State’s electorate continues to go down the same paths
The 2018 election is over, and, unfortunately, the State of Connecticut’s voters decided to stay with the status quo. The election of Ned Lamont last week promises to be subject the state – and the state’s remaining taxpayers – to at least four more years of the same failed policies. These are the policies that saw businesses flee the state, debt rise, and taxes piled on top of already high levies.
Lamont, the depiction of a “limousine liberal,” hailing from Greenwich, is an unabashed tax-and-spender. Using the bumper sticker thought process of many of his fellows Lamont believes the “rich” in this state do not pay their “fair share.” Of course, we’re never told what the “fair share” really is. To do so would mean giving the game away. Politicians always need a decoy to keep the rest of the voters off the scent.
In the next four years taxpayers will have Democratic majorities in the House and Senate, though at this writing some of the races in both houses seem to be in doubt. Regardless of the outcome of those few races, Democrats have the clear majority. That is bad news for the state. Democrats have held the majority in the legislature for decades, this current session, set to expire, the Senate had an 18-18 split, serving as a check on blatant Democratic control
With the new legislature coming in, taxpayers in the Connecticut can expect more of the tax-and-spend policies that got us in the situation we are. Tolls on the state’s highways, which was a third-rail in the lead up to last week’s ballot will find its way through both houses, and get signed by Lamont. The state’s drivers, particularly those in the southern part of the state will be adversely affected, paying more and getting less.
New taxes have been promised as well because, as Lamont said in the lead up to the election, “We will all have to pay more” so “we can have an economy we all can live with.”
The state then can expect to pile up more debt, more taxes and more programs benefitting those who pay little or no taxes, and creating more of a dependency. That is going to create more debt, and lead to more of the so-called “rich” leaving the state – as they are leaving the Northeast – in droves. That means fewer and fewer will be able to pick up the slack and pay for the programs that are heaped up on us.
Connecticut, along with Illinois – another deep blue state that has been poorly run – are running millions in the red. New taxes don’t bring us any closer to making ends meet. Instead, with every new dollar comes a new way to spend it. The last 40 years are a testament to that. Yet, the state legislature, despite having problems putting together budgets that are realistic, cling to the idea that we must have a safety net for all, and the middle class and so-called “rich” have to pay for it.
Add to the insanity million in unfunded liabilities in the form of pensions and other expenses, and a bond liability that increases with each meeting of the State Bonding Commission, and we wonder if the best thing that can happen to the state and the state’s taxpayers is bankruptcy.
Until the politicians in the state can understand that people cannot afford to live here anymore, and that adding new debt is only digging a deeper hole, we are doomed to repeat the lunacy of what happened last week.
Instead of dealing with our financial situation and attempting to deal with it, the voters in Connecticut acted as if it was 1966 all over again. The state was in the black, employment was low, and people were coming into the state for work. That hasn’t been the case for three decades. The state is continually in the red, employment is not where it should be in relation to other states, and the exodus of skilled workers and white collar workers is huge.
We get the leaders we deserve. We get the insanity we create. Connecticut is a dying state, and the voters have said they are OK with it.