Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

  Union allied Speaker of the State House of Representatives Joe Aresimowicz wants to “save the towns.” From what, some may ask? Answer: from municipal tax hikes necessitated by Big Spenders like Mr. Aresimowicz. Tax hikes, Aresimowicz said, have never been taken off the table. We’ve said it consistently since the beginning of February.” Indeed, big spending Democrats in the General Assembly have not taken revenue increases off the table since the end of the Grasso administration. And even the flight of businesses from Connecticut, Mother Aetna being the most recent to move its corporate offices from the state, has not diminished their persistent hunt for more taxes.

Mandates in the health care law promulgated and supported by President Barack Obama’s administration already have produced some related push back from the United States Supreme Court. If the matter of health care mandates reaches the high court, it will be heard by justices who have already overwhelmingly affirmed that the First Amendment provides exceptions to religious employers. In a recent case involving the right of a Lutheran school to fire an employee, Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the majority, declared that the U.S. Constitution does not permit “government interference with an internal church decision that affects the faith and mission of the church itself,” a ruling that legal scholars regard as the court’s most significant declaration on religious freedom in two decades. The unanimous 9-0 decision represented a dramatic defeat for the Obama administration, which argued in the case that in firing a teacher the school was not exempt from civil rights claims. In...