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CONNECTICUT GETS ANOTHER DOWNGRADE!!!!
July 21, 2016
From: The Federation of Connecticut
Taxpayer Organizations
Contact: Susan Kniep, President
Website: http://ctact.org/
Email: fctopresident@aol.com
Telephone: 860-841-8032
This
week we learned from CTMirror.org that Another
Wall Street agency downgrades CTs credit rating . The reporter Keith
M. Phaneuf wrote the following: Connecticuts
longstanding fiscal problems continued to raise concerns on Wall Street Tuesday
as a third major rating agency downgraded the states credit ranking. Kroll
Bond Rating Agency announced its downgrade Tuesday, citing Connecticuts
high debt, low reserves, eroding income tax receipts and lack of wage
growth. Kroll joins Fitch Ratings Inc. and Standard & Poors, which cited similar concerns in mid-May when they lowered
their bond ratings. The fourth rating agency, Moodys
Investors Service, hasnt changed its rating this
year. But it does maintain a negative outlook on Connecticut. This represents a warning that
they intend to monitor state finances closely over the next year, and sometimes
is a precursor to a formal downgrade. Krolls
decision to lower Connecticuts rating is based on the
states inability over the last two years to maintain balanced financial
operations without significantly reducing its Budget Reserve Fund, the agency
wrote Tuesday. Continue Reading →
Also KEITH M. PHANEUF reports Administrations final
CT budget report has good news and bad The final report from Gov. Dannel P. Malloys administration
on the just-completed fiscal year says the deficit for the 2015-16 fiscal year
improved modestly, from about $316 million to $279 million, largely because of
a last-minute surge in federal grants. But it also shows further erosion in tax
receipts. Continue Reading →
But Connecticut
elected officials love to spend, and spend they do regardless of debt or downgrades.
Daniela
Altimari of the Hartford Courant recently
reported State Leaders Clash
On Spending As Bond Commission Approves $189
Million For Local Projects.
In June, 2016 we learned Connecticut Ranked As
State With Worst Fiscal Status - Second Only To Puerto Rico.
The author of the article, Dr. Susan Berry,
wrote the following-A new study from George Mason Universitys Mercatus Center finds
that Connecticut ranks as the state in the worst fiscal condition-second only
to Puerto Rico which has amassed
$70 billion in debt due to out-of-control government spending coupled with
interference from Washington, D.C. Connecticut-led
by a Democrat legislature and governor and represented by an entirely Democrat
congressional delegation-ranks as dead last among the states, owing largely to
its massive debt obligations and unfunded liabilities. According to
Mercatus,
Connecticuts
fiscal state is poor across all categories, which cover cash, budget, long-term,
citizen service-level, and trust fund solvency. Continue reading at http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/06/03/connecticut-ranked-state-worst-fiscal-status-second-puerto-rico/
By Michelle Kaske & Martin Z Braun Updated July 1, 2016
Puerto Rico has the population of Oklahoma
and an economy smaller
than Kansas.
It also has more debt-$70 billion-than any U.S.
state government except California and New York. This fact and
the reasons behind it help explain why the territory has tumbled over a fiscal
cliff, and why the resulting dismay extends to investors far beyond
the Caribbean island. It is a tale of financial mismanagement,
Wall Street complicity and good intentions gone awry. Continue reading at
http://www.bloomberg.com/quicktake/puerto-ricos-slide
**************************
Breaking News
from the Hartford
Courant
**************************
From the State Office of
Policy and Management
MUNICIPAL BENCHMARKS
Information Regarding
Municipal Benchmarking
Read Much
More on this Issue at6
http://www.ct.gov/opm/cwp/view.asp?a=2984&q=576636
The State
of Connecticut working with its
municipalities, has now made available financial and non-financial benchmarks
of key municipal information that can be found on The State of Connecticut Municipal
Visit the
Benchmark Website at:
https://ucoa.ct.gov/benchmarking
**************************
DID YOU KNOW, AS THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE NOTES,
Under the practice of civil forfeiture,
authorities can move to permanently take property they suspect of being linked
to criminal activity, without obtaining a conviction and, in cases like the Vocaturas, without even charging the owner with a crime.
IRS Returns Bakerys Money After 3 Years. Now It Wants To Put The Owners
In Prison. Huffington Post
Another
small business gets chewed up and spit out by the civil asset forfeiture machine.
Nick Wing Senior
Viral Editor, May 2016
In May 2013, David Vocatura
watched $68,000 disappear.
He was at his familys
bakery in Norwich, Connecticut, when a squad of armed IRS
agents filed into the store. The agents wanted to know if Vocatura
and his brother Larry were trafficking drugs or
running a prostitution ring. The brothers had no idea what they were talking
about. Continue reading at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/irs-structuring-civil-asset-forfeiture_us_573b908de4b0aee7b8e83ae3
Read more
on this issue by the Institute of Justice
which also litigated the Suzette Kelo
Eminent Domain Case
Explore Case In Depth
********************************
The suit challenges the NYPDs use of controversial nuisance abatement actions. It
cites ProPublica and The Daily News investigation
into the issue.
By Sarah Ryley
and Stephen Rex Brown for ProPublica and The Daily
News. April 12, 2016
A version of this article
was also published in the New
York Daily News.
The New York Police Department got an
order kicking a family of four out of their Queens
apartment by telling a judge it was a drug den-but the dealers had moved out
seven months earlier.
A lawsuit to be filed in Brooklyn
Federal Court on Tuesday details an egregious case of the NYPDs
use of the nuisance abatement law-a controversial tool in which cops are able
to get a temporary order barring people from their homes without first giving
them the opportunity to appear before a judge. Continue reading at https://www.propublica.org/article/nypd-gets-sued-after-kicking-wrong-family-out-of-home
********************************
LA Times
reports that today
Obama administration
moves to block health insurance mega-mergers ...