The days of the fiscally responsible Connecticut Yankee have gone the way of the dinosaur. The state many consider a bedroom community for ultra-liberal New York City has firmly backed Democrat candidates for president since 1988. And like other Blue States, irresponsible government spending has straddled residents with an excessively high tax burden. A recent Truth-in-Accounting report indicates Connecticut won the 2020 race to the bottom.
“Connecticut’s money needed to pay bills increased by more than $10 billion to $79.6 billion mostly because the state’s pension and retiree health care plans’ actuaries determined future state contributions will need to increase because estimated future investment income will be less than previously expected,” according to the report.
According to the annual assessment, every Connecticut resident is currently yoked with a debt of $62,500. New Jersey suffered the highest tax burden in 2019 but fell to second-worst at $58,300 per resident. All of the five so-called “Sinkhole” states are currently run by Democrat majorities and include the following per-person debt.
- Connecticut: -$62,5000
- New Jersey: -$58,300
- Illinois: -$57,000
- Massachusetts: -$38,100
- Hawaii: -$37,000
By contrast, the five “Sunshine” states without a negative tax burden per resident are all run by Republican majorities. These states enjoyed the highest surpluses.
- Alaska: +$55,100
- North Dakota: +$39,200
- Wyoming: +$19,500
- Utah: +$6,500
- South Dakota: +$5,200
Responsible tax management led Alaska to accumulate a war chest with upwards of $32 billion in what the report calls “spendable assets.” The state’s long-standing fiscal responsibility allowed it to overcome a $6.5 billion pandemic setback and still maintain a robust surplus.
Connecticut continues to operate in the negative and residents will likely experience an even higher tax burden in the coming years. The state’s underfunded pension and retiree health care system largely contributed to increased costs of $10 billion during 2020 that reached $79.6 billion in annual bills. It’s no wonder Connecticut officials dragged their feet and failed to publish a fiscal report for a reported 234 days despite the standard transparency practice of no more than 100 days.
The state currently levels among the five highest property taxes in the country and reportedly inserts hidden taxes into electric bills as high a 20 percent. Residents reportedly pay the sixth-highest cost for electricity in the country.
“For the Public Utilities Regulatory Authority and the state’s leading electric company, Eversource, agree that 15-20 percent of the typical Connecticut electricity customer’s monthly bill doesn’t pay for electric generation and transmission at all but for charges imposed by state law and policy,” the Connecticut Examiner reports. “While the charges imposed by state law and policy are collected by the electric utilities, they are ultimately paid out at the direction of state government, becoming a sort of state sales tax on a necessity of life.”
Adding insult to injury, Democrat lawmakers and Gov. Ned Lamont are not necessarily focused on reducing spending. Instead, the Democrat majority recently targeted truck drivers by installing a per-mile charge of up to 17.5 cents to drive on the state’s highways and roads. The truck-only tax will go into effect in January 2023 and is expected to exacerbate regional inflation.
