To the Democratic legislators in Connecticut, “working family” is code for blue-collar folks who perspire on the job and have sworn to vote Democratic for the rest of their days.
There may well be an investment-bank mom and dad in Greenwich who both work 18-hour days, commute long distances, and spend leisure time staring at their Bloomberg news and data, but they are not a “working family” because they have not taken the vote-Democratic pledge.
It’s not that the Democrats want to ease the burden of those who “work.” If that were the case, there would be a special state fund for newspaper columnists.
No, the murky, arbitrary vocabulary that produced a “working family” is designed to paste a great, big target on the butts of the wealthier folks in the state, so that the Democrats can some day fulfill their dream: “tax the millionaires.”
The latest, and one of the more clever, efforts by the Democrats to tax the millionaires was passed during the hideous General Assembly session just completed, when almost any revenue-raising idea had a good chance to see the light of day.
The premise: a “temporary” (ha, ha, ha, ha, ha) sort-of-income-tax surcharge of 8.97 percent on the rich folks’ (i.e., “millionaires”) big bonuses from financial services companies that received federal “bailout” money.
And where would the money go? That was the master stroke. It would be used to make up for the elimination of a $250 nuisance fee that small businesses in Connecticut pay, in return for being allowed to breathe.
It was perfect. Take the money from the rich, greedy, capitalists, who snatch crusts of bread from welfare mothers and toast them with their Cuban cigars. And give the money to mom-and-pop’s general store, because we love them very, very much.
To confirm, in part, why Connecticut voters haven’t elected a Democratic governor since 1986, Gov. M. Jodi Rell vetoed the mess — although she seemed to buy into the “tax the millionaires” undercurrent that the Democrats have manufactured.
Rell just couldn’t help herself. She slapped around the “executives” who received big, fat bonuses from TARP-assisted banks (she was “outraged”), and termed the Democratic nightmare “well-intentioned.”
Her veto was premised on the notion that while the cut in the small-business fee would be a sure thing, the after-the-fact tax on greedy capitalists would be tied up in court in a case that Connecticut might lose. The end result: an even larger deficit than was already anticipated.
That’s an interesting question. The courts are very grumpy about ex-post-factor law on the criminal side, but for a state tax? The issue might be whether the tax is too narrowly drawn — aimed as it is only at a limited number of greedy, evil, wealthy, capitalist thieves.
For governors, especially lame-duck governors who are poised to drive off into the sunset, it is times such as this that they should be philosopher-kings.
What Jodi Rell should have said is that this legislation is being vetoed because, bless their hearts, the wealthy and the prosperous and the upwardly mobile are often tricked into moving to Connecticut — and we want them here. They are a valuable asset in a state that has no oil, no coal, no natural gas, and has no clue how to balance a budget, without levying a personal income tax on 15 rich guys in Fairfield County.
Even as we speak, Rhode Island is congratulating itself for lowering the top personal income tax rate — sort of an “untax the millionaires” economic development strategy. The Democrats voted for it.
Laurence D. Cohen is a freelance writer.
