Federation of Connecticut Taxpayer Organizations

This was their time to shine!� An opportunity for 14 municipal leaders, at the invitation of Governor Rell, to propose solutions to the state budget crisis, by offering alternatives to cutting municipal aid.��

Instead of solutions, some gave excuses, with others suggesting more taxes.�� New Haven Mayor DeStefano was reported by CtNewsJunkie to have said �. We don�t have an idea problem. We have a political problem.� DeStefano suggested the group not waste its time on things like amending the state�s binding arbitration laws, because something like that won�t pass the Democrat-controlled General Assembly.� Instead, DeStefano said the state should be helping municipalities by allowing them to raise their own revenue through local option taxes.

According to the Journal Inquirer of Manchester, East Hartford Mayor Melody Currey declared �I�m not going to put my head out and say, �Chop it off.���� She also suggested that the state could help towns by making the real estate conveyance tax permanent.

Both Currey and DeStefano are influential democrats.� Currey had served for 13 years as a state rep.� She had also held the posts of� deputy speaker and deputy majority leader of the House of Representatives.� She was also a member of the Appropriations and Education Committees.�

More importantly, she also serves as the Vice President of Connecticut Conference of Municipalities (CCM), a lobbying group for the majority of the 169 towns within the state.� DeStefano has served as Mayor of New Haven since 1993 and is also a past president of CCM.� �

If we have a political problem, as DeStefano alleges, then DeStefano and Currey are part of the problem.� Together, these two powerful democrats could have provided a solution by bringing the Democrat controlled state legislature together with the membership of CCM and demanded reforms to state Binding Arbitration laws which would give them, the Governor, and the municipal leaders throughout the State the ability to manage their personnel and budgets and in turn control taxes.� They could have supported Governor Rell�s initial calls for reform which included�� Suspend binding arbitration requirements for two years while we confront our economic troubles . Limit mandatory subjects of binding arbitration to salaries and benefits only.��

They would have recognized that the economy is having a deleterious impact on governments throughout the world - Connecticut currently has one of the highest bonded debts in the country and cannot sustain more debt as Moody�s recently downgraded the outlook for Connecticut�s bonds from stable to negative -�� Tax collection rates at the State and in the towns will not be realized as unemployment continues to climb.�

They fail to realize that without reforms to binding arbitration laws their towns could follow Vallejo, California which was driven by union contracts to bankruptcy.� Other factors these municipal leaders are failing to consider is that some union contracts currently include No Layoff clauses and/or wage increases.��

In conclusion, businesses and property owners in Connecticut should not be expected to pay wage increases to public employees while those in the private sector are being forced to take their place in the unemployment line.��

But some elected public officials fear the unions more than they do the taxpayers.

Therefore, with the majority of towns dedicating 85% or more of their local budgets to town and Board of Ed salaries, pensions and healthcare costs, taxpayers in the 169 towns throughout the State should brace themselves for the next tsunami of property tax increases.�

In the next edition of Tax Talk, FCTO will provide you with statistics and information on state revenue and spending.��

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Without political will, Connecticut will sink By Chris Powell, Journal Inquirer,� December 12, 2009

From the state Capitol this week the message rang out loud and clear: Nowhere in state or municipal government can any more money be saved even as the state budget deficit grows by tens of millions of dollars each month and threatens state government with running out of cash next year just as California state government did this year.

First the General Assembly's Appropriations Committee held hearings to parade every hard-luck case in the state in front of the television cameras to plead against any reduction in their assistance. Then the Municipal Mandate Board just appointed by Governor Rell to recommend reductions in state grants to cities and towns voted not to recommend anything. The only municipal official opposing the motion was Vernon Mayor Jason McCoy, who had specified many state mandates whose repeal would reduce municipal expenses.

Just hours previously -- and not noted by Connecticut's news media or those in elective office -- the Bureau of Labor Statistics of the U.S. Labor Department had disclosed that state and local government employee compensation averages 45 percent more than private industry employee compensation. While the BLS did not report data by state, given Connecticut's nearly complete unionization of government workers, their advantage over the people who pay for them may be much greater, especially as private-sector unemployment has risen. As the taxpaying public's income has collapsed, causing the collapse in state government's income, all levels of government in Connecticut are still increasing employee compensation.

A complete disconnect between the government and the people who pay for it has been achieved.

Indeed, it appears that when, next week, at Governor Rell's call, the General Assembly convenes in special session to address the deficit, the leaders of the Democratic majority may either undertake to try to borrow hundreds of millions of dollars for current expenses, thereby destroying the state's bond rating if lenders can even be found, or simply abdicate and adjourn the special session immediately as if nothing can be done except to await financial collapse.

Has anyone in the parade before the Appropriations Committee ever complained to his state legislators about the raises and benefit increases paid to state and local government employees over the last decade as the public's real income has declined?

Has anyone in the parade ever complained to his legislators about the vast unfunded liabilities of the state employee pension system?

Has anyone in the parade ever urged his legislators to review how much more drug criminalization or government-subsidized childbearing outside marriage Connecticut can afford?

Has anyone in the parade ever complained to his congressmen about the essentially infinite cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and the rescues of the bankrupt financial houses that devastated the world economy?

Of course it is not really as if nothing can be done. The question is just whether the political will can be mustered to prevent society from collapsing under the weight of the government. There is a desperate emergency and there can be no more asking the permission of anyone to save the state. All statutory and regulatory impediments to saving money must be repealed or suspended so that the basic functions and humane institutions of government can continue to do what is essential through hard times.

Early this year Governor Rell briefly acknowledged the necessity of suspending binding arbitration of public employee union contracts, though she did nothing to achieve it. The other day the Republican minority in the legislature proposed that state agency budgets should be cut across the board. While this was something, it was thoughtless and ignored the statutory and regulatory changes necessary to saving serious money without doing unnecessary harm.

What state government needs to do is to become a price maker, not a price taker, to do what is being done throughout the private economy, to recognize that this is now a buyer's market, not a seller's market, to start dictating cost cuts to everyone receiving government funds while insisting that they provide the same level of service or be replaced.

The great objective must be to restore a relationship between the public's income and the income of the government, its employees, its vendors, and its dependents, to wrest control of the government from those who vote for a living and give it back to those who work for one.

�A complete disconnect between the government and the people who pay for it has been achieved.�

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Governor M. Jodi Rell today said she is bitterly disappointed that majority Democrats in the Legislature have again failed to take any action to reduce the nearly half a billion dollar deficit in the current state budget.

�There is no recognition of the very real problems the state is facing,� Governor Rell said. �Half-truths and half-measures are not the leadership we need. This lack of action only delays the inevitable day of reckoning. Continued at �. http://www.ct.gov/governorrell/cwp/view.asp?A=3675&Q=452280

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Joblessness is Here to Stay

Short-term prospects may be brightening, but high unemployment will be a fixture for the foreseeable future. You know things are bad when the nation loses 11,000 jobs in November and Americans are overjoyed. Sure, unemployment has come down a meager 0.2 percent to put us at 10 percent, but that's still the worst level in decades. And more important, there's no real end in sight. Even if jobs start to come back sooner than expected�which may happen as more stimulus money starts to kick in�U.S. unemployment is likely to remain high for years to come, as much as 7 or 8 percent even into 2014. "The average American will not be better off in five years�unemployment will remain high and wage growth will continue to be flat," says George Soros, who forecast an "age of wealth destruction" four months before the crisis hit. Continued at �. http://www.newsweek.com/id/226426

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From FCTO Board Member, Bob Green�.. This is unreal to watch. It comes from American Observer, the journalism news at American University. It is a quick little graphic that shows The progression of unemployment change from 2007 through 2009. To me it looks like someone is turning the lights out across America.

The Decline: The Geography of a Recession by LaToya Egwuekwe

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RrP9qJmjIsA

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