If Governor Malloy and legislative Democrats have their way, you’ll be paying higher taxes shortly. You will also be paying for the team being brought in to convince you to like those tax hikes.
As a Connecticut resident, you know that another massive tax increase is headed our way.
Public reaction to this latest round of punitive taxation has been outspoken and critical, and it appears that our Democratic leaders don’t understand what all your fuss is about.
You must not understand how good these higher taxes are for you, so it must be their salesmanship. That’s why House Democrats have now hired an outside consultant to help them spin their awful budget.
Sure, the budget passed on the final day of the legislative session breaks Governor Malloy’s pledge not to raise taxes with a $1.5 billion tax hike, sustains a corporate tax that was supposed to be a temporary measure at 9%, and taxes state hospitals at an effective 37%. And yes, the new unitary tax on corporations has caused giant employers like General Electric, Aetna, Travelers and now IBM to suggest they may leave our state for greener economic pastures.
But the Democrats don’t think that their continued policies of oppressive taxation are damaging the state’s economy. In fact, Senate President Martin Looney called it one of the best budgets he has seen in his 30 years in the General Assembly. The problem, according to them, is you.
All legislative caucuses have communications departments that publicize the work of the legislature. House Democrats have ten communications employees, and five digital media specialists. It must not be enough because the media consulting firm of McDowell Jewett Communications has been retained by the House Democrats to instruct those employees on how to better package great news like job-killing tax hikes. This will initially cost $15,000 of your money.
House Democrats downplayed the retention of the media firm, attributing the hire to a need to periodically evaluate their communications efforts, although no one can remember a legislative caucus ever hiring a firm to do so. We are left to believe that the timing is coincidental.
Immediately demonstrating the value of that $15,000 fee upon being asked by the news media about the arrangement, the retained firm said they were “happy that when the caucus decided to evaluate its communications efforts we got the call.” The temptation of self-promotion overrode the notion of insulating the new clients from embarrassing news – giving Democrats their latest lesson in mismanaging a crisis.
The highly public suggestion that those House Democrat staff members failed to do their job in properly packaging the budget must be a morale-buster for them. In fairness to their dejected ranks, an army of public relations professionals tirelessly working around the clock would probably have limited success in convincing the public or state businesses to embrace what is about to be done to them.
Our state has been navigated into stormy economic waters over the past four years, and this new budget is setting a course directly into a storm. Not only are Democrats picking the pockets of the middle class and working families with their new budget, they are scattering their jobs across America as other states capitalize on Connecticut’s mismanagement, offering new and better homes to our major employers.
Spending another $15,000 on top of the $40.3 billion state budget won’t change that.
The writer, a Republican, represents Shelton in the state legislature.
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