Sunday, October 29, 2017

And Connecticut Still Does Not Have A Budget On October 29th

To me the Connecticut Legislature loves increasing spending, increasing taxes and creating new taxes.  It is a socialist dream to keep raising fees and taxes along eliminating personal freedoms of the people they rule over.  Here in Connecticut the omnipotent Democrat Party along with many RINO's (Republicans In Name Only) take pride in this yearly spectacle of higher taxes and higher spending.  There can be no limits to a socialist government that spirals out of control year-in and year-out.  Governor Malloy's socialism has overseen and helped to create one of the largest economic downturns in our state's history since he has taken office.
The "new" bipartisan budget was more of the same with higher spending and taxes.  The Democrats realizing that 2018 is another election year have conceded that their tax and spending policies have helped to ruin the state and they must show some restraint in this new budget.  I am surprised as to how many concessions they have agreed to if it is actually true since it is difficult if not impossible to actually read the budget document since it seems to be a secret.
Some highlights that I can gather from our new secret budget:
Hartford gets a $40 Million dollar bailout but it creates a fiscal oversight board to help manage its finances.
Higher taxes on cigarettes and a new tax on Uber rides (how much is unknown).
The Legislature must now vote on every union contract that comes up (this should have been done years ago).
Hartford's XL Center gets $40 million in bonding for upgrades but will be put on the market for sale in two years.  This is throwing $40 million dollars out of the window in my opinion.
There are long overdue reforms to binding arbitration since in my opinion it has helped cause the fiscal nightmare in our state.
There is a $1.9 billion dollar bonding cap.  Connecticut will now have even more than its current $60 to $80 billion dollars in unfunded liabilities and short and long term debt with this increase.
There will supposedly be a "strong" spending cap whatever that means.  There was a state constitutional amendment passed 25 years ago by Connecticut voters that should have been followed for the past 25 years that wasn't.  I am not overly optimistic about this new cap either.
From what I can gather there is an increase in spending and an increase in taxes.  There should have been no increased spending and no increases in taxes or new taxes and I would have been much more acceptable to this budget.  But we get a great deal of bells and whistles that we as taxpayers supposedly should get excited about.  There is no plan to address the $60 to $80 billion dollars in unfunded liabilities and short and long term debt that the state has.
And I do not see how this budget is balanced either.
And we do not know if the Governor will sign the budget either.
And Connecticut still does not have a budget on October 29th.
It is time to take back Connecticut.

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