From: Susan Kniep, President
The Federation of Connecticut Taxpayer Organizations, Inc. (FCTO)
Website: http://ctact.org/
email: fctopresident@aol.com
860-841-8032
June 20, 2008
"It does not take
a majority to prevail... but rather an irate, tireless minority,
keen on setting brushfires of freedom in the minds of
men." -Samuel Adams
Welcome to
Tax Talk 117
Again, thank you
to all who contribute to Tax Talk. Please continue to keep
FCTO informed of what is transpiring in your town, the state and
nationally on issues you feel others would like to be informed
of. You can send to fctopresident@aol.com
Items of Interest
in Tax Talk 117
- Saturday, June 21, at 1 PM Join Susette Kelo in New London for the
Ribbon Cutting Ceremony of the Little Pink House
- Tab for state employees rising - Nearly one-third of the $18.41 billion
state budget will be spent on state workers, retirees, and their families
- Congratulations to Avon and West Hartford
Taxpayers Associations for Defeating their Towns’ Budgets
- Decline Of Journalism By Thomas D. Williams
- Dodd Proposes Bailout for Lenders
- Don Patterson of Vernon writes - Too
Many, Or Too Few In The Legislature?
- The 545
People Responsible For All Of U.S. Woes
- The Union Police
- Bear Stearns’ Indictments
*********************
Tomorrow Join Susette Kelo
and the Institute of Justice in New
London for the Ribbon Cutting Ceremony of the Little
Pink House!
Saturday, June 21, 1pm
- 3pm
36 Franklin
Street, New
London, CT
Join Susette Kelo,
her Fort Trumbull neighbors and the Institute for Justice at a ribbon-cutting
ceremony at the new location of the little pink house that started it all.
Remarks at 1:30pm by Susette, IJ
Senior Attorneys Scott Bullock and Dana Berliner, and community members
involved in the heroic fight to stop eminent domain abuse not only in New London, but also
across the country.
*********************
Tab
for state employees rising By Keith M. Phaneuf ,
Journal Inquirer
Published: Wednesday, June 11, 2008
12:11 PM EDT
HARTFORD — As state
lawmakers meet today in special session to address surging gasoline prices,
they are tackling one of the most pressing election-year issue.
But when it comes to finances, the 800-pound gorilla that remains largely
unnoticed in the room is the nearly $6 billion in next year’s budget dedicated
to state employee salaries and fringe benefits. Nearly
one-third of that $18.41 billion plan will be spent on state workers, retirees,
and their families — and on the statewide teachers pension plan — providing
benefits many legislators argue far exceed those offered in the private sector. Continued …. http://www.journalinquirer.com/articles/2008/06/11/connecticut/doc484ff8f1c34fa020518071.txt
*********************
CONGRATULATIONS TO
THE WEST HARTFORD
TAXPAYERS ASSOCIATION AND
THE AVON
TAXPAYERS ASSOCIATION
FOR SUCCESSFULLY DEFEATING THEIR TOWNS’
BUDGETS!
West Hartford Residents Defeat Budget Plan At Referendum
June 18, 2008
WEST HARTFORD — - Residents Tuesday soundly defeated the
town council-approved $215.9 million budget for 2008-09 in a referendum forced
by the local taxpayers' group. The
tally, according to town officials, was 7,037 to 3,711, a turnout of 29.02
percent of the town's voters. The West
Hartford Taxpayers Association said the
budget was too much for homeowners.
Continued… http://www.courant.com/community/news/hfd/hc-whdref0618.artjun18,0,6003165.story
*********************
AVON Budget defeated during second referendum
By: Brian Woodman Jr., Staff Writer 06/11/2008
AVON - Local electors voted against the town of Avon's proposed 2008-09
budget plan for the second time this year. The estimated $70.7 million
proposal, which would have yielded a 4.5 percent tax increase, was defeated
during a referendum on June 4. The latest version of the plan was voted down by
1,905-1,355. This was the town's second budget referendum this year. The
previous $71.5 version of the plan, which would have created a 5.75 tax
increase, was defeated during the first referendum on May 14 by a 2,005-1,458
vote. The original proposal, which marked a planned 7.45 percent increase over
current spending, would have yielded a $298 increase in taxes. The second
version represented a 6.36 percent increase over current spending and would
have yielded a $233 increase in taxes. The town will hold its next budget referendum
on June 25. If it is not approved by voters, it will go to before the Town
Council for final approval. Continued … http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=19765271&BRD=1666&PAG=461&dept_id=553673&rfi=6
*********************
Decline
Of Journalism
By Thomas D. Williams
The Public Record
Saturday, May 31, 2008
If some doomsday industry analysts are to be believed,
newspapers are laid out and stacked neatly inside their own future death
warehouses, not only in the United States, but worldwide.
"October (2006) was a pretty depressing month for national newspapers.
While circulations slide, the industry news has been dominated by job cuts and
staff unrest, particularly among journalists," England's Guardian Unlimited
reported a month later. A month earlier, Der Spiegel,
the intellectual German news magazine, disclosed that more and more, German
journalists are leaving the print media to get safer and more lucrative jobs
with corporate public relations agencies.
Continued at the following hyperlink:
http://pubrecord.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=79:decline-of-journalism&catid=8:commentary&Itemid=11
*********************
Angelo's Angel
June 19, 2008; Page A14
Wall Street Journal
Give
Senator Christopher Dodd credit for nerve. On Tuesday, the very day he finally admitted knowing that
Countrywide Financial regarded him as a "special" customer,
the Connecticut
Democrat also announced that he was bringing to the Senate floor a housing
bailout sure to help lenders like Countrywide.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121383295591086669.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
CLICK TO READ OPEN SECRETS AND DODD’S FUNDRAISING - In 2007, Dodd brought in a total of $16.5
million, placing him behind four of his opponents. He raised $2.9 million of
that in the three months before resigning from the race. As chair of the Senate
Banking Committee, he has strong ties to the banking, insurance and financial
services industries, which are likely to continue to benefit him in the Senate
· http://www.opensecrets.org/pres08/summary.php?id=N00000581&cycle=2008
· http://www.opensecrets.org/politicians/summary.php?cid=n00000581
*****************
Too Many, Or Too Few In The
Legislature?
June 15, 2008 http://www.courant.com/news/opinion/letters/hc-letbox0615.artjun15,0,2100877.story
It was startling to read that 58 legislators in the 187-seat
General Assembly are running unopposed in November's election [ Connecticut section, June 3,
"More
State Races
Unopposed"]. It appears there are more seats in the legislature than there
are legislators to fill them. Although Connecticut ranks 29th
in population, it is eighth in the number of state legislative seats. It is time to downsize the legislature, as
private corporations are doing. This would require amending the state
constitution, but it could be done. If
we reduced the Senate to two per county - as the U.S. Senate has two senators
per state - and the state House to one representative per 50,000 residents, the
General Assembly would be reduced from 187 members to just 86. Because each
legislator receives a $28,000 yearly salary plus an additional few thousand in
personal expenses, a savings of about $3 million could be reached by the
overhaul. Donald R. Patterson, Vernon
*********************
The
545 People Responsible For All Of U.S. Woes One hundred
senators, 435 congressmen, one president and nine Supreme Court justices - 545
human beings out of the 235 million - are directly, legally, morally and
individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.
*********************
Unions
keep losing membership as a share of the national workforce, which explains why
organized labor's main political focus is changing the rules to force more
workers into unions. Witness a bill that Senate Democrats are pushing this week
to require that hundreds of thousands of local police and firemen submit to
collective bargaining.
Under
current law, every state has the ability to set policies that govern its public
workforce. In some states, police, firefighters and paramedics belong to unions
that collectively bargain for their contracts. In others, unions representing
public-security workers can bargain over pay, but not over benefits or work
rules. And in some others, these workers can choose not to belong to a union.
Democrats
want to change this for the entire country. A bill that passed the House last
year would make the top officials at local unions the exclusive bargaining
agents for public safety officers in every town or city with more than 5,000
people. They would also have the authority to bargain for everything -- pay,
benefits and work rules. The goal is to give labor the whip hand with local
governments, and further coerce nonunion members to join the dues-paying ranks.
Sixteen
states have considered legislation like this since 1996 and voted it down. The
bill, pushed hardest by the International Association of Fire Fighters, would
impose it nationwide, superceding all of these state
laws. This arguably violates the Constitution's 10th Amendment, which leaves to
the states any powers not specifically given to the federal government -- which
presumably includes a state's labor relations. It would also conflict with
constitutions in states like Michigan,
raising the threat of protracted legal disputes.
As
"unfunded" federal mandates go, this is also a doozy.
Unions that organize private companies are at least subject to market
competition. If they make their employers uncompetitive, the union workers lose
their jobs. Public unions have far more clout because there is no competition
for government services; they are by law a monopoly. This is especially true of
police and firefighters, who can do great harm to public safety if they strike.
Unionization gives them enormous clout that drives up costs and eventually the
tax burden.
Even
Democrats admit this, which is why the bill includes a strike ban. But such
prohibitions have never worked. Union officials call strikes anyway, then negotiate amnesty as a condition of ending the
work-stoppage. This is what happened in 2005 when New York transit workers broke the law by
going on strike and shutting down the city. They paid no price and still got
their raise.
The
bill's mandates would also complicate the task of post-9/11 public security.
Federal emergency plans rely on the cooperation of local
"first-responders," who need the flexibility to adapt to local
problems and circumstances. Work rules negotiated according to national union
standards make no sense when the safety needs of New York
City are so much different than those in Fargo.
Local
officials nationwide are fighting the bill, and the Bush Administration has
promised a veto. But the House passed it 314-97, and it may be veto proof. That
leaves the Senate, where the bill has 11 Republican co-sponsors, most of whom
are up for re-election this fall. Oregon's
Gordon Smith and Minnesota's
Norm Coleman seem to believe that the unions will go easier on them in November
if they throw them this concession. Right. If Republicans can't even oppose monopoly unionization, who needs
Republicans?
*********************
Bear Stearns
Indictments
The FBI on Thursday indicted two former hedge fund managers
at Bear Stearns on charges that they concealed problems that eventually led to
the collapse of the funds. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91714927