Susan Kniep, President
The Federation of Connecticut
Taxpayer Organizations (FCTO)
Website: http://ctact.org/
Email: fctopresident@aol.com
Telephone: 860-841-8032
TAX TALK SEPTEMBER 28, 2010
NORTHEAST PROPERTY OWNERS PAY
THE HIGHEST TAXES
Highest property taxes in Northeast Homeowners
in the Northeast pay the highest property taxes in the nation. New Jersey residents pay the highest annual tax bill of
any state - a median $6,579 per year, according to the Tax Foundation, which
calculated the tally using data the U.S. Census Bureau released on
Tuesday. Connecticut
comes in second place ($4,738), followed by New Hampshire
($4,636) and New York
($3,755). http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/wire/sns-highest-property-taxes,0,428343.story
The Tax Foundation's Data
Analysis Division used newly updated data from the 2009 American Community
Survey to rank high-population counties across the country according to various
property tax measures. Read the new report.
In addition, a new property
tax lookup tool at www.mytaxburden.org/propertytax, lets users select their state and
county and compare property tax statistics to other states and counties. This
tool is part of the Tax Foundation's ongoing MyTaxBurden.org interactive project.
Here is what is contained in this edition of Tax Talk
Ø
Congress OKs stop-gap spending, ready to go home
Ø
Audit: Ex-Postal Service workers return as private
contractors, make more money
Ø
Credit Unions Bailed Out - U.S. Backs $30 Billion in Bonds to
Stabilize Key Institutions; Subprime Legacy
Ø
Obama Signs Small Business Bill Into
Law
Ø
Obama Approves Billions for Teachers, Cops in
Cash-Strapped States
Ø
Shadow Elite: The DISCLOSE Act -- Who's
Blindfolding the American Electorate?
Ø
THE SECRET ELECTION.
Ø
Linda McGibney: We Who Prospered
Should Pay Tax
Ø
Obama presses for longer school year
Ø
Waiting for Superman Trailer
Ø
Anger as a Private Company Takes Over Libraries
Ø
Check out Connecticut in this Quarterly Summary of State
& Local Tax Revenue
Ø
Quarterly Tax Information Sheet
Ø
Connecticut School leaders say regional transportation could cut costs
Ø
Lax State Gun Laws Tied to Crimes in Other
States
Ø
HUD Report Slams Corrupt ACORN As Funding Ban Set To Expire
Ø
Governor Rell Nominates Four to
Superior Court
Ø
Governor Rell: Proposals to
Unfunded Liabilities Panel Could Save $300M/Year
Ø
Connecticut State Employee
Labor Contracts
Ø
Marsh on health care: A personal view
Ø
Towns could see less revenue, but from more sources, next year
Ø
Foley, Malloy, take different paths to job growth
Ø
Broke City in Broke State Blows $578 Million on Nation's
Costliest School
Ø
Foley education plan emphasizes school choice
Ø
Raters Ignored Proof of Unsafe Loans, Panel Is
Told
Ø
Census 2009 Poverty and Health Insurance Data
Ø
For the Unemployed Over 50, Fears of Never Working Again?
Ø
Letters: Out of Work, and Running Out of Hope
Ø
U.S.
Tries to Make It Easier to Wiretap the Internet
Ø
One Third Of Americans Can't Get Mortgages
Ø
Campaign 2010
The Stagnating Labor Market
Ø
Reasons for Skepticism about Structural Unemployment,
Examining the Demand- Side Evidence Labor,
Ø
The Largest Tax Hikes in History
Ø
SING ALONG.
Ø
Welcome to the Taxpayer's Tab
Ø
Newly Hired Citigroup Banker Could Get Pay Package Worth $30
Million
Congress OKs stop-gap spending, ready to go home By Jennifer Liberto and Jeanne Sahadi, CNN
September 30, 2010 1:42 a.m. EDT Washington (CNN) -- Congress on Thursday
passed a measure to fund the federal government another two months, their last
major legislative action before shutting down and returning to the campaign
trail for the Nov. 2 elections. The House voted 228-194 early Thursday morning and the Senate voted 69-30 on
Wednesday to pass a stop-gap effort that effectively keeps the lights on at
agencies and major federal programs until Dec. 3. The tab for the 64 days tops
$219 billion, meaning the overall budget for the new fiscal year will be $219
billion lighter, a congressional aide explained. Congress also plans to keep in
place, through next Sept. 30, higher limits on the mortgages backed by Fannie
Mae and Freddie Mac. The limits range up to $729,750 for pricey areas. The
measure also will maintain loan limits for federally insured reverse mortgages
for pricey areas at $625,500. And it will extend loan limits insured by the
Federal Housing Administration. All the loan limits were set to expire at the
end of the year?."Fannie
and Freddie are synonymous with mismanagement and waste, and have become the
face of Too Big to Fail," Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.
said. Article continues at ?..
http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/09/30/congress.continuing.resolution/index.html?hpt=T2
Audit:
Ex-Postal Service workers return as private contractors, make more money By Ed O'Keefe
Washington Post Staff Writer September
26, 2010;
Who says you can't go back?
Apparently you can at the U.S.
Postal Service. Dozens of former top executives and hundreds of former
employees have returned to the agency in recent years as private contractors,
sometimes making double the salaries they made as full-time workers, according
to one of three watchdog audits released late last week. The reports said the
cash-strapped Postal Service is doing a poor job tracking its use of no-bid
contracts, contributes more to worker health and life insurance benefits than
other federal agencies and should consider closing more of its regional offices
to help address an expected $230 billion, 10-year budget gap. Continued at ?.. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/09/26/AR2010092603359.html
Credit
Unions Bailed Out - U.S. Backs $30 Billion in Bonds to Stabilize Key
Institutions; Subprime Legacy By MARK MAREMONT And VICTORIA MCGRANE Wall St
Journal Sept 25, 2010 Two years after
the peak of the financial crisis, the federal government swooped in to
stabilize a crucial part of the credit-union sector battered by losses on subprime mortgages. Regulators announced Friday a rescue
and revamping of the nation's wholesale credit union system, underpinned by a
federal guarantee valued at $30 billion or more. Wholesale credit unions don't
deal with the general public but provide essential back-office services to
thousands of other credit unions across the U.S. The majority of retail credit
unions are sound, but they will have to shoulder the losses through special
assessments over the next decade. Friday's moves include the seizure of three
wholesale credit unions, plus an unusual plan by government officials to manage
$50 billion of troubled assets inherited from failed institutions. To help fund
the rescue, the National Credit Union Administration plans to issue $30 billion
to $35 billion in government-guaranteed bonds, backed by the shaky
mortgage-related assets. http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703499604575512254063682236.html?mod=WSJ_hp_mostpop_read
Obama Signs Small Business Bill Into Law President
Barack Obama today signed into law a chain of tax cuts for small businesses
and up to $14 billion in federally funded loans aimed at stimulating job creation, in what's likely to be
the government's last bid to boost the economy before the midterm elections. http://www.aolnews.com/money/article/president-obama-signs-small-business-jobs-act-into-law/19650337?icid=main%7Cmain%7Cdl1%7Csec1_lnk3%7C173638
Obama Approves Billions for Teachers, Cops in Cash-Strapped States
House Passed $26 Billion Aid Package Earlier Tuesday;
Republicans Cry 'Bailout'
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/congress-approves-billions-state-workers-gop-cry-bailout/story?id=11365593
Shadow Elite: The DISCLOSE Act -- Who's
Blindfolding the American Electorate?
Sept 23, 2010, Huffington
Post, Janine
R. Wedel and Linda
Keenan If you think that an
"information era" has ushered in a golden age of transparency, read
on. This is the first in an occasional Shadow Elite series examining how
private actors seize and hoard vital information to serve their own interests,
not the public interest. Is there
anything more toxic to a healthy democracy than special interests buying
elections? Sadly, yes. It's when citizens have no idea who those special
interests even are, and no way to find out. That's where the U.S. stands in
the wake of decisions over the past several years vastly enabling campaign
finance secrecy, the focus of the current congressional fight over a so-called DISCLOSE Act.
The blindfolding of the American electorate is a sign of the
new era of power and influence -- the shadow elite age, as identified in
Janine's book, Shadow Elite. It's an era in which basic questions like
"who funds it?" and "who is responsible?" often lack
straight answers. It's an era of deniability. Far from transparent, the source
of more and more campaign financing is ambiguous or even secret, enabling the funders (and their comrades in the know) to deny
responsibility. Continue at ?.. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/janine-r-wedel/shadow-elite-disclose-act_b_736127.html
Here is The
Times editorial captioned THE
SECRET ELECTION.
Linda McGibney:
We Who Prospered Should Pay Tax http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2010/09/26/sunday/commentaries/main6901949.shtml?tag=dis
Obama presses for longer school year, By
ERICA WERNER , 09.27.10, Forbes/AP,
WASHINGTON -- Barely into the new school year, President Barack Obama
issued a tough-love message to students and teachers on Monday: Their year in
the classroom should be longer, and poorly performing teachers should get out. http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2010/09/27/general-us-obama_7963826.html?boxes=Homepagetopnews
NEW YORK (CBS) Davis Guggenheim, the man who brought forth
the 2006 Oscar-winning documentary an "Inconvenient Truth" with Al
Gore, ignited a debate over his new film, "Waiting for
Superman," which highlights the failures of the country's public school
system. http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-31749_162-20017690-10391698.html
Waiting for Superman Trailer
http://www.waitingforsuperman.com/trailer
Anger as a Private Company
Takes Over Libraries By DAVID STREITFELD September 26, 2010 SANTA CLARITA, Calif. ? A private
company in Maryland has taken over public libraries in ailing cities in
California, Oregon, Tennessee and Texas, growing into the country?s
fifth-largest library system. Continued at ?.. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/27/business/27libraries.html?src=me&ref=general
Check out Connecticut in this
Quarterly Summary of State & Local Tax Revenue The Quarterly Summary of State and Local Government Tax
Revenue provides quarterly estimates of state and local government tax revenue
at a national level, as well as detailed tax revenue data for individual
states. This quarterly survey has been conducted continuously since 1962.
The information contained in this survey is the most current information
available on a nationwide basis for government tax collections. http://www.census.gov/govs/qtax/
Quarterly Tax Information
Sheet [PDF,
182KB] http://www2.census.gov/govs/qtax/information_sheet.pdf
Connecticut School leaders say regional transportation could cut costs By Jacqueline Rabe Local school districts, under pressure
to cut costs as they face of dwindling resources, could save millions of
dollars through regionalized bus transportation, education officials said
Monday. http://ctmirror.org/story/7801/school-leaders-eye-saving-money-school-transportation
News on Senate and
Gubernatorial Debates: The televised
gubernatorial debates: Oct. 5 on Fox61, Oct. 13
on WTNH, Oct. 19 on WFSB, CPTV and WNPR and Oct. 29 on NBC30. The televised
Senate debates: Oct. 4 on Fox61, Oct. 7 on
Cablevision 12 and Oct. 12 on WTNH. http://ctmirror.org/story/7796/lwv-cancels-three-gubernatorial-debates
Lax State Gun Laws Tied to
Crimes in Other States By ERIC LICHTBLAU September 26, 2010WASHINGTON
? Nearly 600 mayors nationwide, led by Mayor Michael R.
Bloomberg of New York and other city leaders, are mounting a new campaign
to identify states with lax gun laws and push for tighter restrictions to
prevent the trafficking of guns used in crimes. A study
due to be released this week by a coalition called Mayors Against Illegal
Guns uses previously unavailable federal
gun data to identify what it says are the states that most often export guns
used in crimes across state lines. It concludes that the 10 worst offenders per
capita, led by Mississippi, West
Virginia and Kentucky,
supplied nearly half the 43,000 guns traced to crime scenes in other states
last year. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/27/us/politics/27guns.html?_r=2&hp
HUD Report Slams Corrupt ACORN As Funding Ban Set To Expire For
...
By Matthew Vadum Sept 25, 2010 The Sept. 21 report from the Department of Housing and Urban Development?s Inspector General found that ACORN Housing,
which changed its name earlier this year to Affordable Housing Centers of
America (AHC), may have concealed fraud by destroying or failing to produce
records. http://biggovernment.com/mvadum/2010/09/24/hud-report-slams-corrupt-acorn-as-funding-ban-set-to-expire-for-undead-group/
Governor Rell
Nominates Four to Superior Court http://www.ct.gov/governorrell/cwp/view.asp?A=3872&Q=466348
Governor Rell:
Proposals to Unfunded Liabilities Panel
Could Save $300M/Year,
Billions Over Time
http://www.ct.gov/governorrell/cwp/view.asp?A=3872&Q=465580
Connecticut State Employee
Labor Contracts
http://www.ct.gov/opm/cwp/view.asp?a=2992&q=383228&opmNav_GID=1792
Marsh on health care: A
personal view The Republican-turned-Independent Party candidate for governor
speaks of having no health insurance just two months before his wife was
diagnosed with breast cancer, giving him an understanding of the pitfalls faced
by people who can't afford insurance http://ctmirror.org/story/7794/tom-marsh-health-care-927
Towns could see less revenue, but from more sources, next year
By Keith M. Phaneuf
With the potential for deep municipal aid cuts looming less than 10
months away, Connecticut
municipalities' longstanding cry for a new alternative to the property tax could
be answered next year at the Capitol. http://ctmirror.org/story/7753/towns-could-see-less-revenue-more-sources-next-year
Foley, Malloy, take different paths to job growth By Keith M. Phaneuf
Gubernatorial candidates Dan
Malloy and Tom
Foley both have visions of robust job growth spearheading a rebounding
Connecticut economy - but that's about where the similarities end. http://ctmirror.org/story/7773/foley-malloy-take-different-path-job-growth
Broke City in Broke
State Blows $578 Million
on Nation's Costliest School http://www.moonbattery.com/archives/2010/08/broke-city-in-b.html
Foley
education plan emphasizes school choice By Robert
A. Frahm
Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom
Foley unveiled a sweeping education
plan Wednesday calling for fundamental changes in the state's public
schools, including a controversial proposal on how to pay for them. http://ctmirror.org/story/7708/foley-education-plan-emphasizes-school-choice
Raters Ignored Proof of Unsafe Loans, Panel Is Told By GRETCHEN
MORGENSON September 26, 2010 NY Times, As the mortgage market grew
frothy in 2006 ? leading to a
housing bubble that nearly brought down the banking system two years later ? ratings agencies charged with assessing risk in mortgage
pools dismissed conclusive evidence that many of the loans were dubious,
according to testimony given last week to the Financial
Crisis Inquiry Commission. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/27/business/27ratings.html?pagewanted=all
Robert Greenstein, Executive Director, Center on Budget and
Policy Priorities, on Census?
2009 Poverty and Health Insurance Data http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3292
For
the Unemployed Over 50, Fears of Never Working Again? http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/20/business/economy/20older.html?scp=1&sq=unemployed%20over%2050&st=cse
Letters:
Out of Work, and Running Out of Hope http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/27/opinion/l27older.html?hpw
U.S.
Tries to Make It Easier to Wiretap the Internet http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/27/us/27wiretap.html?hpw
One
Third Of Americans Can't Get Mortgages http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/09/27/post_532_n_740511.html
Campaign
2010 Get the latest news, photos
and video on the midterm elections from the Washington bureaus of The Wall Street
Journal and Dow Jones Newswires. http://online.wsj.com/public/page/news-politics-campaign.html
The Stagnating Labor Market, The Roosevelt Institute Arjun Jayadev, Mike Konczal, September 19, 2010 http://www.rooseveltinstitute.org/sites/all/files/stagnant_labor_market.pdf
Reasons for Skepticism about Structural Unemployment, Examining
the Demand- Side Evidence Labor, Economic Policy Institute, Sept 22, 2010 http://epi.3cdn.net/c1218e8213c58051e4_tlm6b5tf9.pdf
The
Largest Tax Hikes in History From Ryan Ellis on September 23, 2010 http://www.atr.org/update-days-untilbr-largest-tax-hikes-a5418
SING ALONG.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LO2eh6f5Go0
Welcome to
the Taxpayer's Tab --
the weekly newsletter for up-to-the-minute research from the National Taxpayers
Union Foundation's BillTally
Project. http://action.ntu.org/site/MessageViewer?dlv_id=7381&em_id=3761.0
Newly
Hired Citigroup Banker Could Get Pay Package Worth $30
Million