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Connecticut’s Democrat controlled State Assembly seems focused on raising taxes and virtue signaling in competition with the financially failed states of California, Illinois, and New York. It has now come down to the ridiculous with Senator Will Haskell having been recently quoted as stating he wants to eliminate auto taxes in order to “attract young professionals to live and work in CT.” Sen. Haskell also states that the car tax is the one tax he hates most to pay “because it comes out of nowhere.”
Sen. Haskell seems blissfully unaware of the irony of his statement. For those of us in the private sector, taxes ALWAYS seem to come out of nowhere as legislators, forever hungry for revenue, raise existing taxes or create new ones that we have to readjust our budgets to accommodate. Perhaps a basic course in economics is in order for our leaders. Lesson one: as property taxes rise, value falls. As cumulative taxes go up, people decide it isn’t worth creating jobs only to pay more taxes to lawmakers, who then redistribute the largess to their favored constituents. Leadership counts, and this is where the likes of Sen. Haskell and Gov. Ned Lamont fail state citizens miserably. Neither has a clear vision for long-term fiscal stability.
Connecticut is now awash in newly printed cash, which our federal legislators have plucked from the futures of our children and grandchildren. The deluge of federal tax dollars drives the pretzel logic in Hartford that encourages Haskell and his associates to move money from one fund to another to shore up depleted budgets or to support progressive causes. The reality is that Connecticut’s spending problems are exacerbating its debt-obligation problem to such an extent that as former Gov. Dan Malloy once said, “every single cent of new tax revenue goes to pay the current obligations, and then some.” If our elected officials took their jobs seriously, they would use the temporary sugar high of federal tax dollars to fix our structural problems. Alas, I don’t see that happening until more citizens of Connecticut raise their voices in protest.
Robert Ham
Cheshire, CT