Federation of Connecticut Taxpayer Organizations

It is apparent that we have an avid readership by the number of news articles I have been receiving to post in Tax Talk.� Keep them coming.� So that I don�t overwhelm, however, if your news article is not contained within one edition of Tax Talk, look for it in the next.�� Also, for those looking for news outside the main stream turn to the following� http://ctnewsjunkie.com.

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BREAKING NEWS

(Click Pale Blue Headings to Read Article)

FROM CTNEWSJUNKIE.COM

Updated (5:45 p.m.): Rell Vetoes In-State Tutition for Immigrants; Proponents Set Hopes on Next Year

by Christine Stuart | June 26, 2007 3:50 PM
Posted to State Capitol �Governor M. Jodi Rell has vetoed a bill that would have allowed children of undocumented workers in Connecticut to pay in-state tuition at state colleges and universities.

Senate Passes Budget, Fails To Stop Gas Tax Hike

by Christine Stuart | June 25, 2007 4:44 PM
Posted to State Capitol

After patting themselves on the back and talking about what they did and didn�t include in the budget, the Senate passed the two-year $36 billion spending plan with a 33 to 1 vote on Monday.

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FROM WASHINGTONPOST.COM

(Click Pale Blue Headings to Read Article)

CIA Releases Documents Detailing 1970s Scandal

Archive includes assassination plots, secret drug testing and wiretapping and spying on Americans.� By William Branigin, �6:36 p.m ET, June 26, 2007 Washingtonpost.com

� Papers Reveal CIA, Mafia Link in Castro Plot

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Immigration Debate Resumes

Senate votes to revive bill that would offer a path to citizenship to millions of illegal immigrants.� Jonathan Weisman, �1:32 p.m. ET, June 26, 2007, Washingtonpost.com

� Guest-Worker Program That Does Well by Migrants

� The Recruiter: Labor Across the Border

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US Congress Votes Database

Includes all Votes in Congress Since 1991

http://projects.washingtonpost.com/congress/

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A sincere thank you to Tom Durso, FCTO Treasurer, for alerting us to the following article from the Wall Street Journal By Kimberley A. Strassel
Friday, June 22, 2007 12:01 a.m. EDT

Pork Project
An earmark lesson for Washington from the states: shame.

It was about a week ago that House Democrats ran up the white flag on earmarks and begrudgingly agreed to live by their campaign pledges to make pork requests public. It was also about a week ago that Texas Gov. Rick Perry signed a sweeping new state transparency law, which will give his taxpayers detailed information about every state expenditure, grant and contract. Mark the difference. http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists/kstrasselpw/?id=110010244

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FINANCIAL SETTLEMENTS

http://www.lawyersandsettlements.com/settlements_category.html?category=Financial

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The Public Trough Is Bigger Than Ever
By John Stossel
Wednesday, May 9, 2007

Bill Clinton once declared, "The era of big government is over." Both Republicans and Democrats applauded.

What a joke. Government grew under Clinton, and grew even faster under his successor. Government is so big today that more than half the population gets a major part of its income from the state.

So says a study by economist Gary Shilling. Shilling, a Springfield, N.J., consultant and forecaster, says the portion of Americans feeding substantially at the public trough stands at 52.6 percent. In 2000, it was 49.4. It seems unbelievable that in 1950, only 28.3 percent of Americans lived off the taxpayers. Shilling projects 60 percent by 2040.

One out of five Americans works for some level of government or for a firm that depends on taxpayer financing. One in five also draws Social Security or a federal pension. That number will grow as the baby boomers move on to Social Security, which, let's not forget, is a transfer program.

Among other recipients of largess: Nine million are on food stamps, 2 million received housing subsidies, and 5 million go to school on the federal taxpayer. In Shilling's reckoning, dependents of recipients are also part of the group he calls "government beneficiaries."

Wasn't the welfare system reformed in 1996? On the surface, yes. Cash payments are available only for a limited time and recipients are expected to work eventually. Millions of women once on welfare have gone to work. But the idea that the taxpayer has gotten a break or that overall dependency has decreased is a myth. As the AP reported: "The welfare state is bigger than ever despite a decade of policies designed to wean poor people from public aid. The number of families receiving cash benefits from welfare has plummeted since the government imposed time limits on the payments a decade ago. But other programs for the poor -- including Medicaid, food stamps and disability benefits -- are bursting with new enrollees. The result ... is that nearly one in six persons rely on some form of public assistance, a larger share than at any time since the government started measuring two decades ago."

The handouts go to the well off, too. Farm programs and corporate subsidies benefit big farmers and big business, and wealthy people draw large Medicare benefits. The Cato Institute says there are nearly 1,700 federal subsidy programs spending hundreds of billions of dollars a year.

According to Michael Tanner's "Leviathan on the Right", federal domestic spending under President Bush has risen 27 percent in real terms, while discretionary non-entitlement spending has gone up 4.5 percent a year. (Clinton's annual increase was "only" to 2.1 percent.)

Who'd have thought that a Republican president would challenge Lyndon Johnson's spending record?

Government is "that great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everyone else," wrote Frederic Bastiat, the great laissez-faire economist of Nineteenth-Century France. Of course, everyone cannot live at the expense of everyone else, but people who understand nothing about economics try, egged on by politicians looking for an election-wining coalition.

Government has no wealth of its own. Before it gives anything to anyone, it must take from those who produced it. But the taking could discourage future production, leaving less to be distributed by the politicians. Productive Americans have forged ahead despite a constellation of transfer programs, but how long will they continue to do so?

The European welfare states are learning that producers don't leave themselves available for milking forever. Their economies are sluggish, and unemployment is high. Government promises exceed resources, and citizens who were guaranteed lifelong security find their benefits shrinking.

Yet this doesn't deter our champions of big government. Even the coming Social Security and Medicare train wrecks don't faze them. So don't expect government to stop growing. The Washington Post reports ominously: "In the four months since the midterm elections, the number of new lobbyist registrations has nearly doubled to 2,232 from 1,222 in the comparable period a year earlier."

The lobbyists go where the money and the power is.

Thomas Jefferson said, "The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground."

John Stossel is an award-winning news correspondent and author of Myths, Lies, and Downright Stupidity: Get Out the Shovel--Why Everything You Know is Wrong

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Our Thanks to FCTO Supporter Linda, for her welcomed message:

MAY YOUR TROUBLES BE LESS, YOUR BLESSINGS MORE,

AND NOTHING BUT HAPPINESS COME THROUGH YOUR DOOR,

HAVE A GREAT DAY!!!!