Tag Archives: State budgets

Welcome to Walley World! by MN Gordon

Several Democrat-controlled states are running big surpluses, thanks to payments from Washington, but they’re still trying to pass tax hikes. From MN Gordon at economicprism.com:

One of the fringe benefits of Washington’s stimulus program has been inflated stock portfolios.  This has delivered a great boon for certain state governments.  In Connecticut, for example, a state that taxes capital gains as regular income, this year’s budget surplus is projected to be $470 million.

That’s quite an achievement.  Especially when you consider the state’s rainy-day fund will hit an all-time high of $4.5 billion.  Federal coronavirus stimulus is also bringing $6 billion into the state.

Yet for the greedy fellows in the Connecticut state legislature the budget surplus is not nearly enough.  They want to soak the rich for the noble purpose of helping people.  Lawmakers are proposing a “surcharge” on high earners; single filers making more than $500,000 will be subject to a combined capital gains rate of 8.99 percent.

But that’s not all.  The state legislature also wants to create something it calls a “consumption tax.”  People earning more than $500,000 would pay 0.7 percent of their adjusted gross income.  That rate would rise to 1.4 percent for those earning $2 million, then 1.5 percent over $13 million.

The dillweed state planners already have grand plans for these coercive funds.  The money would go into a new Equitable Investment Fund that would be managed by an Equitable Investment Council.  The intent of the fund, in addition to collecting fees, is to reduce income inequality and redistribute wealth to certain disadvantaged groups.

Democratic Governor Ned Lamont recently had the gall to oppose the proposed taxation schemes.  And for that, hundreds of protestors showed up at his house and staged a mass ‘die-in’.  In this novel protest, freeloaders pretended to die in front of Mr. Lamont’s house because they want more free stuff…and he doesn’t want to give it to them.

This behavior, no doubt, has been conditioned in numerous states across the USA…

Continue reading→

‘We Have No Money’: Coronavirus Slams State Taxes, by Sophie Quinton

The coronavirus outbreak has been going on for almost six months now, but in the US, the economic effects of shutting down businesses and confining people to their homes is just starting to bite. From Sophie Quinton at pewtrusts.org:

DENVER — Economists who advise the Colorado legislature told lawmakers in mid-March to expect a roughly $800 million revenue decline for the next fiscal year as people travel and dine out less during the coronavirus pandemic.

That estimate already looks far too optimistic. “The forecast that we released in March — we weren’t imagining the world that we’re living in right now,” said Kate Watkins, chief economist for the Legislative Council Staff, the nonpartisan research arm of the Colorado General Assembly.

Governors nationwide have ordered businesses to close and people to stay home in order to slow the spread of the novel coronavirus. But the public health measures have created an economic crisis that will, in turn, hit state and city budgets.

Now policymakers are scrambling to figure out how much spending power they’re losing at a moment when they need money to fight the pandemic and help laid-off workers and struggling businesses.

Continue reading→