Connecticut's Constant and Continual Debt Crisis

Democrat Connecticut's euphoria of its recently passed $51.1 billion dollar "we cut taxes!" biennial budget is endemic of the 33 year political tango of fiscal denial where the state will certainly face fiscal Armageddon in the near future.  Contrary to the shouts of joy from Ned Lamont and his Connecticut Democrat Party, Connecticut has a massive spending and debt problem.  This economic downward spiral started with the advent of the Utopian state income tax in 1990-91 in the opinion of many. Debts continue to pile up for Connecticut to a point of no return.

How does a state as small as Connecticut and with as small a population of legal citizens as Connecticut, spend as much as it does?  Yearly,  the state spends a massive amount of money each year on state employee salaries, benefits and pensions for both its management and non management employees along with interest on its' debt.  It also has borrowed and bonded enormous sums of money.  Bonds get paid off and then are immediately renewed into new bonds.  It is fascinating to see that Connecticut will spend a mere $823.3 million dollars of Connecticut taxpayers monies in its new budget for "economic development". Much of this bulbous sum will be uselessly paid to a failed and non-transparent "quasi-public" entity oxymoronically known as the "Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development". Even with this massive amount of money that is spent for such "economic development", Connecticut continues to rank at the bottom or near the bottom in most business and economic categories in the country, and still can not pull itself out of the 2008 recession level of job formation, since so many businesses have closed and or moved out of state.

What is Connecticut's actual debt?  I can only estimate it since hard figures seem to be in short supply when analyzing this debt.   In this year's budget (https://portal.ct.gov/-/media/OPM/Budget/2024_2025_Biennial_Budget/Budget_WebPage/GovBudget_2024-25_Final-Web-Version.pdf-A18,19)  the summary of principal and interest that the state has outstanding through 2043 for bonding functions is a mere $24,174,979,627 billion dollars.  There is also outstanding principal and interest on this fiscal nut through 2043 for special tax obligations is $9,935,799,580 billion dollars.  It is difficult to find more figures from the state budget as to a "true" amount of how much actual short and long term debt along with unfunded liabilities exist.  Estimates may range from $100 to $150 billion dollars.  Here, the major problem is the actual amount of unfunded state pension debt.  How much is it?  Does anyone know? This was magically resolved by an economically irrational and fiscally illiterate Democrat Party plan to lower current payments and have future generations figure out how to pay for it.  State pension reform seems to be an issue that one is forbidden to discuss in the state legislature by either political party, as both parties are on record for cheering this faux "pension reform", neither willing to bite the bullet necessary to change this drastically bad course.

What is the plan (if any) to pay off this debt?  I have seen nothing mentioned about it over the years.  Connecticut spends a massive amount of money each year.  There would seem to be a great deal of wasted spending in the budget each year also since there is an excessive amount of debt in the state.  The state budget is also unexamined at any real length since the Connecticut Democrat Party introduces it with little time to even read the hundreds of pages of accounting information and check for accurate figures at the last minutes of the legislative session.  The marching orders are simple: Just vote on it and make sure the politically connected of Connecticut are rewarded and have their palms greased by grants, subsidies and other types of goodies funded by Connecticut Taxpayers with no oversight or accountability.  These are the same taxpayers who have absolutely no say whatsoever in where their hard earned monies go.   Taxpayer- be-damned seems to have been the common theme of the Democrat Party controlled State Legislature for years now.  It is truly taxation without representation and the identical reason as to why the Colonists threw the tea in the river in Boston some years ago.  It is 1776 all over again.