July 26, 2009
From:
The Federation of Connecticut Taxpayer Organizations
Contact: Susan Kniep,
President
Website: http://ctact.org/
Email: fctopresident@aol.com
Telephone: 860-841-8032
TAX TALK JULY 26, 2009
Wall Street: Here comes the
hard part, CNNMoney.com, July 26, 2009, 7 PM …
Investors wade into the heaviest week of corporate reporting yet. Reports on GDP, housing, consumer confidence and manufacturing also
due. Continued at ….. http://money.cnn.com/2009/07/26/markets/sunday_weekahead/index.htm?cnn=yes
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STATE OF THE STATE
Ø Rell,
lawmakers face deadline that carries $1 billion penalty, By
Keith M. Phaneuf, Journal Inquirer, HARTFORD — The
legislature and Gov. M. Jodi Rell have a new budget
deadline bearing down on them in just five weeks. And unlike past calendar benchmarks they’ve
blown past without an agreement, this one would create a nearly $1 billion
problem if not addressed by Sept. 1.
Specifically, unless Rell and lawmakers
approve borrowing to cover last fiscal year’s deficit — soon — their plans to
use the budget reserve to lessen what already is expected to be a significant
tax hike this year will be thwarted.
State Comptroller Nancy Wyman wrote this week to legislative leaders and
Rell, reminding them she’s required by law to use the
reserve, commonly known as the Rainy Day Fund, to close the deficit if one
exists two months after the fiscal year has ended. Continued at ….. http://ctact.org/default.asp?callcontent=yes&filename=ONEBILLION.htm%20%20%20&location=State_-_Budget&buttonname=State%20-%20Budget
Ø Connecticut Businesses
Closing At Record Pace, By JANICE PODSADA, The Hartford Courant , July 2009 …. A record-breaking 6,944 Connecticut
businesses closed in the first half of the year, the largest number of
companies to call it quits since the state began keeping records in 2000,
according to data released Monday by Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz. Business failures in the first six months were
up 17 percent over the same period last year. If the trend continues, this
year's business failures could exceed last year's record, a dismal 12-month
period in which 13,456 Connecticut
businesses closed, the largest number of shutdowns
since 2000. Continued at ….. http://xml.courant.com/business/hc-business-stops0721.artjul21,0,6975865.story
Ø Rell, Legislature Finally Agree:
Deficit Projected at $8.55 Billion, Christopher
Keating, July 2009 Continued at …. http://blogs.courant.com/capitol_watch/2009/07/rell-legislature-finally-agree.html
Ø Personal Bankruptcies In State Up 28% In 2nd Quarter, Ken Gosselin, Personal bankruptcy
filings in Connecticut soared 28 percent in the second quarter compared with a
year earlier as job losses and falling home values continued to take a toll on
household budgets, according to a new report.
There were 2,638 personal bankruptcy filings in Connecticut in the three
months ended June 30, compared with 2,054 for the same period in 2008,
according to the report Tuesday from The Warren Group. Continued at …. http://www.courant.com/business/hc-bankruptcy0722.artjul22,0,4472758.story
Ø Connecticut Tax Revenues Plunge More Than 11 Percent In First
Quarter Of 2009 , By DON STACOM ,The
Hartford Courant Connecticut's tax
revenues plunged more than 11 percent in the first quarter of the year, part of
a nationwide trend that showed the steepest drop in more than 40 years, according
to a new study. Continued at …. http://xml.courant.com/news/connecticut/hc-connecticut-tax-revenue-0721.artjul21,0,5559252.story
Ø
State workers making six figures, in retirement, By Don Michak,
Journal Inquirer, Nearly 200 retired
state employees or their spouses are receiving, or are about to begin
receiving, annual pensions of more than $100,000 — including two former
University of Connecticut professors and the wife of a third who are paid
benefits of more than $200,000, state records show. Continued at …. http://ctact.org/default.asp?callcontent=yes&filename=Pensions.htm%20%20&location=State_-_Budget&buttonname=State%20-%20Budget
Ø Rell popularity takes tumble, legislators in free-fall Rell, a Republican,
scores highest in her own party, with an 81 percent approval rating, and among
independent voters, with 70 percent. Among Democrats, 49 percent approve of Rell and 45 percent disapprove. Keith M. Phaneuf -
Journal Inquirer - July 2009, Continued at …. http://ctact.org/default.asp?callcontent=yes&filename=RellPopularity.htm%20%20%20&location=State_-_Budget&buttonname=State%20-%20Budget
Ø Pratt & Whitney Jobs Headed To Georgia,
Singapore,
Union Officials Say, http://www.courant.com/business/hc-pratt-whitney-jobs-0724,0,1608703.story
Contained in this edition of
Tax Talk….
Ø By Dowd Muska: If You Can’t Outsource Lunchlady
Doris …
Ø Web Wealth:
Various web sites providing transparency of stimulus spending
Ø Rich Have Highest
Wealth, Lowest Taxes Since 1929
Ø Federalist Society
expands their Global Governance Watch web site.
Ø NO GAIN FOR DODD: Five-term Democrat Dodd still lags behind
Simmons, although his approval rating is up
Ø The huge sums of
money being spent on bailouts and the stimulus appear to have raised the ante
on government waste
Ø Obama Health Policy
Czar Led Companies in Trouble
Ø GE Promotes
Manufacturing Jobs in US, Then Ships 'Em Overseas
Ø House Committee
Backs Obama Student Loan Reform
Ø Obama Needs a Move to
the Middle
Ø TIME
MAGAZINE….Inside Bush and Cheney's Final Days
Ø House Passes
Increase for Housing, High-Speed Rail
Ø Analysis: Obama putting more
emphasis on restraint
Ø Report: New York, New
Jersey Immigration Raids Violated Rights
Ø The Coming
Collapse Of The Middle Class (video 57:37)
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To Find Your
State Legislator ….. http://www.cga.ct.gov/asp/menu/CGAFindLeg.asp
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Congratulations to Dowd Muska
on an excellent report….
By Dowd Muska:
If You Can’t Outsource Lunchlady Doris… Think it will
be easy to break public-employee unions’ grip on Connecticut government? Listen to a recent
tale from Windham.
The municipality has a problem. The budget for food services in its government
schools has ballooned, causing a loss of $210,000 between 2006 and 2008.“We can’t continue to do business like this,” said the
school board’s chairman. Apparently, it can. On July 14, a proposal to replace
in-house cafeteria work with Sodexo, a firm that
promised a first-year savings of $141,000, was unanimously defeated by the
board. Public-employee unions’ standard dishonest, demagogic, and downright
pathetic tactics dominated the non-debate. “The children” would suffer --
possibly by eating poisoned food imported from China! Hiring an outside entity
would “add an extra layer of bureaucracy.” Do you know how badly Sodexo treats its employees? And besides, haven’t you seen
our billboards? Privatization Equals Corruption Continued at …. http://dowdmuska.com/
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Web Wealth, By Reid Kanaley, Inquirer
Columnist, http://www.philly.com/inquirer/business/tech/20090726_Web_Wealth_.html
Finding out about how the
federal government is spending those billions targeted at reviving the economy
is no easy task. As the promised transparency remains a fog, these sites help
to clear it.
ProPublica. The
public-interest journalism site ProPublica has a
growing effort to track stimulus and bailout spending. With details coming at a
trickle from official sources, ProPublica is
enlisting the public's help, for example, in a "stimulus spot check"
that would put volunteer trackers on a sample of 500 highway and other
transportation projects allotted stimulus money. Sign up by clicking "I'm
on it" for a project near you. www.propublica.org
Librarians unite. University librarians have banded together to run this freegovinfo.info site that promotes access to U.S. government
information for citizens, watchdog groups, journalists, and others. The
"Bailout" page features posts about the trouble researchers are
having in tracking bailout funds, and links to sites that post results from
inquiries under the Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA. The site's "Docuticker" lists latest postings. The top one, when
we looked, was an alarming report: "Nerve Gas Leak Detectors Inoperative
for Years."
http://go.philly.com/freegovinfo
Rummaging around. The Government
Attic site publishes more results from FOIA requests, and many have to do with
the economy, banking, and related money issues. These include e-mail culled
from the Federal Reserve concerning the processing of FOIA requests from
Bloomberg News seeking missing bailout documentation, and post-mortem reviews
of failed credit unions. Wide-ranging information requests also delve into
Secret Service logs, investigations of American Indian tribal businesses, and
the Iraq
war. http://Governmentattic.org
Recovery central. This is Washington's
detail-challenged site dedicated to tracking the spending of recovery funds.
The site is promising to post reports from stimulus recipients "beginning
in October." www.recovery.gov
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Rich Have Highest Wealth,
Lowest Taxes Since 1929
– David Sirota,
Coloradaoan.com: "Here's a truism: The wealthiest 1 percent have never had
it so good. According to government figures, 1 percenters'
share of America's total income is the highest it's been since 1929, and their
tax rates are the lowest they've faced in two decades." http://www.coloradoan.com/article/20090724/COLUMNISTS91/907240312
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Congratulations
to THE FEDERLIST SOCIETY for their Expansion of the Federalist Society’s Global
Governance Watch web site. http://www.globalgovernancewatch.org
The following is a message from Brian Freeman, Chairman of
the Connecticut
Chapter of the Federalist Society. Brian provides further insight into
this excellent web site which should be accessed frequently to keep current on
global events and issues to include their impact on the United States and Connecticut.
From Brian Freeman: The Federalist
Society's Global Governance Watch® website is the best source for information
relating to the global governance efforts of the United Nations, its various
agencies, non-governmental organizations, international courts, and treaty
bodies.
About a year ago, the
Federalist Society, in collaboration with the American Enterprise Institute,
launched its Global Governance Watch® website. This website grew out of
the former NGOWatch project. Rather than simply
looking at the work of NGOs in isolation, AEI and the Federalist Society felt
that it would be of greater value to study the growing trend towards global
governance as a whole. Global Governance Watch® (GGW) was created to
examine issues of transparency, accountability and national sovereignty as they
pertain to the global governance movement.
The GGW website studies the global governance movement
by focusing on four thematic areas: Human Security (i.e., human rights),
Global Regulation (especially with respect to the environment and health),
Development (including economics and corporate social responsibility), and
National Security. For an example of the types of articles featured on
the website, please click here. I encourage those who are interested
to review the entire GGW website at http://www.globalgovernancewatch.org/.
You are welcome to sign up to receive weekly
GGW updates at http://www.globalgovernancewatch.org/my_ggw/.
If you have any questions, I can be reached at
bfreeman@rc.com.
Thank you for your interest in the Federalist
Society and I encourage you to access our web site frequently to keep current
on global issues. Brian Freeman
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NO GAIN FOR DODD: Five-term Democrat Dodd still lags behind
Simmons, although his approval rating is up, Journal Inquirer, July
24, 2009 A new poll suggests that the
state’s many independent voters continue to spurn U.S. Sen. Christopher J.
Dodd, the five-term Democrat the survey shows trailing potential Republican
challenger Robert R. Simmons by 48 percent to 39 percent.
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THEIR OPINION: It's 'only' a few million, July 26, 2009, The huge sums of
money being spent on bailouts and the stimulus appear to have raised the ante
on government waste. By: The Bismarck Tribune, Bismarck
BISMARCK — The huge sums of money being spent on bailouts and the
stimulus appear to have raised the ante on government waste. The national debt, driven by enormous
deficits, will reach the $1 trillion mark this year. A great deal of this red
ink has been a response to a meltdown of financial markets and the failure of
“too-big-to-fail” companies. The federal government has taken over General
Motors and Chrysler. It has bailed out Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley. A wave
of stimulus funds, exceeding $700 billion, has local and state governments
awash in cash. And unemployment is creeping toward 10 percent nationally.
Continued at ….. http://www.grandforksherald.com/event/article/id/127627/
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Obama Health Policy Czar Led Companies in Trouble
Fred Schulte, American University:
"Nancy-Ann DeParle, President Barack Obama's health policy
czar, served as a director of corporations that faced scores of federal
investigations, whistleblower lawsuits and other regulatory actions, according
to government records reviewed by the Investigative Reporting Workshop at
American University." http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31566399/ns/health-health_care/
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GE Promotes Manufacturing
Jobs in US, Then Ships 'Em Overseas, July 22, 2009, Mike Elk, The Huffington
Post: "Jeffery Immelt, the CEO of General
Electric, has led the outsourcing charge in the past. So commentators were
shocked last month when, speaking at the Detroit
Economic Club, Immelt said that the United States
needs to invest in American manufacturing in order to get out of our current
economic crisis.... Immelt should heed his own
advice." Continued at …. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mike-elk/ge-promotes-manufacturing_b_241944.html
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House Committee Backs Obama Student Loan Reform,
July 21, 2009,
Reuters: "The $92 billion US college student loan market would be
fundamentally reshaped under a bill approved on Tuesday by a Congressional
committee, which sent the measure on to the full House of
Representatives." Continued at ….. http://www.reuters.com/article/domesticNews/idUSTRE56K5PS20090721
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Wall Street Journal: Obama Needs a Move
to the Middle , By Michael J. Boskin, July 23, 2009
While strong recoveries
sometimes follow deep recessions, historically
recoveries following financial crises have been slow and painful. The specter
of massive future tax hikes and inflation is worsening the outlook. We need a
better, more coherent policy path back to a strong market economy—not to a
European style social-welfare state, permanent government lifelines and
stagflation. The last time we had a comparable economic crisis—the double-digit
inflation, 20% interest rates, near 11% unemployment, and even larger
inflation-adjusted stock market decline of the late 1970s and early ’80s—a new
policy path was charted consisting of low tax rates, sound money, slower
spending growth, free trade and less intrusive regulation. Those policies
pulled us out of stagflation and led to a quarter-century of growth. Moving so
far in the exact opposite direction invites eventual disaster for American
workers and firms. Half a year and two million lost jobs since the stimulus
bill was passed, less than 10% of the funds have been disbursed and what has
been been saved, not spent, by consumers. Out of the
$320 billion increase in personal disposable income, some from the increased
transfer payments in the stimulus bill, personal consumption outlays have risen only $1 billion. That’s far short of President Barack Obama’s promised
“immediate” help. Nor has there been the promised “multiplier” on every stimulus
dollar spent. Infrastructure spending in the pipeline will likely deliver more
than this, but a lot less than advertised. Score the stimulus a very expensive,
tragically wasted opportunity.
Pressure is building from the left for a second stimulus program.
That would make the $787 billion stimulus bill one of the most expensive mulligans in history. We should be wary of expensive
additional fiscal stimulus. Unless it consists of the permanent tax rate cuts
that history teaches are most effective and is accompanied by real future
spending cuts, such a stimulus is unlikely to decrease unemployment much. Continued at ….
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203946904574302332578189864.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
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TIME MAGAZINE….Inside Bush and
Cheney's Final Days, July 23, 2009,
Massimo Calabresi and Michael Weisskopf,
Time Magazine: "Hours before they were to leave office after eight
troubled years, George W. Bush and Richard B. Cheney had one final and painful
piece of business to conclude. For over a month, Cheney had been pleading,
cajoling, even pestering Bush to pardon the vice president's former chief of
staff, I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby. Libby had
been convicted nearly two years earlier of obstructing an investigation into
the leak of a covert CIA officer's identity by senior White House officials.
The Libby pardon, aides reported, had become something of a crusade for Cheney,
who seemed prepared to push his nine-year-old relationship with Bush to the
breaking point - and perhaps past it - over the fate of his former aide. 'We
don't want to leave anyone on the battlefield,' Cheney argued."
http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1912297,00.html
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House Passes Increase for
Housing, High-Speed Rail , July 24, 2009,
Andrew Taylor, The Associated Press: "The Democratic-dominated House
Thursday approved generous funding for housing subsidies for the poor and
President Barack Obama's initiative
to build high-speed railroads."
Continued at http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5gBPaHA8wyvhZsKWPW8Uxp30QpfqgD99KFFKO1
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Analysis: Obama putting more emphasis on restraint,
The Associated Press, July 23, 2009, The deficit in the current budget year is now estimated to
come in at more than $1.8 trillion, pushed higher by the stimulus spending,
bailouts …. An Associated Press-GfK Poll shows public
confidence has reversed on whether the president's $787 billion stimulus
package, passed by Congress in February, will ultimately work to improve the
economy. In January, 58 percent were
confident it would. Now, it's the opposite, with 58 percent saying they doubt
the stimulus will bring any significant improvement. Continued at …. http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5iMwaHmDXVie0-ZCXhzIiPq1hKAUAD99KDNR03
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Report: New
York, New Jersey Immigration Raids
Violated Rights, July 22, 2009, Deepti Hajela, The Associated
Press: "Immigration agents raiding homes for suspected illegal immigrants
violated the US
Constitution by entering without proper consent and may have used racial
profiling, a report analyzing arrest records found." Continued at …. http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5jE_zsdA7eB5XpncPXAxlqGHIwufAD99J8U602
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The Coming Collapse Of The
Middle Class (video 57:37)
Distinguished law scholar Elizabeth Warren teaches contract law, bankruptcy,
and commercial law at Harvard Law School. She is an outspoken critic of America's
credit economy, which she has linked to the continuing rise in bankruptcy among
the middle-class.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akVL7QY0S8A
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