Connecticut's Corruption and High Taxes

Regardless of the whitewashing and fawning pap one may hear or read at the onset of another legislative session, Connecticut nonetheless continues its descent into economic and social senselessness via an administrative state fiat aided by a lapdog "elected" state legislature. As just two examples of the pride of King Ned Lamont the Unaccountable and his Omnipotent one-party ruling class, are the recent sham election of Bridgeport's Democrat convicted criminal Mayor Joe Ganim and his magically appearing absentee ballots, and the excessively high salaries paid out by the secretive State Family Leave department funded by Connecticut Taxpayers for this money draining program.

The City of Bridgeport, once a proud working-class industrial city, is now an absolute, unspeakable mess run by a powerful Democrat Party political machine that makes the old New York Tammany Hall Democrat political machine look like a nursery school. The hatchet job Ganim and his minions did to the voters of Bridgeport in his "re-election" in his crime filled city would be the plot for a Woody Allen movie if it were sadly, not reality. One must remember Ganim was convicted of racketeering, extortion, and other crimes. He spent seven years in prison beginning in 2003 before he amazingly enough voted back as mayor of Bridgeport in 2015. One can also argue that crime does pay in Bridgeport as one may wonder why a convicted felon who ripped off the city is allowed back in? Obvious voter and ballot fraud was committed when Democrat official Wanda Geter-Pataki (who also was accused in 2019 for basically the same thing), apparently stuffed absentee ballots into a drop box outside of the Margaret Morton Government center in a surveillance video. John Gomes, who was running for Mayor against the Ganim machine in the primary, filed 22 (twenty-two) separate complaints of voter fraud against the Ganim campaign. To make this sick and sad situation even worse, the Gomes campaign was apparently caught on video tape doing the same ballot stuffing thing. After hearing the testimony, a judge allowed for the general election to continue on November 7, 2023, whereby Ganim won by a mere 175 votes! Inexplicably, the Judge also ordered a new primary to take place on January 23, 2024, and surprise again Ganim won! Whether yet another election will take place in February remains to be seen at the time of this writing. Needless to say, this corruption is blessed by the incompetent and un-serious Democrat Secretary of the State Stephanie Thomas who famously stated that “Election integrity is essential for public trust, and I would like to affirm my confidence in our state’s overall election security,” “This situation is not about partisan politics, it’s not about a broken electoral system, this isn’t even about absentee ballot systems. It is about a few bad actors and an under-educated electorate.” (https://insideinvestigator.org/sots-bridgeport-ballot-scandal-result-of-bad-actors-and-under-educated-electorate). Therefore, the problem of corruption in Bridgeport is because of "an under-educated electorate" where fraud, incompetence, and denial have nothing to do with it. (Get that).

Further, the obvious question then becomes as to why seemingly no one in the political universe seems the least bit interested in calling the election process fraudulent and aggressively crying out for the arrests and prosecutions of bad actors involved. The Unaccountable and several Democrats are even now urging John Gomes to give up all together. "Joe Ganim has won three times. At some point you gotta get back to governing. That would be my advice," Lamont said on January 30, 2024. But of course, Ned needs Wanda and her counterparts in the cities to manufacture continued gubernatorial victories and all the fraud, illegal absentee ballots cast, and irregularities about both the primary and election can be quickly and promptly disregarded. We disregard all, since Joe Ganim is the Supreme Ruler of Bridgeport, a ruler that Bridgeport Taxpayers must yield to by giving up their right to vote and to self-govern. It is a typical Connecticut Democrat Party mess and is naturally blessed by the Connecticut Democrat Party.

Of course, Connecticut would not be Connecticut without tax-sucking administrative state programs and bureaucracies. While state-run media churns faux and puffy stories of “Connecticut Fiscal Stability” one can never (ever) pay enough taxes in Democrat Connecticut to support this "stability". A prime example of this failure is The Connecticut Paid Family Medical Leave Act. For this program, the Tax is .05% of your earnings, up to $160,200. For this tax, there is no reimbursement for employees close to retirement nor for employees who never utilize the CT Paid Leave program. Further, the privileged class of state workers does not contribute to the fund. So, the rest of us must pay, and shut up.

The plan pays for up to 12 weeks of leave at a maximum weekly benefit of $941.40 as of 2024 according to their website (https://www.ctpaidleave.org/?language=en_US). AFLAC is the third-party claims administrator for the program, yet the actual Paid Family Medical Leave Authority employs 40 people as of 2023 at a payroll of a mere $3.9 million dollars, mind-boggling when an administrator is already in place: (https://openpayroll.ct.gov/#!/year/2023/department/Paid+Family+Medical+Leave+Auth).

What is even more interesting with this questionable program is a well-hidden report dated July 2023 that presents some amazing information (https://www.cbia.com/resources/hr-safety/connecticut-paid-leave-2023-annual-report). For example, on Page 22 of this report it shows a beginning fund balance of $446.3 million dollars, Contributions earned of $443 million dollars, investment income of $16.5 million dollars, incurred claims of $318 million dollars, other expenses of $45.8 million dollars and a net fund balance of $542 million dollars. Analyzing the figures in another way one can argue that those individuals who are paying this tax are being overtaxed if there is such a high fund balance at the end of this apparent fiscal year projected report. Why does this fund have this much money in it? Why is $542 million dollars taken out of Connecticut Taxpayers pockets? It is clear that the .05% tax is excessive given the small amount of claims that is being paid out and for the amount of private plans/self-insured plans that have been approved by the state. Ostensibly a large part of this rate goes to support a number of state employees in duplicative nonjobs, standard for the course in the Kingdom of Ned, the Unaccountable. Once again, hardworking Connecticut taxpayers who are diligent in their employment and not prone to take off time subsidize an entire legion of political appointees, bureaucrats, and a fair number of excuse makers and slackers, because this is the Connecticut way.

These are just two examples many that one can offer about a Democrat ruled state that embraces and encourages economic sloth, waste, and social senselessness. Elected leaders (or “Elected” leaders) take no constructive action other than to continually march to both economic and social ruin wanting the taxpayer to pay and be proud of the destruction they do on a daily basis. Think about losing your right to vote as we see in Bridgeport with a sham election. Think about how this same voter fraud in cities has been the defining factor in close statewide elections. As you listen to the endless blandishments from both parties praising The Unaccountable for “adhering to (fictional) fiscal guardrails” think about all of the increasing taxes you pay in Connecticut to support the continued Connecticut path to spending and failure as you struggle to survive economically. And just think about how the Connecticut Democrat Party's omnipotent one-party rule has made a once great state a cesspool of corruption, crime, sexual perversion, child abuse, incoherent gibberish, and excessively high taxes that you must accept as an obedient slave to King Ned Lamont the Unaccountable and his Omnipotent one-party ruling Democrat Party.

Once again, taxpayer, be damned.