tax increases in state history.

Governor Dannel Malloy has not been able to discover from cross-talk between his office and CEO of Aetna Insurance Company Mark Bertolini whether Aetna, following the company’s merger with Humana, will move its headquarters out of state. The resolution of this mystery is important because a removal of Aetna’s headquarters from Connecticut will reduce the state’s revenue stream. Should Aetna pull a GE on Mr. Malloy, Connecticut's notoriously out-of-balance budget will suffer yet another inconvenient battering – this on the eve of state elections. For this reason, efforts have been made to decipher the cryptic comments Mr. Bertolini earlier made to Aetna stockholders. Like the oracles of the “False Prophet Alexander” lampooned by the Roman satirist Lucian, which oracles were richly detailed but opaque, obscure and non-responsive, Mr. Bertolini’s statements  to his stockholders admit of several meanings. Their sense has befuddled both Mr. Malloy and Luke Bronin, the ...

Malloy budget already in red It’s been some time coming, but Governor Dannel Malloy, now tripping around the state selling his “austere” budget, is showing signs that he has been mugged by reality. He says it himself , bluntly and without the usual sugar topping: “… there is a certain reality. The nation’s gross national product last quarter grew by .7 percent – .7 percent. And there has been volatility in the stock market going back to June of last year. And that revenue is falling, not rising. That’s the reality.” The tax-increase solution to disappearing revenues has been tried and found wanting. Numerous times during his two terms in office Mr. Malloy has been forced to rely on his rescission authority to sop-up the red ink in numerous budgets. Raising taxes, Mr. Malloy said at the somber gathering in Middletown, would be ill advised. Mr. Malloy already has imposed two massive tax increases on his tax bludgeoned state, and still death is knocking on Connecticut’s...

Mark Bertolini CEO Aetna Humana In Mario Puzo’s “The Godfather,” Michael Corleone, plotting to kill a crooked cop, says to his brother Sonny, “It's not personal, Sonny. It's strictly business.” Ya’gotta do what ya’gotta do. If Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini does move Mother Aetna’s home office from Hartford, Connecticut to Louisville, Kentucky’s largest city, he can also plead it’s only business. General Electric (GE) recently uprooted itself from Fairfield, Connecticut to Boston, Massachusetts – just business, nothing personal… please try to understand. "We've done the analysis," Mr. Bertolini said five years ago , "and, quite frankly, Connecticut falls very, very low on the list as an environment to locate employees . . . in large part because of the tax structure, the cost of living, which is now approaching, all in, the cost of locating an employee in New York City.” Such “hits,” to borrow the Mafia term, are not generally shouted from the ...

The news was leaked in advance of the formal announcement. Capitol Report, Tom Dudchik’s popular Connecticut aggregation site, announced in a bold red headline -- BOSTON GLOBE: GE MOVING TO BOSTON, BOMBSHELL: GE EXEC CALL BAKER, WALSH . And several sub stories were listed: FLASHBACK: Looney: 'I think they doth protest too much'... FLASHBACK: Sharkey accuses GE of 'fear-mongering'... FLASHBACK: Aresimowicz tells GE suits 'take a weekend off from the yacht'...