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June 5, 2016
Connecticut Ranked As State With Worst Fiscal Status Second Only To Puerto Rico
Click the heading and read every word!!!
From: The Federation of Connecticut
Taxpayer Organizations
Contact: Susan Kniep, President
Website: http://ctact.org/
Email: fctopresident@aol.com
Telephone: 860-841-8032
THE STATE OF OUR STATE IS NOT
SO STATELY!!!!
While Connecticut continues to Drown in $71 Billion Dollars of Debt
and Anticipated Billion Dollar Deficits, Governor Malloy has Bestowed a $52
Million Dollar Taxpayer Funded Economic Assistance Package on the Worlds
Largest Hedge Fund - Bridgewater Associates - which includes $22 Million
Dollars which is Nearly Equivalent to the $20 Million Dollars Malloy Just Cut
in Municipal Aid to CT Cities and Towns as
CT towns say they are not prepared for last minute cut to
state aid
And we might add neither are CT homeowners or businesses who could
see a jump in their property taxes, as
According to a recent study by WalletHub, Connecticut has the sixth highest
real estate property taxes in the country and the fourth highest vehicle
property taxes.
Check out WalletHub for the full report.
And those taxes could climb even higher as we learned within
the past 24 hours from CTMirror.org that: While Connecticut municipalities
decried a last-minute cut in state assistance Friday, Gov. Dannel
P. Malloys administration defended the legality of
his line-item veto targeting local aid. Both the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities and
the Council of Small Towns balked at the governors
decision to reduce municipal aid for the fiscal year beginning July 1 by $20
million below the level legislators had approved. Continue Reading →
But State Republicans and one
State Official
State Comptroller Kevin Lembo said NO to the State giving $22 Million to Bridgewater Associates
COMPTROLLER LEMBO SAYS "NEW ECONOMIC REALITY" WARRANTS
VOTE AGAINST $22 MILLION IN STATE MONEY FOR HEDGE FUND, URGES SHIFT IN ECONOMIC
STRATEGY TO BENEFIT ALL CT BUSINESSES
May 27,
2016 Comptroller Kevin Lembo, at today's state Bond
Commission meeting, voted against providing $22 million in state bond funding
to Bridgewater Associates, a Connecticut hedge fund that manages more
than $130 billion in global investments.
-- read more
And Terry Cowgill in his OP-ED | Lembo
Wisely Draws The Line On Crony Capitalism gets it absolutely right when he writes the following: The
news last week provoked an uneasy mixture of disgust and resignation. Only
weeks after the General Assembly passed a budget that included layoffs of state
employees and cuts in services, the state Bond Commission approved $22 million in
loans and grants for the worlds largest hedge fund
whose chief is ranked ninth on the Forbes 2016 list of hedge fund managers. The
news made a lot of good people left and right feel
sick. In light of the parsimony at the Capitol, my colleague Sarah Darer
Littman called the corporate aid package a stunning display of let-them-eat-cakery. From the right, a scathing editorial in the RepublicanAmerican thundered against such crony capitalism:
If buying jobs is the basis for a state economic strategy, the state is
fundamentally uncompetitive.Continue reading "OP-ED | Lembo Wisely Draws The Line On
Crony Capitalism"
And as more news surfaces on the budget we can see a clear path to more
deficits in the future as
Only
half of planned state layoffs ordered as key deadline nears and
as
COMPTROLLER
LEMBO REPORTS NO CHANGE FROM LAST MONTH WITH $259.1-MILLION DEFICIT PROJECTION
And as noted within
the State of Connecticut latest
[PDF]Fiscal Accountability Report - Connecticut General
Assembly
STATE DEFICITS TOTALED
$6.6 BILLION DOLLARS
Budget Outlook in Millions
|
|
Connecticut Budget Deficits
for Fiscal Years 2016 through Fiscal Year 2020
|
|
|
FY 2016
|
FY 2017
|
FY 2018
|
FY 2019
|
FY 2020
|
|
Estimated Expenditures
|
$18,199.3
|
$18,863.8
|
$20,253.7
|
$20,939.5
|
$21,840.2
|
|
Estimated Revenue
|
17,944.9
|
18,311.8
|
18,530.9
|
19,066.6
|
19,628.7
|
|
Surplus/(Deficit)
|
($254.4)
|
($552.0)
|
($1,722.8)
|
($1,872.9)
|
($2,211.5)
|
**************
Two weeks ago we learned from Reuters that Two
ratings agencies downgraded Connecticuts debt saying severe
economic and budgetary problems had left the state ill positioned to weather a
future national economic downturn.
Although Governor Malloy led the Bond Commission to approve $22 Million
in Bonding for Bridgewater,
State Comptroller Lembo said NO while PEW reports
just how deep in debt we are.
Pew
report: CT deep in debt, even considering its high income
Connecticut
slapped with double debt downgrade - StreetInsider.com
Connecticut
Update: No Billionaire Left Behind (blog - Mary Pat Campbell / Stump)
****************
And as CTNewsJunkie.com reports
Malloy
Vetoes 6 Bills, Parts of Budget
Over the past few weeks, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy
has signed 124 bills and vetoed six. He also used his constitutional authority
Thursday to veto $22.5 million from the $19.76 billion state budget. On
Tuesday, he vetoed a bill that would have expanded the analysis state agencies
would have to prepare before adopting regulations that affect small businesses.
The bill had passed both the House and the Senate unanimously. On Thursday, the
first of two vetoes was a bill that would have expanded the power the Auditors
of Public Accounts had over executive branch agencies and would have required
agencies and quasi-public agencies to tell a legislative committee why they
failed to notify the auditors of any lost funds or resources in a timely manner. Continue
reading "Malloy Vetoes 6 Bills, Parts of Budget"
More
news for mercatus, connecticut worst
The most recent DEBT figures as highlighted in the States latest
[PDF]Fiscal Accountability Report - Connecticut General
Assembly
Reflect the following
STATE DEBT
$71 BILLION DOLLARS
The majority of the states debt is due to lucrative pension and
healthcare benefits promised by legally binding union contracts to state
retirees as noted below in red.
And Taxpayers Are Forced to Pay the Bill!!!!
As CTMirror.org reports Report: CT 4th worst in unfunded pension liabilities
per teacher, here are some of the top pensions
being paid.
|
MONTHLY BENEFIT $$$
|
ANNUAL BENEFIT $$$$
|
|
28,657.66
|
343,891.92
|
|
17,455.84
|
209,470.08
|
|
17,117.85
|
205,414.20
|
|
15,754.93
|
189,059.16
|
|
15,584.88
|
187,018.56
|
|
15,539.97
|
186,479.64
|
|
15,048.22
|
180,578.64
|
|
14,914.03
|
178,968.36
|
|
14,711.45
|
176,537.40
|
|
14,670.66
|
176,047.92
|
The credit rating agency, Moodys, recently
noted that the state continues to struggle with:
But Connecticut
did not tumble over
the fiscal cliff over night.
It was years in the making as State debt continued to climb as state
officials pandered to lobbyists looking to get a deal for their clients and
state labor unions were protected by two of the most destructive laws on the
books
BINDING ARBITRATION
COLLECTIVE BARGAINING
We will explore this further in our next publication.