JournalInquirer.com

Foul play abounds in testing economic times
CT@Work
Published: Thursday, July 30, 2009 12:08 PM EDT
Leo Canty

When David Ortiz ("Big Papi") smacks the ball in Fenway Park, it’s usually easy to tell whether it’s fair or foul. On the rare occasion when a ball kisses the line or flies high over the Pesky Pole, the umpire makes the call and the game moves on. If only everything was as easy as baseball.For instance, how would an umpire call some of the plays in these economic times?

Anthem is looking to dramatically raise its rates, forcing working families to pay 20 percent to 30 percent or more to have the same coverage — or less — than they have now. Older members may have to pony up an additional 50 percent or more for premiums. Attorney General Richard Blumenthal and others suspect Anthem may be looking for ways to price those who need and use health care out of the plan. Anthem’s 2008 profits totaled $225 million and it appears they’re swinging away to increase their bottom line for ’09.

The ump says, “Over the line.

”Wannabe business and industry umpires often cry foul whenever minimum-wage increases are proposed. Last week the federal base rose to $7.25 an hour. Connecticut’s minimum wage is $8 an hour, or $16,640 a year. That amounts to about $750 more per year than 2007. In East Hartford, a typical single wage-earner needs more than $20,000 a year to live a simple life. So you put in your time and work your eight hours a day, 40 a week. Oh, and forget about paid time off and benefits — there’s no such thing. For thousands of workers in this income bracket the reward is a paycheck that can’t pay the bills, living-wage initiatives notwithstanding. That low-wage economy is growing faster than we ship jobs off shore. So who benefits from a low-wage workforce? Ask Wal-Mart and its shareholders. They had $13.4 billion in profits last year.

That’s foul.

Pratt and Whitney is talking about layoffs, and rumors abound about relocating its headquarters. The pursuit of profit is paramount, so business practices such as axing workers, shipping jobs to Singapore, cutting benefits, and the like are fair play in the eyes of corporate giants. Owners, operators, and shareholders are first in line for distribution of the wealth.Workers, their families, our cities and towns, and the government that shelled out corporate welfare to subsidize the industry are left with the scraps — if there are any. Poor Pratt: It posted a first- and second-quarter profit that was down $903 million from the $1 billion profit over the same period last year.

It’s just not “fair.”

The disparity between the haves and have-nots is as easy to see as a Josh Beckett strikeout. And there are a lot more people living closer to the down side of this economy — pushed there by those who have the most and want more. Too many people need public services to support themselves. Now they are left with little else. The game now is not about how we can help, but if we should help, and who should pay in a fair way?

Connecticut’s wage earners with the best batting average — the 80,000 families earning more than $1 million a year — chip in about a third of the state income taxes collected. The remaining 1.2 million households pay the rest. Not fair, cry the wealthy umps and their defenders. But take a closer look: Those in the low-income bracket have a 12-percent commitment of their paychecks to help pay for state and local services. The top-tier earners effectively contribute 4.5 percent. Oh, and high-income families are not being chased out of their health-care plan, struggling to pay the rent, or worrying about their job heading to Singapore. In perspective, progressive tax proposals are all softball pitches.

The calls revolving around people’s lives and the economy may not be as easy to make as baseball’s but, with so much at stake, we shouldn’t be playing games with them.

Leo Canty is executive secretary of the Connecticut AFL-CIO and chairman of the board of the Connecticut Health Foundation. He lives in Windsor.

JournalInquirer.com

Taking the time to care
CT@Work
By Leo Canty

Published: Thursday, July 23, 2009 12:07 PM EDT

Over the course of almost everyone’s life there are role reversals. The first 20 or so years mom and dad take care of you. The next two decades you are mom or dad. Then you take care of mom and dad, and finally you’re the mom or dad needing care. Mixed in there are the job, staycations, sports, milestones, and a lot of schedule juggling. Families need time to be families, and all too often that time — especially when it’s time needed for care — competes with the work schedule.

It would be great if our lives were mapped out so emergency kid-care is only needed after 5 p.m. Or ER visits and subsequent rehab would only require weekend duty. In the idyllic world, no care commitment would take more than a few hours and wouldn’t disrupt the sleep cycle or work schedule. Right ….

Rearing children, helping mom and dad transition from active to retired lives, or caring for someone with a debilitating illness can be a 24/7 energy-draining commitment. It’s in our nature, culture, and being to be predisposed to put loved ones first, above all else. It’s a priority issue for most everyone. Polls suggest it’s so important that workers would trade pay for more work-time flexibility, so they would have the time for family care. That said, one would think the structure around the rest of our world would be more family friendly. But it’s not. Time is money, and time away impacts the business bottom line.

Even though family care is a priority for the workforce, employers have a natural resistance to accommodating a caring schedule.Some of that resistance was tempered 16 years ago as Congress passed the Family Medical Leave Act. Sen. Chris Dodd led the charge to make sure employers guaranteed time off so family members could care for loved ones. While FMLA allows up to 12 weeks off in a 12-month period, there is significant noncompliance and resistance. And that is leave without pay. Few can afford to take it.

In a report issued by the University of California-Berkeley Labor Center, titled “Family-Friendly Workplaces: Do Unions Make A Difference?” authors Jenifer MacGillvary and Nesty Firestein concluded that nearly half of covered establishments ignore one or more FMLA provisions, including the maternity-leave provision. In addition, not all workers are aware of or understand time-off rights. Adding to the strain: Unpaid leaves, even for those who take them, can severely impact family cash flow. As a nation, our collective desire for family care doesn’t quite match up with the necessity to care.

That study also looks at the family-friendly workplace and asks if there is a difference between union and nonunion environments. Not surprisingly, there is: A unionized workplace dramatically helps working families.The report concludes that unions increase compliance with FMLA, ensure paid sick leave for employees and their children, provide for flexibility in schedules, and have more families covered by health insurance — by big margins. For instance, companies with any unionized employees are 1.7 times more likely to comply with FMLA than nonunion companies. Almost half of unionized hourly workers have access to paid leave, versus 29 percent of those without union representation. The report can be found at http://laborcenter.berkeley.edu/.

Unfortunately, gains in improving family-friendly workplaces take effort, since most employers tend not to simply hand that kind of benefit over, even though it’s the right thing to do. Union members, like everyone else, put a high priority for family time and have worked hard to assure it.But tough economic times and fewer union contracts are taking a toll on family leaves. One can only hope that when it’s our turn to be on the receiving side of the care, someone is there. It would be tragic if the time to care is put in reverse.

JournalInquirer.com
Going to the well once too often
CT@Work
By Leo Canty

Published: Thursday, July 16, 2009 12:08 PM EDT
You don’t know the value of water ’til the well is dry. So goes the lament in an old English proverb. Back then, when wells went dry it wasn’t because folks went out of their way to empty them — and then scramble to find a fix for the lack of water. For our state, or at least those in charge of emptying the wells of public services, the pumps are working hard to pump the water out, then pump it back in. Quite the plan.
Reports about the impact state employee retirements are having on the delivery of services are common of late. College faculty leave, class sizes go up, it takes five or more years to get a four-year degree. Vo-tech school teachers have left in droves and the scramble is on to shuffle classes and teachers to fill the void. Not good news for kids looking to build future careers in skilled trades.
More than 3,800 state employees left as of July 1 — the governor’s idea for pumping out inefficiency. It was more than expected and a surprise to many. While DOT, social services, revenue services, public health, and other agencies are scrambling from the impact of retirement incentives, as their well of talent and production evaporates, some are cheering the emptier offices and equating this workforce reduction to a shrinking of government.But some who actually understand the importance of government and public services realize that sending people out the door, especially when they have necessary, coveted skills and talents, will create more problems than it solves.
Some reductions do produce short-term savings, but the long-term negative impact can be huge. When government lacks the person-power and institutional knowledge to get the job done, it’s a recipe for disaster.
Now the champions of business and industry may cheer on the destruction of state services. But they’re not the ones out in eastern Connecticut who need LifeStar, or the parents of children in need, or the middle-class family that found out the hard way how little help there is in a bad economy. They don’t juggle jobs and scarce classes at community college while losing ground. They aren’t the ones kicked out of the “competitive” health plan with nowhere to go. To them, the service structure is not necessary.
Blogger Thomas Hooker, from CT Local Politics, recently published some research on public service staffing levels and posted these conclusions: According to data in the U.S. Census Bureau’s Statistical Abstract of the United States, Connecticut employed 62,000 full-time equivalent employees in 2006, the latest year for which it listed data. That translated into 17.8 state employees per 1,000 population. The figure ranks Connecticut not tops in the nation, but 23rd.Similar numbers show municipalities are also less staffed than most states, meaning either we are more efficient or actually dropping the ball when it comes to real service delivery for people in need — even more when service needs are greater.
If we keep reducing staff, Connecticut government should come with a warning: Don’t fail — there’s little to back you up!
Both Govs. John Rowland and Jodi Rell got a splash for the symbolic acts of reducing government by emptying out our shallow well. But then to avoid an even bigger splash of negativity, if delivery systems failed: Roads went unplowed, criminals hit the streets again, parks closed, both governors pumped the staff back in.It’s no surprise to those on the front line that this was necessary. They know the political sham of headline-grabbing reductions followed by quiet refills is an easy trick.
Reduce and refill. It’s a bad plan, but one that has helped build polling numbers for the last two governors. The former governor went to jail, ending his cycle. We need to stop the cycle again. And not by emptying the well. People’s lives are at stake.

Leo Canty is executive secretary of the Connecticut AFL-CIO and chairman of the board of the Connecticut Health Foundation. He lives in Windsor.

Journal Inquirer.com
Calling for time out
CT@Work
By Leo Canty
Published: Thursday, July 9, 2009 12:07 PM EDT

When it comes to time off, there are those cynics who say that a rainy day of fishing is better than a sunny day at work. So if their fishing “stay-cation” was scheduled for the last couple of weeks they should be happy. Non-fishing fans went back to work, to enjoy good commuting weather and hope the schedule might work out better next year. Of course, weather doesn’t matter at all for the 1-in-4 workers who have no paid vacations whatsoever — their “stay-cations” were on the job.It’s a curious thing that vacation rules across America and the rest of the world vary so much.
Americans are truly fortunate to have a robust economy (well, except for now) that provides handsome riches and comforts in trade for one’s hard work. Our free-market drives the standard for wages and benefits; if we work really hard, get the production going, make a lot of money for the company, then we share the success and reap the rewards, right? There is, in theory, a payoff for effort — you put in your 40 or 60 hours a week, then are “rewarded” for doing your work.
That’s the theory. It’s not always the reality.There is another free-market paradigm: “faster, harder and longer — for less.” In recent years the paid time off for the American workforce has actually diminished. Could this be related to the increases in profits, shareholder returns, and CEO compensation? After all, the free market seeks the most work for the least cost, and paid time off hampers profits, especially for the over-class to which we supposedly all aspire.
But, oh, curse those socialist countries! You know the paradigm-flipping ones I’m talking about, like France. The slouches in the workforce there put in 35 hours a week. Their silly labor laws mandate 30 paid vacation days. Some union contracts and competitive employers even add on another few weeks. Add to that paid holidays, sick time, and personal time. No wonder French workers’ productivity is lower than ours. Except when they are at work.French companies, shareholders, and corporate executives make so much less than American ones. It’s a darn shame when the wage gap gets reduced like that.And there’s Italy, Germany, Austria, Spain. These countries are so living in the past — like the 13th- and 14th-century workforces that spent well under 200 days a year at work.Our more modern American standard is 260-280 days. And, just to make sure people can spend even more time on the job, U.S. labor laws have no — non, nein — compulsory vacation days. We’re proud to be the only industrialized nation that does not impose paid vacation time or holidays … along with no national health care plan — a subject for another discussion.
But wait a minute. There is a movement afoot that could push us into the realm of socialistic slackerism. Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) has introduced legislation that would mandate a week of paid vacation every year, but only for employers with more than 100 workers on the payroll. Grayson was inspired on a recent trip to Disney, where he saw all these people not working and having fun. The congressman erroneously equates family R&R time with stress reduction and good health, both of which are productivity boosters.If Grayson’s idea finds its legs, millions of workers would be forced out of work for five days and be paid to stay home or do things they don’t get the chance to do while working — like hang out with the family or fish on rainy days.
The protests, however, are loud. Corporations recognize the lost opportunity to keep people working. Disrupting work schedules, they say, could add more stress to already overstressed lives. The free market will tumble and the world as we know it will end if vacations become universal and mandatory.The proposal, though, has a growing and dangerous supporting movement — renegade Internet groups like right2vacation.org are cropping up, pushing for this un-American initiative. Their polls say that 69 percent of Americans would like a week’s paid vacation, and the largest percentage of poll respondents actually want three weeks off.
Hmmm … a three-week vacation could mean that if it rains for two weeks, the non-fishing American worker might get to enjoy nice weather for one. Time out! We don’t want that to happen … do we?

Leo Canty is executive secretary of the Connecticut AFL-CIO and chairman of the board of the Connecticut Health Foundation. He lives in Windsor.

Journal Inquirer.com
Posted July 2, 2009
You Kidding Me?
CT@Work
By Leo Canty

Here’s a surprise. Gov. Jodi Rell, guardian of Connecticut’s wealthy, Big Insurance and Big Business, and Michael Moore, the irreverent, left-leaning filmmaker, have something in common: their love of CEOs.
Stay with me on this one. Moore is in the final spin stages for his yet untitled new movie to be released October 2, at a theater near you. Last month Moore greeted unsuspecting big-screen viewers in a handful of cinemas asking for donations to help “Save our CEOs.” “The downturn in the economy has hurt many people. People who have had no choice but to go on government assistance, yet our welfare agencies can only do so much,” Moore pleaded. “That’s why I’m asking you to lend a hand. Won’t you please give generously? Now, I know what you’re thinking, ‘I already gave at the bailout’, and I know you did. But even if you’ve given in the past, give some more. It’ll make you feel . . . good.”
Our feel-good governor wants to help CEOs too. As Connecticut struggles in difficult economic times, she’s on the small screens, making appeals not to raise taxes. After all, Rell reasons, revenues from income and corporate taxes are down., “and people are losing their jobs and struggling to make ends meet.”

These passionate pleas for mercy are directed at the legislature to be kind to people like Ramani Ayer who will be out of work after December 31, 2009. His $9 million job as Chief Executive Officer at The Hartford Insurance Company will end then and his hard earned $36.2 million nest egg could be at risk.

Mr. Ayer is a victim of the economic downturn. His net worth, a few million less today, poor soul, has declined with the value of The Hartford’s stock – of which he was in charge. His 2007 pay was $23 million. Imagine dropping to only $9 million a year. Will the suffering never end? No wonder Rell is loathe to raise taxes on these poor, unfortunate CEOs. After all, they’re suffering hits just like the rest of us struggling to pay our bills, send our kids to college or pay for prescription drugs we need to survive into old age.
Ayer, like so many CEOs, deserves our sympathy and help. The Hartford, a $25-plus billion company, has been in the top 100 of the Fortune 500. Ayers has led the charge to do all those things good CEOs do to boost profits for shareholders and their own compensation – invested in mortgage securities, trimmed staff, passed on health care costs to employees, outsourced work and such. And he also stood in the long bailout lines holding his empty soup can, waiting his turn for a ladle full of bailout. Friday his effort were rewarded with a hot cup o’ TARP as The Hartford received $3.4 billion in relief from our corporate welfare department in DC.
Now Ayer is not alone in this dark den of economic misery. Rell claims we’re No. 1 in Fortune 500 companies per million population. There’s 11 of them along with another 17 in the Fortune next 500. All run by poor, distraught, pained CEOs who need our kind thoughts, prayers and tax breaks. They’ll be totally devastated if taxes are boosted ever so slightly to help pay for services that could benefit all of Connecticut’s residents, including the people they laid off to recoup their losses.
The AFL-CIO Executive Pay Watch claims Big Biz CEOs were paid, on average, $10.4 million in total compensation in 2008; down about 6% from 2007 - ouch. But, offsetting the pain a tad, their perks grew 12.5% to an average of $336,248—or about nine times the median salary of a full-time worker.
It has been a rough and tumble time for corporate chieftains. It must be difficult and draining to pare down the wait staff, maybe switch to generic croutons at the dinner table, or even skip the leather in the kid’s new Beamer. We should be grateful that the M. Jodi Rell is defending the castle against attacks on CEO pay.

Jodi Rell and Michael Moore, both publicly pleading to help our CEOs weather the economic storm battering all of us…only, with one little difference. Moore is kidding.

Journal Inquirer . com

Just words or just words?
CT@Work
By Leo Canty

Published: Thursday, June 25, 2009 12:03 PM EDT

Shared sacrifice — asking citizens to collectively give so everyone can gain in the future — is a common call when times are tough.Like so many leaders on the national and state stage have done, Gov. Jodi Rell used these words in her January state of the state address and many times since during the struggle to close a $9 billion budget gap.
Are these calls for shared sacrifice just words plugged into a speech to add verbal drama or for poll-boosting appeal? Or are “fair” and “just” words for a moral calling — for everyone to help in meaningful ways?Talk of shared sacrifice can be a tricky thing — especially when it comes from the mouths of politicians. Bush-Cheney, along with congressional Republican leadership, exploited the post-9/11 condition to launch their version of shared sacrifice: tax breaks for the wealthy; military service (including multiple tours of duty) for heroes from poor and middle-class families; and high-priced mercenaries from Halliburton and Blackwater USA.
Contrast that with FDR’s call for unity and sacrifice. Volunteers from all walks of life came together in our darkest hours. Rich, poor, and even corporations shared in a fair way, with everyone chipping in to help, based on physical and economic ability. Food and supplies were rationed. The poor and working class gave what they had. The top tax rate rose to 91 percent for a short time, allowing the wealthy their proportionate sacrifice.In January, President Barack Obama asked for shared sacrifice to solve the myriad problems facing our nation — a bad economy, world conflict, lost revenue from tax breaks, cuts in services, and a deregulated Wall Street trampling on Main Street. The call is evolving while the president and Congress push to get our nation on a better track. History will judge how well the call was answered.Meantime, this state needs to move faster, for people need help now.The current budget is short. In fact, the gap is huge in the next biennium. Sacrifice and cooperation are indeed the keys to get out of the bad spot we’re in.Working families are giving every day — some willingly, some not. Layoffs are up. Foreclosures are up. Incidents of lost health care are increasing too. Take-home pay to cycle back into the economy? That’s down.And still, many of those who have suffered the most stand most ready to help.Corporations, on the other hand, led by the Connecticut Business and Industry Association, are buying ads saying, “Don’t tax us — just cut the services the other guy needs.” Cut the services of those who have already sacrificed the most. Cut the services that help the blind, disabled, children, and students. Even cut services that insure businesses comply with the rules.Since many corporations avoid paying their fair share through loopholes, you’d think the governor would at least ask them to chip in.The same goes for our wealthiest citizens. They have not been asked to sacrifice.Sure, some may have lost in their Wall Street bets, but in most cases there’s more than enough left in the bank to buy food, keep the house and the car, and still avoid a “staycation.”But, in fairness, none have actually refused to help. Rell has just refused to ask.FDR rightly said it was not a sacrifice for the industrialist — or the wage earner, the farmer, the shopkeeper, the trainman, or the doctor — to pay more taxes, to buy more bonds, to forgo extra profits, to work longer or harder at the task for which he is best fitted. Not if it is for the common good. Rather is it a privilege.Just five months ago, Rell said, “This will be a time of shared sacrifice. That which we would like to do will be set aside for that which we must do.”Rell still can invite corporations and the wealthy to help share in the sacrifices that the less-than privileged already have made for our state.Leo Canty is executive secretary of the Connecticut AFL-CIO and chairman of the board of the Connecticut Health Foundation. He lives in Windsor.

JournalInquirer.com
Posted June 18, 2009
Change is in the air
CT@Work
By Leo Canty

Everyone.. wet your finger...now hold it in the air. Great, you can be one of the many local weather watchers as we all try to figure out which way the winds are blowing on health care. At the moment the media radar is focused on the bright skies and storms that are cropping up all around the country as the latest debate over the future of our health and health care system is unfolding. President Obama and Congress, with our own Chris Dodd in the lead, have launched the campaign to get the program moving. People are lining up on all sides of the issue. Meanwhile, Connecticut has a plan and approach that's winding its way to the Governor's desk for a likely veto in a nod to her pals in the Big Business and Big Insurance lobbies. More on that in a future column, but for now let it be known that health care advocates in Connecticut have a far-reaching vision that anticipates and paves the way for a sensible federal solution. The Obama plan includes some key components that we've been pushing here: affordable, accessible, universal care that covers everyone; developing the medical home with electronic record keeping; investing in prevention and screening; better funding medical education; stronger data and research and dissemination of up-to-date medical information to practitioners; one-stop shopping for health care with a government-run plan option. At the moment there is not universal approval for the plan. There are supporters and detractors all over the spectrum and they are speaking out, everywhere. The hardest things to figure out are what is real and factual, and what is fabricated along with who is really on board and who is blowing smoke. Because, along with the winds of change, there is also a rush of hot air (and I don't mean just Rush Limbaugh) that needs to be filtered. Supporter or not the reality of change is undeniable. In 2007, some 46 million Americans had no health care plan. During 2007 and 2008, another 45 million lost their health care for some period of time - that's 1 out of 4 people who found themselves in the scary health care free zone. And it’s been worsened by the economic meltdown. More than half of all personal bankruptcies are attributed to health care debts. Families with insurance pay for the uninsured who get costly care in inefficient ways. The so-called hidden health care tax amounts to almost $1000 for those on a family plan. But in this health care moment, it seems like we're standing outside and assessing the weather patterns. The sky is dark, the wind is whipping, rain and hail are falling. There's thunder and lightning, and we're just not sure if we should step out of the storm. The bright-sky folks see the opportunity to change and build a program that works for everyone. There are those who say the storm's not that bad, that we'll do fine with a few tweaks. Others suggest the weather here is not as bad as in the countries that practice dreaded socialized medicine. And on it goes. One thing for sure: the forecasts are predictable depending on the source. The AMA predicts a stormy outcome if Medicare rates became the norm and doctor’s incomes are reduced. Insurance companies, Big Pharma and McHospitals fear a more cost effective system and a possible government-run plan that competes with them or reins in costs. Big business just can't cost-compete with the non-profits because of ...well, profits, investor returns, executive salaries, stock options, jets and skyboxes, the cost of doing business. So, who’ll pay for those expensive Yankee and Red Sox tickets if your premiums don’t? Polls show most want a health care system that actually works – one that’s affordable and accessible, and provides coverage to every American regardless of their station in life and it’s not a bad thing to have government involved. But to get there one needs to find out the facts, check the sources, filter false forecasts of gloom and doom and decide what’s best for everyone’s future – then join the crowd of activists. Not easy but incredibly essential – it won’t happen by itself. My finger-in-the-wind prediction - this storm will pass, the skies will clear and we will get on track with a plan that will work for all of us – after a tough fight.

Making the Economy Flow
CT@Work
By Leo Canty
June 11, 2009

We work, get paid, and spread our earnings in the communities where we live and labor. The earnings of working people infused in our local economy make up the life-blood that keeps the system flowing, just as our bodies need blood and oxygen infusion to keep us alive. Economists describe this flow of cash to be the hallmark of the virtuous economy. A fair share of the profits and productivity the workforce creates goes in the paychecks, and then circulates locally buying goods and services that keep the healthy system circulating in virtuous fashion.
Economists, accountants, politicians, and armchair quarterback pundits all have their views and econometric models describing what is good and bad for the economy, and what will ramp up or deflate oxygenation and the circulating cash flow. Some of us are looking at a common sense model.
The workforce, private and public, need to keep earning and spending to prevent any more loss of circulation and anything that can be done to dampen negative effects and improve the cash flow will help ramp up the cycle – more people earning, spending, building momentum to expand the workforce and grow.
State employees gave $700M in wage and benefit concessions in exchange for job security. It took some cash out of the system but kept people in jobs and helped keep the service delivery system intact to care for those most in need. All of that helps economic flow. Government plays a key role in Connecticut’s economy and if ratcheted down in these times would impact the state negatively. Layoffs, severe cuts, elimination of services, reduction of dollars into the system all stem the flow and must be prevented. The Obama Administration suggest this to be a difficult but necessary move now to prevent the nation and the state from reeling into depression.
In 1929 – the last big depletion of the circulatory system – support for a huge population in dire need did not exist. No unemployment, no social security, no Medicare or Medicaid just poor houses and misery. Better social and human services are in place now that must be maintained to support those in need. The 1920’s also grew a similar wage gap to 2008, where wealth was protected and hoarded drawing cash away from the economic circulatory system contributing to the failure at the time.
Right now it makes sense to find ways to get the cash flowing into the system from new, more viable sources to get a jump-start on the slowed flow. Middle and lower-income wage earners are already spending most of their paychecks locally buying food, rent, utilities, insurance, health care, paying debts and, once in a while, McD’s for dinner with little leftover. They are at work oxygenating Connecticut’s economy. Conversely, high wage earners have leftovers after all the bills are paid and aren’t adding to the circulation in the most helpful way, yet.
State employees were asked to help and they did. The governor has not asked anyone else. The rationale for not asking the wealthy and business because they have suffered enough can only be described as Machiavelli in lambs clothing.
Many of Connecticut’s current problems can be solved with a better more reliable, fair and equitable tax structure. The regressive property tax, a business deterrent, can be reduced and brought into balance with the rest of the system by substitution of a more progressive income tax and a business tax program that makes sense with fewer loopholes that gets everyone contributing in a fair way. At this time it would mean an increase in taxes at the high end – not where the middle and lower incomes are already putting their cash into the flow. It’s time for that.
This state is a tax haven for the wealthy and business- has been for a number of years. When the governor claims lower taxes makes the state more competitive for after the recession the question needs to be asked - competitive for what contest? The race for lower living standards than Arkansas?
Oxygenating the flow, bringing cash that is moving away from Connecticut into the state now so we can ramp up circulation and build a more stable base for 2012 and beyond works better. We need fresh blood and fresh air to turn things around.