This editorial’s headline sums it up….

July 17, 2017

(Please read and share the attached Hartford Courant editorial with taxpayers.  I hope you agree with the headline, because I certainly do!  Check out the CT Senate Republicans’ budget alternative at www.NewDirectionCT.com and send me your comments at [email protected].  Thank you!)

No More Tax Hikes, Please

(Hartford Courant Editorial)

Two weeks into the new budget year, there is still no state budget.

There are many proposals, and there might even be a vote on one someday.

A request: No more big tax hikes, please?

House Democrats keep offering those to close a two-year $5 billion-plus budget deficit.

But higher taxes will only make the hole deeper and the state less competitive.

Connecticut is seeing diminishing returns from two significant tax hikes since 2010.

Its income tax receipts in April experienced the biggest decline since 2009, the start of the Great Recession.

The state’s 100 largest-income taxpayers paid 45 percent less this year than last.

Plus, there are fewer people around to share the tax burden: Nearly 30,000 more people moved out of Connecticut than moved in from mid-2015 to mid-2016.

House Democrats have a plan to raise the sales tax to a hair below 7 percent.

House Speaker Joe Aresimowicz, D-Berlin, seems to be the only leader at the state Capitol who is enthusiastic about it.

“Why people insist on leading with tax increases, I don’t understand,” said Gov. Dannel P. Malloy.

We join him in not understanding.

We’ve seen this movie twice now, and the ending is depressing.