Connecticut – a state that has done everything the Minnesota DFL wants to do to the Minnesota economy, but put it on a turbocharger – is about to pay the proverbial piper; Aetna Insurance is pondering leaving Connecticut and its confiscatory taxes behind.
Governor Malloy, after an entire administration spent pilfering the coffers of Connecticut businesses and entrepreneurs to benefit his stakeholders, is wondering what all the moving trucks are for, and he’s oh, so sorry:
“As a huge Connecticut employer and a pillar of the insurance industry, it must be infuriating to feel like you must fight your home state policymakers who seem blind to the future,” Mr. Malloy wrote in a May 15 letter to Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini. “The lack of respect afforded Aetna as an important and innovative economic engine of Connecticut bewilders me.”
Now he tells us. Gov. Malloy has spent two terms treating business as a bottomless well of cash to redistribute to public unions. Now that his state is losing millionaires and businesses, he has seen the light. But the price of his dereliction will be steep.
Sound like any other governors and minority caucuses in state that this blog is written in that you can think of?
Last month the state Office of Fiscal Analysis reduced its two-year revenue forecast by $1.46 billion. Since January the agency has downgraded income-tax revenue for 2017 and 2018 by $1.1 billion (6%). Sales- and corporate-tax revenue are projected to fall by $385 million (9%) and $67 million (7%), respectively, this year. Pension contributions, which have doubled since 2010, will increase by a third over the next two years. The result: a $5.1 billion deficit and three recent credit downgrades.
Minnesota’s current tax climate is survivable by Fortune 1000 companies – for a while (small business is another story). But Connecticut shows us that even big-business inertia has its limits.
(By the way – the DFL jabbers a lot about the “meltdown in North Dakota” and “Wisconsin’s disaster”. What are the respective unemployment rates as of this week?
Oh, my. Earlier this year, amid the “oil industry melteown, North Dakota was a full point lower than Minnesota, and Wisconsin pulled even. Today, North Dakota’s rate (driven by more exploration, thanks to the impending impact of the Dakota Access Pipeline) is 1.1% lower than Minnesota’s. And Wisconsin, which Minnesota’s DFL and media (ptr) have been calling a “disaster” for six year? It was tied at the end of last year; it’s a half a point lower today.
Look waaaaaay down the list to find “high tax, high-service” Connecticut.
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