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Connecticut recently marked the 25th anniversary of the income tax, which has resulted in little to no spending restraint.
In 1991, Connecticut Gov. Lowell Weicker decried the state’s “orgies of spending,” and said his income tax proposal—which would include fiscal discipline—would balance the books.
Connecticut recently marked the 25th anniversary of the income tax, which has resulted in little to no spending restraint.
State spending grew 71 percent faster than inflation from 1991 to 2014 and most of that went toward debt services payments and state employee benefits—which combined grew 174 percent over the rate of inflation, according to a report by the Yankee Institute for Public Policy, a Connecticut think tank.
The tax has raised $126 billion in revenue for the state.
Weicker, a one time Republican senator who won the 1990s governor’s race as an independent, was praised by the left and won the Profiles in Courage Award in 1992 from the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum.
However, even Weicker publicly said the state didn’t remain in strong shape, but he blamed the state Legislature and his successors, former Gov. John G. Rowland and current Gov. Dan Malloy, for lack of fiscal discipline.
“After I became governor and we enacted the income tax, the state was in the black,” Weicker told WTNH of New Haven last month. “All of those who cursed me, including … the representatives, John Rowland, everybody went ahead and spent all the money … When Dan Malloy became governor, they kept on spending and then they were right back in the red, which is where we were back in 1990.”
Part of Weicker’s reform was a state constitutional spending cap that passed with 80 percent of the vote in 1992. However, the spending cap was never procedurally implemented by the Legislature.
After public pressure prompted in part by the anniversary, a bipartisan commission of state lawmakers is working on the implementation of the spending cap.
What Happened After This Blue State Introduced an Income Tax to Balance Its Budget from Fred Lucas (Twitter @FredLucasWH) ~~ the Daily Signal
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