Ned Lamont, a Democrat elected Connecticut’s most recent governor in 2018, is beginning his administration by discussing plans of tax increases to shore up the state’s budget. Chris McClure, spokesman for the governor’s budget, office described the process as “leaving no stone unturned, and engaging in all necessary conversations so we can evaluate and analyze ways to achieve and retain balance.”
These tax increases, based on Lamont’s proposals, will target the very people that helped secure his election: the working and oppressed citizens. These taxes may be in the form of new toll booths on Connecticut highways and the ending of the sales tax exemption on groceries, medications, and other living essentials. What is not on the agenda is any talk of closing tax exemptions for large private institutions, universities and churches. Lamont may have ridden into office on a supposed progressive wave, but he is really just business as usual for Connecticut’s elite.
Lamont, at his core, is another out of touch millionaire who will never feel the impact of a sales tax on groceries and medication. The son of an economist, Lamont and his wife Ann Huntress both manage investment companies that have made them millions. Lamont has been trying to get his foot into Connecticut’s governance for the past two decades. In 2006, he lost a senate bid to widely unpopular incumbent Joseph Lieberman. Likewise, in 2010, Lamont took a shot at the governor’s race only to lose in the primaries to Dannel Malloy, and barely survived the general election against Republican Bob Stefanowski in 2018 despite a favorable electorate overall for Democrats.
Like Malloy before him, Lamont ran on the promise that he would not raise the state income tax. He campaigned at union rallies and talked of the need for stronger wages during the election season. Yet here we are barely at the start of his administration and Lamont is calling for unions to give up still more in addition to his proposed sales tax increases. Meanwhile, wages remain stagnant for the working class. Lamont and fellow Democrats stress that they are looking at raising the minimum wage in Connecticut to $15.00 per hour by 2023, but this would hardly keep up with inflation, let alone cover additional tax increases on essentials. And what of those currently making $15.00 or more an hour? We may hear plans for an increase in wage minimums, but we seemingly dismiss those not at the minimum but still struggling on wages well below the value of their production.
Lamont will argue that his hand is forced, implying Connecticut has a budget problem, and someone needs to pay for it. What will never be suggested by him, however, is that rather than taxing groceries, medicines, and textbooks or erecting up to 82 toll booths on our highways, Connecticut could tax the wealthy individuals and private institutions that currently benefit from tax exemptions. Institutions such as Yale University, where Lamont served as a member of the Board of Advisers for the School of Management, reported an endowment of nearly $30 billion as of June 2018. These institutions are allowed to buy land and property across the state, operate multi-million to billion dollar investments on these premises, and yet they are not expected to pay back their share to the communities they continue to displace. Recent tax cuts to large businesses prove that rather than invest back into the workers, large corporations instead continue to line the pockets of their CEOs, boards, and stockholders.
So what should Connecticut do about its budget? The first thing is to recognize that we need to stop looking for answers from the same wealthy elite that have gotten us into this financial mess in the first place. It does not take an advanced degree from an Ivy league school to recognize that adding more taxes onto people barely able to keep up with the current combined costs of rent, utilities, medical care, student loans, car payments, and more cost of living expenses is going to do far more damage to the state and its citizens. Instead, we must stand together and demand that our representatives finally hear our voices. We must reject hypocrites like Lamont that claim to be progressive yet in practice offer the same regressive tax hikes as the old guard before them. We need to be loud and unabashed in our demand to lessen the burden on the working and oppressed and demand that the budget deficit be filled in by those who have benefited from our tax system all of these years.
