Federation of Connecticut Taxpayer Organizations

From: The Federation of Connecticut Taxpayer Organizations
Contact: Susan Kniep, President
Website: http://ctact.org/
Email: fctopresident@aol.com
Telephone: 860-841-8032

Two Excellent Reports by

The Journal Inquirer of Manchester

Connecticut Needs Tax Relief

State loses Front Street lawsuit and could be on hook for millions

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STATE OF CONNECTICUT

DRS: 100 of the Top Delinquent Income Taxpayer Accounts

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Federation Board Member Dr Armand Fusco is Recognized for His Recent Publication

By The Education Action Group Foundation for School Pushouts A Plague of Hopelessness Perpetuated by Zombie Schools
The Federation of - CT Taxpayer Organizations - July, 2012

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The Yankee Institute reports that Legislature violates its own spending rules ��noting �The Auditors of Public Accounts found the Joint Committee on Legislative Management, which is responsible for the financial affairs of the General Assembly, overspent on electricity and pre-purchased postage for the next fiscal year instead of returning leftover money to the state treasury. �In their report, auditors said the committee spends more than it takes in operating the Old State House under a 99-year lease with the city of Hartford.�

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The tests scores for your school or school district can be found here

Within the article Achievement Gap Persists, CTNewsJunkie.com notes that �The results of Connecticut�s high-stakes standardized tests showed the state still has a long way to go in closing the achievement gap. �The statewide results released Thursday showed more higher-income students performing at or above �goal� level than lower-income students in many grades and content areas. �It also showed black and Hispanic elementary school students scored significantly lower than white students in all content areas. �The state has the dubious distinction of having the largest-in-the-nation achievement gap and has taken steps to resolve it. �In May, the General Assembly approved an education package which focuses $100 million on reform efforts aimed at eliminating the achievement gap.�

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The pay increases teachers receive for earning a masters' degree costs districts across Connecticut $239.3 million a year, according to a report released yesterday by the Washington-based Center for American Progress, as reported by CTMirror.org in their article captioned Pay bump for teachers earning masters' costs districts millions.

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Scranton: When Your City Needs to Go Bankrupt

The city literally doesn�t have the money to pay its employees. Two weeks ago, the city�s bank balance dwindled to just $5,000. Now, it�s about $130,000, enough to cover one day�s municipal expenses and not enough to meet payroll. Thanks to a bridge loan from the state, Scranton may soon be able to pay employees in full, but not forever -- the bridge loan only provides enough money to get the city into August. Doherty wants a 78 percent property-tax increase over three years, but the city council won�t give it to him. According to the Guardian, relations between the mayor and the council have deteriorated so much that the former won�t even attend the latter's meetings.Even if the mayor had gotten the tax increase he wanted, that still wouldn�t have been enough to fix the city�s finances. The city of 75,000 faces a $21 million budget gap next year.

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Pension tension & the crime spike - NYPOST.com

The Debt Limit: History and Recent Increases

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Iraq war reconstruction: $6 billion to $8 billion wasted, US official says

According to the report, auditors repeatedly found that the State Department and Defense Department failed to properly review invoices from government contractors, often approving billions of dollars in services without checking if costs were accurate or efficient.

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Visa, MasterCard Settle Historic Price Fixing Case

The credit card giants will be paying about $6 billion to plaintiffs to settle claims that credit cards engaged in price fixing on swipe fees. The settlement also includes an eight-month reduction in swipe fees that represents $1.2 billion in savings for business owners. According to the settlement, merchants will be able to pass along the cost of credit card swipes to customers which Visa and MasterCard did not allow previously.

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Into the Bailout Buzz Saw

IT might seem remarkable that there�s more to say about our late Bailout Age. But there is more � a lot more. Neil Barofsky�s book traces his effort to police the TARP bailout. Nearly four years after Washington began its huge rescues of banks with taxpayer dollars, an important player in this, one of the great financial dramas of all time, is offering a damning account of how the Bush and Obama administrations handled the whole episode. He is Neil Barofsky. Remember him � the man whose job it was to police the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program? And his new account, a book titled �Bailout� (Free Press), to be published on Tuesday, is a must-read. His story is illuminating, if deeply depressing. We tag along with Mr. Barofsky, a former federal prosecutor, as he walks into a political buzz saw as the special inspector general for TARP. Government officials, he says, eagerly served Wall Street interests at the public�s expense, and regulators were captured by the very industry they were supposed to be regulating. He says he was warned about being too aggressive in his work, lest he jeopardize his future career.

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Ask Your State Legislator Running for Election This November, Why You are Paying for his/her Campaign Literature!

Opposing Candidates Should Pledge to Repeal the Law Which Now Allows State Legislators to Spend Over $1 Million of Taxpayer Dollars on Virtual Campaign Literature!

Jon Lender of the Hartford Courant reports on Taxpayer-Funded Legislative Newsletters Hit Mailboxes On Eve Of Campaign� The latest barrage of state legislators' newsletters hit constituents' mailboxes throughout Connecticut in recent weeks � as the General Assembly continues to spend more than $1 million a year in taxpayer funds to send flashy "informational" material that doesn't look all that much different from campaign fliers. In June and earlier this month, all but a few of the 187 state legislators � 36 in the Senate, and 151 in the House of Representatives � sent thousands of district-wide newsletters to voters in their districts. They are allowed to do so under legislative rules, which are made by � who else? � the legislators themselves. Most of the 187 lawmakers are seeking re-election this November. And, because of the notoriously flimsy distinction between these "informational" newsletters and actual campaign fliers, the legislative "Rules On Mailing Privileges" say that to avoid complaints from opposing candidates, incumbents seeking re-election can't send out taxpayer-funded newsletters after July 15. And that deadline, of course, is the reason for the recent rash of newsletters.

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The Day - Millstone wants to keep more nuclear waste on-site ...

Millstone Power Station owner Dominion plans to expand its nuclear waste storage capacity more than sevenfold at the 520-acre site of its three nuclear power plants.Ken Holt, spokesman for Dominion, said the company is seeking to increase the number of dry cask storage units at the site from 19 to 135, enough to hold all the spent nuclear fuel generated by the power plants through the decommissioning of Unit 3, the newest, in 2045.The company already has permission from the Connecticut Siting Council to build an additional 30 of the concrete-and-steel chambers, but it has determined that it would be easier to construct all the dry cask units it will need for all three plants at once rather than incrementally, Holt said.At present, 18 of the 19 casks are filled with spent fuel from Units 2 and 3. The expanded facility would create space for spent fuel from the decommissioned Millstone 1 plant, which is now kept in deep water pools at the site. http://www.theday.com/article/20120704/NWS01/307049960/1018

Time has reported that Japan Probes Alleged Cover-Up at Nuclear Plant ��Japanese authorities are investigating subcontractors on suspicion that they forced workers at the tsunami-hit nuclear plant to underreport the amount of radiation they were exposed to so they could stay on the job longer. Labor officials said Sunday that an investigation had begun over the weekend following media reports of a cover-up at the Fukushima Dai-ichi plant, which suffered multiple meltdowns following the March 2011 earthquake and tsunami disasters. (MORE: Report: Fukushima Nuclear Disaster Was Man-Made)

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BBC News - Tax havens: Super-rich 'hiding' at least $21tn

The figure is equivalent to the size of the US and Japanese economies combined. The Price of Offshore Revisited was written by James Henry, a former chief economist at the consultancy McKinsey, for the Tax Justice Network. Tax expert and UK government adviser John Whiting said he was skeptical that the amount hidden was so large.� Mr Whiting, tax policy director at the Chartered Institute of Taxation, said: "There clearly are some significant amounts hidden away, but if it really is that size what is being done with it all?" Mr Henry said his $21tn is actually a conservative figure and the true scale could be $32tn. A trillion is 1,000 billion. Mr Henry used data from the Bank of International Settlements, International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and national governments. His study deals only with financial wealth deposited in bank and investment accounts, and not other assets such as property and yachts. The report comes amid growing public and political concern about tax avoidance and evasion. Some authorities, including in Germany, have even paid for information on alleged tax evaders stolen from banks.� Read more at http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-18944097

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US Drug War Expands to Africa, a Newer Hub for Cartels WASHINGTON � In a significant expansion of the war on drugs, the United States has begun training an elite unit of counternarcotics police in Ghana and planning similar units in Nigeria and Kenya as part of an effort to combat the Latin American cartels that are increasingly using Africa to smuggle cocaine into Europe. The growing American involvement in Africa follows an earlier escalation of antidrug efforts in Central America, according to documents, Congressional testimony and interviews with a range of officials at the State Department, the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Pentagon. http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/22/world/africa/us-expands-drug-fight-in-africa.html

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Visit the Federation�s Website for Previous Publications

http://ctact.org/

Report Notes that Conn is the worst of all 50 states in its unfunded burden per taxpayer �Concern for crime being committed by those released early, Obama Tosses US Economic Recovery Under the Bus alleges Liz Peek, Dems and Reps Tell Romney to Release Tax Returns,

Shady Overdraft Fees Could Cost Banks Over One Billion Dlrs �United Technologies is on the Move to North Carolina, Check Out State Employee Pensions and More

State Ends Year In The Red, Connecticut is a pension basket case

Stockton, Calif to file for bankruptcy, will be largest US city to fail