While attempting to be a moderate Democratic governor, more moderate than his predecessor, Ned Lamont feels obliged to regularly pay homage to the left wing of his party, which makes up the majority of the party’s activists. The governor recently posted a minute-long video on his social media channels encouraging companies in states that restrict abortions to relocate to Connecticut.
Connecticut, the governor said, is “family-friendly” and its liberal abortion law “respects” women.
Not only is the new Texas abortion law nearly prohibitive, it’s also bizarre and delegates enforcement to civil damages claims. But it wouldn’t have come into effect if Texas wasn’t full of women whose respect also consists in protecting what they call the preborn. Texas women are fully capable of repealing the law.
In the meantime. Connecticut’s promotions in Texas and other states restricting abortion are ridiculous, as is a similar appeal to Texas companies from Chicago’s Economic Development Agency that placed an ad on the Dallas Morning News.
Chicago agency chief Michael Fassnacht told Bloomberg News, “We believe the values of the city you do business in are more important than ever.” But of course, Chicago’s “values” number dozens almost every weekend of shootings and dozens of murders, while Illinois “values” include the nation’s worst bankruptcy.
Connecticut does not have the Chicago violent crime, nor is Connecticut quite as insolvent as Illinois. Connecticut has advantages of climate, geography, and culture. But in terms of business-friendliness, Texas outperforms Connecticut and Illinois in that it has no corporation and income taxes, while Connecticut and Illinois have both.
The Tax Foundation says the personal tax burden in Connecticut and Illinois is over 10 percent, but in Texas it is just 7.6 percent. That said, Connecticut’s personal tax burden is nearly a third higher than that of Texas.
With such a tax differential, even Texan companies opposed to the new abortion law could save so much money by staying there and not moving to Connecticut that they could afford to pay their employees for abortions to Connecticut every year.
No amount of ingratiating the governor to the left wing of his party will make Connecticut’s high taxes “family-friendly”.
Still, higher taxes may be on the way for Connecticut, as the governor and Democratic leaders in the General Assembly seem inclined to revive the so-called Transportation Climate Initiative in a special legislative session. The plan would increase wholesale taxes on gasoline so the additional burden wouldn’t be as visible as the retail tax, and would claim the new revenue would be spent on transportation projects that reduce pollution.
But the state is already rolling in federal emergency bills, and billions more in federal “infrastructure” funds could soon come in, so Connecticut barely needs gas tax dollars.
Increasing gas taxes will be the greatest burden on the poor and middle class even as inflation is raging and undermining their standards of living. In addition, it would be unusual if funds raised by the state government on behalf of transportation were not diverted.
With taxes that are already so high, the state government must above all set better priorities.
Chris Powell is a columnist for the Journal Inquirer in Manchester.
[ad_1]
