Dear Editors and Voters in the 149th District:
Over the past week, I have attended or viewed two debates between Republican candidate Tina Courpas and Democrat Rachel Khanna, one sponsored by the Round Hill Association and a second by the Greenwich League of Women Voters. My biggest takeaway was this:
Our Democratic incumbent representatives—Khanna, Meskers and Arzeno—demonstrate little knowledge of Connecticut’s fiscal situation, its sources and uses of funds, the budgeting process, the composition of our labor force, or the private sector in general. Perhaps this is not surprising given that 90% of our state’s job growth has been in government, education and health services, sectors that are mostly taxpayer funded—hardly the type of track record these incumbents want to talk about.
Ms. Khanna repeatedly defends her vote for last May’s special “budget stabilization bill”, which allocated the remaining $370 million in Federal American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) funds outside of the formal state budget process. She says she voted for it because these Federal funds were “use or lose”. That last part is accurate, but the $370 million in additional spending should have been offset by spending cuts in other areas. It was a flagrant violation of the bi-partisan fiscal guardrails which Ms. Khanna’s professes to “protect”, and which limit growth in state spending to the higher of either inflation or personal income growth.
There’s also the matter of where Ms. Khanna voted to spend those dollars. She claims they went to local non-profits. Actually, the bulk of the stabilization bill’s funding–$200 million ($160 million now and $40 million in any other ARPA funds identified)—went to cover ongoing operating costs at Connecticut State Colleges and Universities (CSCU) and UConn, where total enrollment is down 20% since 2018.
A proper—and far better—use of ARPA funds would have been paying electric utilities Eversource and United Illuminating $200 million for COVID related customer payment moratoriums. Or just returning ARPA funds to overburdened Connecticut taxpayers, a practice successfully defended in 21 other states.
On top of $370 million in ARPA spending, this year’s budget is already more than $300 million short on contributions to retirement benefits and state-funded Medicaid. According to The Connecticut Mirror, next year’s budget has a billion dollar plus budget hole—actual state spending is tracking $1 billion over “guardrail” spending. Maybe this is why only five of the 53 Republican state representatives supported the budget stabilization bill. If this is Ms. Khanna’s idea of bipartisan fiscal responsibility, the 149th district is in deep trouble.
Our Democrat delegation was not asked about next year’s budget deficit in either debate, and offered no commentary about it. Expect Democrats to try to blow through the fiscal guardrails, or raise taxes, or both next year. The Democrat Senate President has pledged to renew the legislature’s push for a statewide property tax on “expensive homes” this January. Other Democrat-proposed bills would mandate higher marginal tax rates on personal income and corporations, and a capital gains tax surcharge. All of these are bad for the state and our Democratic delegation’s constituents. And are likely to pass if Democrats gain 3 more seats in the State House.
Ms. Khanna and our Democratic representatives also demonstrate little understanding of Connecticut’s balance sheet and our massive debt load. At the LWV debate, Steve Meskers claimed that “we paid down $11 billion of unfunded pension liability”. Wrong. Connecticut has made $7.7 billion of supplemental pension payments since 2017 (inflows), but it also made $13.8 billion in pension payments to retirees over that period (outflows). Even after several years of strong investment returns, our pension assets are still barely half of our liabilities, the 4th worst “funded ratio” of all 50 states. Connecticut still has almost $40 billion in unfunded pension liabilities (and almost $90 billion when retiree healthcare benefits are added). Meanwhile, our pension payments to public retirees are growing over 7% a year and we have the second highest public wages of any state, which means those benefit payments are likely to keep rising.
Tina Courpas knows that maintaining the fiscal guardrails has tangible benefits for regular citizens. It’s like paying down a big credit card bill. As the state’s Comptroller recently pointed out, recent tax cuts were only made possible because, rather than going to interest payments, money had been freed up by “adhering to the guardrails.”
Governor Lamont has also argued AGAINST scaling back the guardrail savings programs. As he said in January: “I think we’ve gone from a state of permanent fiscal crisis to a lot more stability. Because we’ve done this, we’re saving the taxpayers $500-$600 million a year, for the rest of my lifetime. … Tell me what that would have done to our social services if that [excess borrowing] continued.” Again, all of Governor Lamont’s moderate impulses will be powerless against a veto-proof supermajority of Democrats.
Tina Courpas understands the burdens we place on small businesses—high occupational license fees and expensive credentialing, inability to access health insurance pools, high energy costs and high corporate and passthrough entity taxes—and has plans to reduce them. Think about the Courpas signs you have seen at small businesses here in town, which grant express permission to post them—the Cos Cobber, all the Glenville gas stations, the Pemberwick Deli, Connecticut Wine & Liquor, to name but a few. They all know Tina is better for small business.
Tina Courpas also understands that we cannot keep going back to our high earners for more tax dollars, as Democrats in Hartford would have you believe. 20,000 highly mobile tax filers pay 40% of the state’s entire income tax (or 18% of all tax receipts). Real estate conveyance and gift and estate taxes are another $600 million per year, disproportionately borne by high earners. These people can leave the state, and have a big incentive to do so. Connecticut has the second highest state and local tax burden in the country (New York is highest), and that burden has increased faster than any other state over the past 3 years.
My family is voting for Tina Courpas for State Rep in the 149th, and we encourage you to do the same.
Best regards, Virginia Genereux, resident.
