Here is the text of an open letter NFIB sent to the governor and legislative leaders:
As members of the state Leadership Council of the National Federation of Business (NFIB), which represents the thousands of small businesses that form the backbone of Connecticut’s economy, we would like to commend you and your members for taking seriously the urgent fiscal and economic problems that threaten our future. Despite our occasional differences, we admire your dedication to public service and the often thankless and difficult work that it requires.
 On behalf of our members we would like you to know that our jobs are just as difficult. The first responsibility of citizenship is self-sufficiency. As small business men and women we struggle every day to keep our business alive because the jobs they provide support our families, our children, our employees, our customers and clients and our communities. We are directly invested in the future of Connecticut in ways that many others are not.
Unlike our friends in the corporate sector, our business relationships are as much personal as professional. We know the names of every one of our employees. We know their spouses and their children. We do business with our friends and neighbors, and when they suffer in life or at work, we suffer right along with them.
It is for these reasons that we would like to express our deep concerns over the budget introduced recently by Governor Malloy. We know that it represents his best effort, and for that we are grateful. But he made that effort without our help and we think that’s regrettable because, with all due respect, we believe that we have the kind of practical experience and knowledge that is so often lacking in public policy.
The governor’s budget proposes to raise taxes by nearly $3 billion in the next two years. It makes no provision to sunset the tax increases even when the fiscal emergency passes. It would impose the increases on wage earners, consumers, taxpayers and employers who already pay among the highest taxes in the country. And it would do so at the very moment that our immediate neighbors in New England, New York and New Jersey are moving in the opposite direction.
You should consider that very carefully. Employers and consumers have options. Money is mobile. Technology disperses capital and makes physical location less important. Until recently the distance between Connecticut and North Carolina, Florida or Texas may not have been enough to discourage a full-fledged exodus, although there is abundant research to show that Connecticut has been losing taxpayers and businesses to other regions of the country. Now, however, the competition is no farther than a short car ride.
The budget on which you will begin work shortly doesn’t merely falter against the competition. It pretends that there is no competition at all. This, we believe, is extremely dangerous.
Please know that we do not assume easy solutions to our problems. There is no doubt that whatever you produce will impose widespread and painful sacrifices. We would like you to recognize, however, that your decision this year will make the difference between temporary sacrifice and long-term decline.
Connecticut cannot survive as the regional leader in high taxes, aggressive regulations and unrealistic public employee benefits. We hope that you will recognize this crisis as an opportunity to rethink the relationship between the people of Connecticut and their government. Indeed, the government exists at our expense. Every dollar it takes away is a dollar not invested or spent in the shops and factories and restaurants and offices on which every government ultimately depends.
Please consider us not as political adversaries, but as partners in the work in which you are now engaged. We have as much to lose or gain in the outcome as anyone in Hartford, and we want to be part of the solution.
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Respectfully,
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Rick Willard, chair; GWS Health Services LLC, Wethersfield
Mark Bernacki, vice-chair; Sir Speedy Printing, New Britain
Kevin Maloney, Northeast Express Transportation Inc., Windsor Locks
Ted Hsu, Horizon Services Co., East Hartford
Joanne Milburn, RJM Systems, Inc., Southbury
Dan Fisher, A&D Home Health Solutions Inc., Newington
Peter Rossato, Sunbelt Business Advisors of Hartford, Avon
Denise Kelly, Equipment Maintenance Inc., Meriden
Bud Fay, X-Media Group LLC, New London
Fran Delaney, West State Mechanical Inc., Torrington
Pat Caruso, Associated Refuse Haulers Monroe
Mike Paine, Paine’s Inc., East Granby
Nicholas Fanelli, Raynard & Peirce Inc., Canaan
