From:
Susan Kniep, President
The Federation of Connecticut Taxpayer Organizations, Inc.
Website: ctact.org
860-528-0323
December 2, 2003
WELCOME TO THE SEVENTEENTH EDITION OF
TAX TALK
Your weekly update on what others are
thinking, doing, and planning
Send your comments or questions to me, and
I will include in next week's publication.
Please note that TAX TALK is now on
our Website
There are two issues I would like to bring to your attention and ask for
your feeback on.
FCTO Statewide Meetings
I would like to finalize within the next two weeks a 2004 calendar for FCTO
monthly meetings to be scheduled throughout the state. If you would be
willing to host a meeting in your area, please select a month, date and
time. Email to me the information and together we will set the
Agenda. I am also continuing to schedule radio and TV shows
promoting FCTO. A sincere thank you to
those who have helped to coordinate these shows. The results have
been very positive. In fact, I received a tape of the recent cable show I
had done with State Rep Dave Labriola. It is a
half hour segment which reflects on many state issues and expounds upon
FCTO. If you would like to show the tape in your area, please contact
me. Otherwise, I would appreciate your assistance in scheduling either a
radio or cable show in your area.
Prevailing Wage and Binding Arbitration
Two State mandates which are draining both State and municipal budgets are
Prevailing Wage and Binding Arbitration. I will soon be posting on
our website the responses we are receiving to our Resolution on Binding
Arbitration. FCTO has been asked to join with several groups concerned
for the issue of Prevailing Wage in asking the State to empanel a Blue Ribbon
Commission to study this issue. I have established a Prevailing Wage
bullet on our website and will be providing further information on this
issue. These are two issues which I would like to address during
our monthly statewide meetings. Please provide me with your
feedback on the issue of Prevailing Wage. I will post within the next Tax
Talk.
Susan Kniep, President, FCTO
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Jay Halpern,alicorn@adelphia.net
Oxford Taxpayers Association
Subj: Municipal Corruption
Date: November 20, 2003
Back in '98, the personal attorney of Oxford's P&Z Commission chairman
represented Arena Capital in their efforts to put a power plant in
Oxford. State law requires that under such circumstances the chairman (or
any commission member) must recuse himself from the
final vote, but it was a tie and he voted to approve the plant. When this
issue was raised at the Siting Council and DEP, it
was acknowledged but disregarded. Note that the taxpayer will subsidize
the purchase of town land because 20 acres was sold to a $300 million project
for about $150,000. Arena Capital, now subsumed under Towantic Energy and - lo and behold! - Calpine,
Inc, has already asked the state to subsidize an
access road to their site under the guise of developing Oxford's industrial
zone. Under the recently-elected administration, the Republican town
committee chairman that was intimately involved in the
sweetheart deal was elected First Selectman. Arena Capital's
attorney is going to be Town Attorney. He is also now the personal
attorney for the P&Z vice-chairman. What are the ethical implications
and responsibilities regarding the Calpine project,
which proceeds apace, and other P&Z considerations? How can ex parte discussions protected under attorney-client privilege
be prevented?
Once again, the divisive issue of building our own high school has been used
against the town. We have bent and spread and ready to wince, as the Old
Guard pirates attack our wallets with renewed vigor. The
first time, shame on them. Yes, the second time, shame on
us. But if the local improprieties encountered in this debacle had to
have been judicially resolved before any of the permitting procedures could
have gone forward, we wouldn't be facing further rape. It's imperative, IMHO, that the legislature allow citizens to put
the brakes on local projects that stink of local corruption. The fact
that licensing agencies are free to disregard such symptoms of corruption only
rewards the scoundrels who coopt
our resources and laugh at us afterwards. Jay Halpern,
Oxford
**********************************************************
Tom Durso, TDurso8217
Waterville Taxpayers Association
Subject: Connecticut's
Road to Serfdom
November 20, 2003
Op-Ed by Tom Durso which appeared in the Waterbury Republican:
Connecticut's
Road to Serfdom
"Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Hartford will sell the Abbey
of Regina Laudis in Bethlehem,all of
its rural churches, schools,and other real
estate holdings in Litchfield County and invest the proceeds in the
'distressed areas' of Hartford, New Britain and
Waterbury ." You'll never read a news
story like that before the Second Coming, but that is the
flavor of the Archdiocese' and its
co-planners' recipe, as presented during a
recent UCONN Law School Gallivan
Conference titled "Tax and Grow". It seems to our
socialistic friends that too many of us are
escaping the urban liberal plantations and taking refuge in the state's
smaller municipalities, the land of budget referendums and lower
property taxes. A few years ago the state legislature passed
Special Act 02-13, "An Act Concerning a
Blue Ribbon Commission on Property Tax Burdens and Smart Growth
Incentives" . The purpose of the Commission's report , issued in October 2003, is to
"encourage debate on the fiscal and land-use public policy challenges
facing Connecticut.
The recommendations will undoubtedly require a significant
, and in many cases controversial (my emphasis) , redistribution of
state and local taxes." Contributors to the Report
include the Church, the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities, the
Ct. Council of Small Towns, the CBIA, the Ct. AFL-CIO and various
local elected leaders and land-use authorities. Their point is that
only the legislature and other state-level
"experts" know the wise and proper use of local taxpayers'
land and money. The Commission's Cassandra-like "Problem
Statement" warns "We are well on our way to becoming wall to wall
suburb... the central urban core has become increasingly distressed...small
municipalities may no longer be able to independently compete on the
necessary state, national and global scale...how do we reduce
socio-economic inequality ... how do we keep livable communities?" Prozac anyone? The terms federalism or
home-rule were never mentioned during the Gallivan
meeting; no taxpayers groups were included as members of the "Blue Ribbon
Commission"; and not a syllable was
uttered about Connecticut's elephantine government
supported by strangling taxes . The thrust of the
gab-fest was the collectivization of our local taxes and
land-use policy. One came away with the impression that Connecticut's deep-thinking
public policy makers persist in
their denial of economic and political reality as the Southern
states continue to gain relative economic and political power. The meeting's
menu was sprinkled with terms such as "living wage", "affordable
housing" and "regionalization".
One goal which really caught my ear was the need to "
reduce competition for tax base" among the municipalities.
What a strange idea since investors usually choose the best deal when deciding
in which town or city to move or build a
business. Our communal leaders would rather reduce all of Connecticut to the lowest common demoninator so as to eliminate the need for municipalities
to stay trim and lure commerce. The principle of
federalism is for competing states or towns to
be "laboratories of democracy" where new ideas are tried and the best
ones prevail. Even former Soviet nations and China are learning
the benefits of lean government and competition to find out who is
best. "Americans favor local governance as efficient providers of
the most important public services ; plus, local governments promote
democratic ideals since citizens are much more able to influence change locally
than at the state or federal level" writes The Urban Institute's David Brunori in his book Local Tax Policy: A Federalist
Perspective. Our "Blue Ribbon" panel would rather see
"Berlin Walls" erected around Connecticut's troubled inner
cities in a hopeless effort to prevent progressive families
and investors from pursuing their interests.
If Connecticut's
state Republican Party is ever resuscitated to
the point of actually effecting any substantial change in the
legislature, there awaits a golden opportunity for the liberation of
the state's productive sector. In concert with the burgeoning taxpayer
movement led by Susan Kniep of the Federation of
Connecticut Taxpayer Organizations (FCTO) , the
GOP could easily win the hearts and minds of Democrats and Republicans who
fear the abridgment of freedom and the economic future of Connecticut. Why
can't the Republicans proclaim that market
economics and low taxes is the best medicine to fight poverty? Are they
biologically capable of acknowledging that
minimum wage laws dry up entry level jobs for the poor? Will the
CT-GOP mutter the fact that only the private sector can generate real jobs and that "living wage laws" are a
sham since workers are paid according to their productivity; we get nothing for
nothing since the fall of Adam. There is a ray of hope
for the state's taxpayers however. Before the municipal
elections, Watertown's
GOP Town Council leadership spoke of convening a meeting with Northwest Connecticut's
municipal chief executives to form a united front
against state mandates which are usurping local control of our finances.
Further, newly minted State Representative
Sean Williams , R-68, who ran on a pro-taxpayer platform, has vowed
to lobby his colleagues to return the power of spending and taxing
to us locals who know our needs best. Also, during a break in the Gallivan conference, the Watertown-Oakville Taxpayers
Association's Jack Walton, Rep. Williams and myself spoke with Mr.
Fred V. Carstensen,Director
of UCONN's Connecticut Center for Economic Analysis,
where the loquacious Mr. Carstensen agreed that
municipalities should retain ultimate control of their finances. I would
suggest the GOP add the power of citizen initiative and referendum
(I&R) to their legislative platform in 2004.
Recently Secretary of State Susan Bysciewicz
(D) was tickled to announce that some polls indicated the people
would, if enabled, recall Governor Rowland (R) because of the deficit, as
they did with Gray Davis (D) in California. Ms. Bysciewicz was silent, however, on what voters would
do with her or Connecticut's career tax-
and -spend legislators if we had the power of
I&R and enacted term limits as voters did in 23 other states including
California.
Economist and Nobel laureate Friedrich Hayek's book "The Road
to Serfdom" warns
of the dangers of central economic planning . He wrote
" Prosperity depends on tapping vast amounts of information about what
people want and how best to supply it. The information is dispersed among
millions of people and is constantly changing, which dooms central planning to
failure." He added that central
planning necessarily requires increasing government coercion "as officials
gain power and decide what work people must do; which kinds of cars, pens,
apples, and everything else must be produced and who should get
them." If Dr. Hayek were alive today he'd probably be warning us
about the Blue Ribbon Commission's plans
for control of our local tax money and real estate.
The Archdiocese of Hartford's Office of Urban Affairs
created the CenterEdge Coalition, chaired by the Most
Reverend Peter Rosazza ,to promote public education about Connecticut's economic disparities
and land-use issues in accord with the Blue Ribbon Commission .
Bishop Rosazza's boss Pope John Paul II wrote an
encyclical ,Centesimus Annus (1991), which states "the welfare state has so
many malfunctions and defects that it threatens both economic and civil
freedom." The pope promoted the "subsidiarity
principle" which means if individuals, neighborhoods ,
churches and local communities can
care for the poor ,central government should not intervene. This particular
pontiff knows whereof he speaks when it comes to tyranny. As a young
Polish seminarian and priest in the 1930's and 40's he fought National
Socialism (Nazism) and in the early 1980's as pope he
helped a young Gdansk, Poland shipyard Solidarity union electrician
named Lech Walesa stand
down the Soviet-Russian bear which, with the help of Ronald Reagan and
Margaret Thatcher, led to the collapse of The Evil
Empire. Tyranny of course is a
matter of degree and Connecticut
is not Poland
of the Nazi or Communist era. However if
voter/taxpayers forget the story of the frog in the gradually
boiling water and the GOP continues to cede the battle of ideas to the
central planners ,we may someday be looking for our own "Lech Walesa"
. Thomas P. Durso
Member, Watertown Town Council Finance sub-committee 1997-99.
Member, Watertown
Police Commission, GOP Town
Committee VP Greater Waterbury
Chamber of Commerce ,1984-85. Advises national employers on payroll
tax issues
************************************************************
Susan Kniep, katzrus50e@aol.com
East Hartford Taxpayers Association
Subj: Rowland Cottage Subject of Subpoenas
Date: Dec 1, 2003
As the Feds continue their investigation into corruption in Connecticut, the
most recent revelation can be found on our website, ctact.org, under Hall of
Shame. The following is an excerpt of that article....
Federal investigators have contacted several contractors who renovated Gov.
John G. Rowland's Litchfield cottage - and at least three of them have been
subpoenaed to appear before a grand jury to answer questions about what they
did at the lakeside home, how much they were paid, and by whom.
The moves by the FBI and federal prosecutors are the first public indication
that U.S. authorities are focusing on a matter involving the governor
personally - in this case, work done directly for Rowland on his private
vacation residence. Refer to website, ctact.org, Hall of Shame for
continuation of article....