From:
Susan Kniep,
President
The Federation of Connecticut Taxpayer Organizations, Inc.
Website: ctact.org
email: fctopresident@ctact.org
860-524-6501
December 20, 2004
Best Wishes for a New Year of
Good Fiscal Health
for
our Towns and State!
Let’s Hope Santa’s Sleigh is Filled with Binding Arbitration Reform, Prevailing Wage
Reform, and the Elimination of Unfunded Mandates!
WELCOME TO THE 41st EDITION OF
TAX TALK
Your update on what
others are thinking, doing, and planning.
Send your comments or questions to me, at fctopresident@ctact.org and I will include in next week’s publication.
Review previous Tax Talk issues on our
website at http://www.ctact.org/
**********
TODAY’S NEWS: A brief summary is offered below. FCTO encourages you to read the entire news
articles at the websites referenced.
Legacy Of Pals
On The Payroll
Many Rowland Appointees Remain
December 20, 2004
By JON LENDER, Hartford Courant Staff Writer
Hartford Courant - Gov. M. Jodi Rell's first public
spat with a legislative leader erupted last week over an unexpected issue:
Senate President Pro Tem Donald E. Williams Jr. complained that Rell had not sufficiently purged her administration of the
taint of John G. Rowland, and he urged her to demand resignations from all of
her predecessor's commissioners. Please find a continuation of this article at
the following website: http://www.ctnow.com/news/local/hc-rell1220.artdec20,1,5000293.story?coll=hc-headlines-local
********
Budget Survey Is
A Warning To State
National Group Calls Connecticut's
Fiscal Health Precarious
Hartford Courant
December 17, 2004
By DAVID LIGHTMAN And CHRISTOPHER KEATING, Courant Staff
Writers
WASHINGTON -- While the economy is boosting most states' fiscal
pictures, Connecticut's budget health
is precarious, a national survey of the states reported Thursday.
The 2004 Fiscal Survey of the States found that Connecticut's year-end budget
balance is well below what's considered adequate to withstand an economic
downturn or runaway spending. Please find a continuation of this article at the
following website: http://www.ctnow.com/hc-states1217.artdec17,0,751693.story
Please refer
to the following website for further information on this subject: http://www.nga.org/nga/newsRoom/1,1169,C_PRESS_RELEASE^D_7688,00.html
********
This is a must read. Could we get a law similar to this passed in Connecticut to keep track of our public officials violating FOI? A special thank you to Bob
Young of Wethersfield for forwarding this article.
State finds town clerk violated records act
-
Complaint dropped, but state to monitor Piscataway
worker
STAR-LEDGER, by Rosa Cirianni
Wednesday,
December 15, 2004
The state Government Records Council found that the Piscataway Township clerk violated
the state's Open Public Records Act, but dismissed a complaint against her with
conditions attached. Ann Nolan will be
placed on the state records council's so-called matrix, which allows the
five-member, governor-appointed panel to periodically check for repeat
offenders. She is the second public official to be put on the list, which is
still being compiled. Please find a continuation of this article at the
following website: http://www.nj.com/search/index.ssf?/base/news-4/1103095098132340.xml?starledger?nmx
********
For those who did not see this program, the issue is
taxpayers paying for this trip and corporations financing perks as they hope to
land government contracts.
Homeland Conference Circuit Hits Hawaii - Despite Homeland Budget Woes, Summit
Offers Fun in the Sun
ABC News Original Report Seen on 20/20, By Brian Ross and
Rhonda Schwartz
Dec. 17, 2004 — At the same time agents of
the budget-strapped Department of Homeland Security worried about being able to
afford gas for government cars, top department officials, including outgoing DHS Secretary Tom Ridge, could be found
basking in the warm Hawaiian sun for a meeting they said was essential
government business. While officials reported a continuing freeze on hiring new
agents and a halt to non-essential spending in a chilly Washington, D.C.,
buffet lines, lavish luaus, and a short walk to the beach awaited top officials
at a sumptuous resort and spa on Waikiki Beach in Honolulu, on the island of
Oahu. Please find a continuation of this article at the following website: http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=340420&page=1
********
Donna McCalla, CTJodi146@aol.com
Hebron Dollars and Sense
Towns That Went to Referendum This Year
December 14, 2004
A sincere thank you
to Donna McCalla who offered the following to Tim
White’s inquiry in the 40th Edition of Tax Talk. You may wish to
access the website referenced.
Hi, Tim. My name is Donna McCalla,
with Hebron Dollars and
Sense. You can download the information (which is still accurate,
although dated October 2004) from http://www.opm.state.ct.us/igp/acir/budgadop.htm. Make sure you look at the tables toward the end of
the document.
As you can see, 62 municipalities went to referendum, and
with multiple referenda, there have been a total of 112 referenda to date for
FY 2004-05. Two municipalities, Watertown and Winsted (Winchester) have still not
passed a budget. As a matter of fact, Winsted V went down just last week
by a huge margin.
Hope that answers your question. Let me know; I
track all municipal budget processes every year, and can add you to my blind
list. Many subscribe to it, including finance directors in some of the towns.
********
A special thank you
to Bob Young. The outcome of this case will be precedent
setting in eminent domain cases and can affect each one of us and our property
rights.
Robert Young, ryoung0@snet.net
Wethersfield Taxpayers
Association
Subject:
Arguments Set In New London Case
NEW LONDON --
Associated Press – Dec 17, 2004 - The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments on
Feb. 22 in a New London eminent domain case that could clarify when governments
may seize people's property for economic development projects.
Twenty-five groups with assorted political views have filed briefs in support
of the Fort Trumbull residents who are
resisting the city's effort to take their houses to make way for offices and a
hotel that will strengthen the city's tax base.
Please find a continuation of this article at the following
website: http://www.ctnow.com/news/local/hc-apdomain1217.artdec17,0,5687954.story
********
Again, another
excellent editorial in the Waterbury Republican by Tom Durso
who made reference to FCTO. Thank you Tom.
Tom Durso, TDurso8217@aol.com
Watertown Taxpayers
Association
Subject:
Economic Advice to CT from Toyota?
December 16, 2004
Toyota will build at
least one new plant in North America and it's a
safe bet it won't be in Connecticut. Japan's number one automaker operates eleven
plants with two more under construction in Texas and Tennessee according
to Dan Sieger, Toyota's Manager of Media
Relations who told me Toyota looks for "business-friendly"
states in which to invest and is now considering sites for its
hybrid Prius factory. At least ten state
governors are courting Toyota for the thousands
of high-end jobs and millions in tax revenue such a plant would bring. Sieger wouldn't name the states in the running but
considering the fact that automakers have been closing plants in Massachusetts, New York and New Jersey for more
efficient southern locales, high-cost Connecticut is probably not a
serious contender. Where did we go wrong?
Stephen Moore , director of fiscal
policy studies at the Cato Institute in the December 1997 issue of The American
Spectator asked "Is the Northeast Necessary?". Moore
wrote: "While the rest of America chooses freedom
and prosperity, from Washington D.C. to Maine we see blight,
depression, and chronic leftism
that would do Western Europe proud. The surprise is that the (national) Republican Party hasn't written off this
dying region once and for all". But is there a need
to write off a region which seems intent on
committing economic and political suicide? The Republican Party,
often labeled the "Stupid Party needlessly concedes
the public policy war of ideas to liberal Democrats and a few
Republican turncoats. Toyota's Sieger added that "energy supplies figure heavily in
plant location". So why would Toyota or any other big
manufacturer risk moving to Connecticut where the
attorney general, both U.S. senators and the
legislative leadership worship at the enviro-altar
at the expense of the state's much needed energy
production and delivery?
Notwithstanding an apparent
death wish, there remains a living Republican Party in Connecticut.
The GOP did hold three of the state's five
House seats and did elect former governor John Rowland three
times since 1994. CATO's Moore explains " There is a free lunch quality to the sentiments of
contemporary northeastern voters. They gripe about over-taxation but they're
quick to condemn any effort at even modest budget restraint and join with the
media, unions, and poverty industry in invoking visions of the
apocalypse." Conditions are naturally worse now, but in 1997
when Moore wrote his TAS piece, he cited the fact that governments in New
England are already nearly one-third more expensive than the rest of
America---$3226 versus $2483 per resident. In Connecticut, the after-tax
value of all welfare benefits exceeded a
$12-per-hour, 40-hour-a-week job and labor costs are about 30
percent above the national average. In the April 8, 2004 Wall Street
Journal, Washington's Tax Foundation calculated that Connecticut extracts
10.6 percent of taxpayers' earnings, based on income, property and other
state and local tax collections ranking us number
nine behind first place New York, which gobbles up 12.9 percent
of its producers' income. The Pacific Research Institute's
"U.S. Economic Freedom
Index", using five categories -fiscal, regulatory, judicial, government
size and welfare- ranks Connecticut third to last
behind California and New York . Moore noted "Of
the nation's twenty-two right-to-work states, not one is Northeastern. Other
than taxes, this may be the single greatest impediment to the region's economic
competitiveness. A Southern governor told (Moore) that his state
closed its economic development offices in Europe. 'Why search for
factories overseas when we can plunder high tax areas like Connecticut?' Toyota can read.
Governor Rell is still somewhat of
a mystery as to her views on taxation and growth and more ominously she lacks
any strong record of fighting the forces of centralization which infect
state government.The emerging taxpayers group
movement is a direct result of the state Republican Party abdicating its
traditional role as defender of individual liberty, limited government and
the marketplace of goods and ideas. The GOP's only hope for meaningful
survival would be to emulate the blazing electoral successes of free
market, pro-growth Republicans such as Watertown's Rep. Sean
Williams, R-68, who has handily won two elections against well-funded
Democrats. The idea of low taxes, less intrusive government ,
market competition and choice, sell. Just as Ronald Reagan
sold his ideas of tax cuts and economic freedom directly to the
people in 1981, completely by-passing a liberal-Democratic Congress, Rep.
Williams and any other economic savvy legislators can elevate
and win the statewide war of ideas. Dan Gerstein, Sen. Lieberman's
former communications director, writing in the November 11,2004
WSJ, advised his party that "to break out of our stale
political grooves...means declaring our independence from the sclerotic
influence of progress-blocking interest groups like the teachers unions."
The Connecticut Republican Party
may appear comatose but by taking a hint from Toyota
and reaching out to the Federation of Connecticut Taxpayers
Organizations (http://www.ctact.org/) and its vast local not-so-silent majority such as our Watertown-Oakville
Taxpayers Association (WOTA) and Thomaston's Taxpayer Advocacy
Group, (TTAG), the GOP can do a Lazarus and come roaring back.
Thomas P. Durso,
Former VP Waterbury Regional Chamber of Commerce
Writes on business and economics from Watertown CT