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Thank you.
From: The Federation of
Connecticut Taxpayer Organizations
Contact: Susan Kniep, President
Website: http://ctact.org/
Email: fctopresident@aol.com
Telephone: 860-841-8032
March 2, 2011
JOIN THE FEDERATION ON SAT, MARCH 19
RSVP 860-841-8032 or fctopresident@aol.com
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BREAKING NEWS:
Connecticut Public Sector Workers
Second Highest
Paid in the Nation
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2011-03-01-1Apublicworkers01_ST_N.htm
Graph: Public, private workers compensation gap
Q Poll: Public
Employees Should Pay More For Benefits By
Jon
Lender March 2, 2011 By a margin of 63 percent
to 31 percent, Americans think that government workers should pay more for
their benefits and retirement programs, according to a Quinnipiac University
poll released Wednesday morning. http://blogs.courant.com/capitol_watch/2011/03/poll-government-workers-should.html
Connecticut's Union Coverage Falls Slightly In 2010 maralee@courant.com
The Hartford Courant March 2, 2011 Union
membership in Connecticut dropped by about 7,000 to 258,000 in 2010 — about
16.7 percent of employees in the state, according to a report from the federal
Bureau of Labor Statistics. http://www.courant.com/business/hc-union-membership-20110301,0,3350458.story
State Received $19.1M In Federal Funds For Early Retirees
March 2,
2011, Courant, Matthew Sturdevant Aetna, CIGNA Corp., Yale
University and dozens of other
employers in Connecticut received
$19.1 million last year from a federal program that was part of healthcare
reform and is aimed at reducing healthcare costs for early retirees. http://blogs.courant.com/connecticut_insurance/2011/03/connecticut-received-191-milli.html
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Malloy seeks authority to make emergency cuts to local aid
http://ctmirror.org/story/11644/malloy-wants-authority-cut-town-aid-if-necessary
Malloy legislative appointees get big pension boost
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Governor
Malloy’s Many Tax Hikes from the Yankee Institute
http://www.yankeeinstitute.org/2011/02/gov-malloys-twenty-one-tax-increases/
TAXES, TAXES, AND MORE TAXES http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_Category=20
From the
Federation:
The Only Solution to Connecticut’s High Taxes
is an End to Collective Bargaining. According
to the Tax Foundation, Tax Freedom Day is the day when Americans finally have
earned enough money to pay off their total tax bill for the year. Connecticut taxpayers
worked to April 27, 2010, the longest in the nation. http://www.taxfoundation.org/research/topic/17.html.
The
Federation is in the process of obtaining updated state pay and pension
information. In the interim, you may find the following of interest….
Ø
CONNECTICUT DEBT - 72 BILLION DOLLARS
Ø
Review Teacher and Administrator Pensions
Ø
Top 50 Base Pay vs Actual Pay
Ø
WHAT THEY EARN: 2009 Connecticut State Employee Pay Rates
(1,244 pages, searchable by name)
Ø
LIST OF STATE RETIREE
PENSIONS
Ø
http://www.brainflation.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/StatePensions.xls
Ø
LIST OF TEACHER/ADMINISTRATOR
PENSIONS http://www.brainflation.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/TEACHERRetireePensions.xls
Ø
Visit the Yankee Institute
for More Information on State and Local Spending on Public Employee Salaries,
etc. http://ctsunlight.org/
Ø
State Employee Unions Should Not Expect More From Taxpayers
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The Day of New
London publishes Transcript of the chat with Malloy
administration's budget chief Ben Barnes http://www.theday.com/article/20110223/INTERACT03/110229842
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From
Taxpayers United of America, 407 S. Dearborn Street, Suite 1170
* Chicago, Illinois 60605-1150,
(312) 427-5128 * Fax (312) 427-5139 * Website www.ntui.org * E-mail tua@NTUI.org Contact: Jim Tobin (773)
354-2076
Wisconsin
Taxpayers Demand Tax Relief and Reforms… MADISON- “Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s
bill to reduce collective bargaining privileges for many government employees
recently passed in the House and is a bold step in the right direction as it
would provide much-needed property tax relief for the oppressed taxpayers of
Wisconsin,” said Jim Tobin, President of Taxpayers United
of America (TUA), at a press conference at the State Capitol Monday. “In
2009, according to a new study released by the Tax Foundation, Wisconsin’s State-Local tax burden rose to 11.0 %, and Wisconsin went from the
sixth to the fourth-highest state in the nation,” said Tobin. “Wisconsin
Governor Scott Walker has taken a courageous stand by working to break the
stranglehold the government-employee unions have on the state treasury and
local taxpayers: up to 80% of taxes can go to fund salaries, pensions, and
benefits of government employees.” Christina Tobin, President
of The Free and Equal Elections Foundation and Vice-President of TUA
said the best way to rectify this problem is to elect fiscally responsible
political leaders. “Unfortunately, most politicians and union bosses think the
money they spend is their own. Losing 6,000 jobs as an alternative to limiting
collective bargaining hurts the people. “The voice of the people is being muted
by the public unions and the corporate interests that have a stranglehold on
our electoral system. It’s high time that ‘we the people’ take back what is
rightfully ours. Governor Walker has stepped up to the plate. It’s time for
Illinois Governor Pat Quinn to get off the bench and do the same.”
To view the video of the press
conference, click here.
WisPolitics: Walker's
budget to include property tax cap along with cuts to education, local
government 3/1/2011 Gov. Scott Walker today will call for
big cuts in state aids to schools, local governments and the UW System and a
tight cap on property taxes as part of his plan to balance a $3.6 billion
budget shortfall, sources tell WisPolitics.com. Walker won't call for any tax increases, fee
hikes or fund transfers, according to sources with knowledge of the proposal.
He also won't propose repealing combined reporting, but will call for allowing
companies to claim a portion of what they pay through the tax as a future
credit. And he won't peel back the new tax bracket Dem Gov. Jim Doyle and a
Dem-run Legislature created in the 2009-11 budget for
the state’s top earners. http://www.wispolitics.com/index.iml?Article=228487
Gov. Scott Walker's Secret
Weapon: From The Atlantic,
Feb 28, 2011 …….A deal floated by moderate Republican state
Sen. Dale Schultz, under which collective bargaining rights would automatically
reactivate in 2013, seems to have drawn no interest from either side. One
possible reason: the Wisconsin veto makes such
a compromise impossible to enforce. What
most people outside Wisconsin
don't know is that our governor wields a veto power on appropriations bills so
strong as to be frankly comic. It's not just a line-item veto; Walker has
the power to veto individual phrases and words (PDF) -- like
"not" -- from sentences. If the state Senate returns to session and
passes a bill with time limits on Walker's
favored provisions, he can strip out the new language and sign his own decompromised version into
law. If that sounds crazy, keep in mind that until 2008 governors of Wisconsin could -- and
did! -- veto multi-page sections of bills, leaving in place only eight or nine
words spelling out a law the governor wanted to enact. And that, in turn, was a
much-narrowed version of the so-called "Vanna
White veto" power enjoyed by Wisconsin
governors prior to 1990, when they could veto individual letters out of words
and individual digits out of numbers.
Complete report at http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/02/gov-scott-walkers-secret-weapon-the-wisconsin-veto/71816/
Where Will New Revenues for
Deficit Reduction Come From?
Howard Gleckman
| February 17, 2011 http://taxvox.taxpolicycenter.org/2011/02/17/where-will-new-revenues-for-deficit-reduction-come-from/
In-State Tuition for Illegal
Aliens Headed to Debate As Connecticut
legislators consider a proposed bill, the fight over the nation's immigration
policies emerges. The college quadrangle
could be the next immigration battleground.
State Sens. Martin Looney and
Edith Prague, both Democrats, co-sponsored bill number S.B. 40, which would
allow children of undocumented immigrant aliens to qualify for in-state
tuition. http://darien.patch.com/articles/in-state-tuition-for-illegal-aliens?ncid=M255
Dodd takes job as CEO of
Hollywood trade group By Deirdre Shesgreen on March 1, 2011 WASHINGTON--Former Sen. Chris
Dodd has officially been tapped as the next chief executive officer of the
Motion Picture Association of America,
making him the face of Hollywood in Washington.
Read more http://www.ctmirror.org/story/11711/doddmpaachief