By Edward D. Dadakis
Sentinel Columnist
Last week the Greenwich Sentinel reported that Gov. Dan Malloy came to Greenwich and told those present that the state is doing better than they think. Say what?! Malloy trying to paint a pretty picture of the state’s fiscal health is simply delusional.
Just months after our governor signed Connecticut’s second largest tax increase ever into law, despite promising repeatedly during the campaign that he wouldn’t raise taxes, he has called the legislature into emergency session to address the collapsing state finances and ballooning deficit. A deficit that was never supposed to be. Is this doing better than citizens think?
This crisis is more clear evidence that the liberal orthodoxy—which Malloy so arrogantly espouses—of significantly higher taxes, spending well beyond inflation (repeatedly violating the state’s constitutional spending cap), and platinum-level benefits paid by the taxpayer for each and every state employee is an abject failure.
Malloy isn’t the only Democrat out of touch with financial reality. Senate Pro Tempore Martin “Looney Tunes” Looney, the top Senate Democrat, said during the spring session, when Malloy’s massive tax hike was looming, that people can pay the additional taxes simply by not using their yachts one weekend. How out of touch.
Now, as the emergency session approaches, Looney is recommending a “mansion tax” on the people of Connecticut (read Greenwich). Perhaps you are not worried because you don’t live in a mansion? Think again. Looney defines a mansion not by its square footage, but by its price tag. The price? In the “Looney Tunes” world, any house valued over $500,000 is a mansion. Don’t let anyone tell you that your 1,400-square-foot prewar house is a bungalow. It’s a mansion.
Beyond any individual tax, it is the attitude of our Democrat elected officials, as evidenced by people like Looney, that should concern all citizens. They are openly disdainful of corporations and people who have achieved any level of financial comfort. In fact, I’ve heard through the grapevine that Jeffrey Immelt of GE is looking to move his company from Connecticut not so much over a specific tax provision, but because of this very attitude, which prevails in Malloy, Blumenthal and Himes, right on down the Democrat line of public officials.
Citizens who actually pay taxes are fleeing the state, yet Democrats are in denial. Who is it that said, “There are none so blind as those that will not see”? Even if the actual number of people is not large, the impact on state revenue is huge.
Recently, someone who should know told me that, a few years ago, ten billionaires lived in Greenwich. Today only two call our town home. The others have moved to more tax friendly states, especially for income and estate taxes. Some of those billionaire departures have been high visibility ones, such as Eddie Lampert’s; others were more low-key. Newspapers reported recently that Paul Tudor Jones purchased a $75 million Palm Beach home (my guess is that house really is a mansion). It strains credulity not to believe that Jones will soon be a resident of Florida, which has no state income or estate tax.
The amount these citizens paid to Connecticut in income tax alone is enormous, and their departure means tens of thousands of new average jobs must be created just to make up the lost revenue. But Democrat policies don’t facilitate such job creation—just the opposite. Their policies suppress job creation.
It’s hard to believe it’s only been a year since voters re-elected Dan Malloy when you look at the mess he has made of state finances. Under Malloy and the Democrats, Connecticut is sharply on the decline. The question is, can it be reversed? And who has the courage to do it? If it isn’t done, will our state become just like Detroit? What a shame.
Edward Dadakis, a lifelong Greenwich resident, has served more then 35 years on the RTM, having been first elected as one of its youngest members. He is a former chairman of the Greenwich Republican Party and currently represents our 36th Senatorial District on the Connecticut Republican State Central Committee.
