Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

Hey, working suburban women who voted for the toll guy for governor -- get out your wallets. Multiple reports in Connecticut’s media advise us that Lamont eked out a win over Republican Gubernatorial nominee Bob Stefanowski with some encouragement from suburban women, many of whom hold down jobs to which they travel – by car, not by largely empty FastTrack windmill powered busses.   During his gubernatorial campaign, Governor Elect Ned Lamont was warm on tolls – but the tolls, working suburban women and others were told, would be levied only on out-of-state trucks, a dubious constitutional gambit. Rhode Island, the state from which Lamont lifted the idea, is now embroiled in law suits. A little more than a week after the election, it was reported by the indispensable Yankee Institute that a new CTDOT Study Calls for 82 Tolling Gantries on Connecticut Highways . A note provided on a map furnished by the Connecticut Department of Transportation commissioned study reads, co...

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.

"We can tax the millionaires in Washington and we can make Connecticut a better place for working families ” – 5th District Democratic U.S. House candidate Chris Donovan "Don't tax you, don't tax me. Tax the guy behind the tree"— Russell Long Even the most progressive politician of his day, Russell’s father Huey Long, knew the scheme wouldn’t work; but it was a winner as a populist campaign pitch. Within the Democratic Party of his day, Russell was acknowledged as an authority on tax law. As such, he became an ardent advocate of tax breaks for business. “I have become convinced,” said Russell, most certainly not a chip off his father’s progressive block, “you're going to have to have capital if you're going to have capitalism." One suspects that progressive leader of the state House of Representatives Chris Donovan knows this. However, the deathless scheme, endemic in the Democratic Party, to convince the tax paying public that someone may be f...

Russell Long of Louisiana, son of the more notorious Huey Long, is famous for having said, “Don’t tax you, don’t tax me. Tax that fellow behind the tree.” Mr. Long was no stranger to tax laws, having served as Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee for several years from 1966 to 1981, after which Republicans assumed control of the Senate. The prominent Democrat was an unashamed proponent of tax breaks for businesses. “I have become convinced,” he once said, “you’re going to have to have capital; if you’re going to have capitalism.” At the same time, he was somewhat wary of “tax reform” which, to his way of thinking, involved a certain amount of political subterfuge: “Don’t tax you, don’t tax me. Tax that fellow behind the tree.” In Connecticut, the fellows behind the tree are thought to be capitalists “millionaires” earning more than $250,000 per year, most of them quartered in what we have come to call the “Gold Coast.” It is no surprise that “millionaires” in the United States ...