(Reprehensible) Politician of the Year

I’ve written before that Connecticut should change its motto from the Nutmeg State to the Taxnut State.

And if you want an example, consider that Democrats in one town ran for reelection (successfully!) using the slogan “Lowest tax increase in 10 years.”

Maybe there’s something in the water that produces terrible politicians. Consider, for instance, this bit of state-worship from one of the state’s Senators, Chris Murphy.

That’s a despicable sentiment, but Sen. Murphy may actually be decent and rational compared to Connecticut’s other Senator.

Richard Blumenthal actually took part in an event with the Communist Party. I’m not joking. Click on Phil Kerpen’s tweet.

Some highlights of Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal and his introducer at the Connecticut People’s World Committee, an affiliate of Communist Party USA. pic.twitter.com/w5CvV7tGzy

— Phil Kerpen (@kerpen) December 15, 2021

At the risk of understatement, this is disgusting. Communism is responsible for 100 million deaths and mass impoverishment of hundreds of millions more.

It spawned one of the world’s most evil nations, the Soviet Union, and it continues to produce misery today in barbaric regimes such as North Korea and Cuba.

I’m not the only one to be nauseated. Writing for the Washington Examiner, Quin Hillyer explains why Blumenthal’s participation should be viewed as unacceptable.

Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut spoke at a Dec. 11 awards ceremony for the Connecticut affiliate of Communist Party USA. …Blumenthal pronounced himself “really excited and honored to be with you today” while presenting the group’s chosen award winners with special certificates of recognition… Throughout the event, including in the introduction of Blumenthal himself just 60 seconds before the senator took the microphone, the two co-hosts repeatedly celebrated their Communist Party affiliation and urged listeners to join the Communist Party. …In any rational, morally decent media world, this would be a big scandal. …This is not some warm-and-fuzzy, well-intentioned (even if slightly impractical) affiliation. The Communist Party USA repeatedly tried to subvert constitutional democracy and spy on the U.S. government while deliberately and regularly colluding with the Soviet Union. …There is absolutely no moral difference between consorting with a Communist Party affiliate and consorting with a white supremacist or neo-Nazi one. The record of international communist cruelty is indisputable, with its 100 million deaths far exceeding (in number) the genocidal effects of Nazism. …There is nothing remotely defensible in Blumenthal’s enthusiastic participation in the event. His actions were morally depraved.

Amen.

In the past, my “Politician of the Year” award has been somewhat satirical. I’ve highlighted politicians who are mostly guilty of stereotypical sins.

• Special privileges.
• Entitlement mentality.
• Impressive corruption.
• Uncharacteristic honesty.
• Taxpayer-funded vanity.

Senator Blumenthal belongs in a special category, one that merits disgust and disdain.

P.S. It’s quite likely that the Senator was a victim of bad staff work. Some aide or campaign flunky probably booked the event and didn’t conduct the 5 minutes of background work that would have been needed to find the red flags (no pun intended). That being said, he should have walked out of the event when the women who preceded him (and introduced him!) was pimping for the Communist Party.

He gave aid and comfort to an evil, repugnant, and despicable ideology.

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Connecticut’s Continuing Decline

I wrote last week about the ongoing shift of successful people from high-tax states to low-tax states.

And I’ve periodically confirmed this trend by doing comparisons of high-profile states, such as Texas vs. California and Florida vs. New York.

Today, I’m going to focus on Connecticut.

I actually grew up in the Nutmeg State and I wish there was some good news to share. But Connecticut has been drifting in the wrong direction ever since an income tax was imposed about 30 years ago.

And the downward trend may be accelerating.

A former state lawmaker has warned that the golden geese are escaping the state.

A former state representative says wealthy Connecticut residents are leaving the state at “an alarming pace.” Attorney John Shaban says when he returned to private practice in Greenwich in 2016, one of his most popular services became helping some of the state’s top earners relocate to places like Florida… “Connecticut started to thrive 20, 30 years ago because people came here. We were a tax haven, we were a relatively stable regulatory and tax environment, and we were a great place to live,” says Shaban. …Shaban says many small businesses now require little more than a laptop to operate, and that’s making it easier for small business owners to relocate out of state.

The exodus of rich people has even caught the attention of the U.K.-based Economist.

Greenwich, Connecticut, with a population of 60,000, has long been home to titans of finance and industry. …It has one of America’s greatest concentrations of wealth. …You might think a decade in which rich Americans became richer would have been kind to Greenwich. Not so. …the state…raised taxes, triggering an exodus that has lessons for the rest of America…  Connecticut increased income taxes three times. It then discovered the truth of the adage “easy come, easy go”. …Others moved to Florida, which still has no income tax—and no estate tax. …Between 2015 and 2016 Connecticut lost more than 20,000 residents—including 2,050 earning more than $200,000 per year. The state’s taxable-income base shrank by 1.6% as a result… Its higher income taxes have bitten harder since 2018, when President Donald Trump limited state and local tax deductions from income taxable at the federal level to $10,000 a year.

For what it’s worth, the current Democratic governor seems to realize that there are limits to class-warfare policy.

Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont said he opposes higher state income tax rates and he linked anemic growth with high income taxes. …when a caller to WNPR radio on Tuesday, January 7 asked Lamont why he doesn’t support raising the marginal tax rate on the richest 1 percent of Connecticut residents, Lamont responded: “In part because I don’t think it’s gonna raise any more money. Right now, our income tax is 40 percent more than it is in neighboring Massachusetts. Massachusetts is growing, and Connecticut is not growing. We no longer have the same competitive advantage we had compared to even Rhode Island and New York, not to mention, you know, Florida and other places. So I am very conscious of how much you can keep raising that incremental rate. As you know, we’ve raised it four times in the last 15 years.” …Connecticut has seven income tax rate tiers, the highest of which for tax year 2019 is 6.99 percent on individuals earning $500,000 or more and married couples earning $1 million or more. That’s 38.4 percent higher than Massachusetts’s single flat-tax rate for calendar year 2019, which is 5.05 percent.

I suppose it’s progress that Gov. Lamont understands you can’t endlessly pillage a group of people when they can easily leave the state.

In other words, he recognizes that “stationary bandits” should be cognizant of the Laffer Curve (i.e., high tax rates don’t lead to high tax revenues if taxable income falls due to out-migration).

But recognizing a problem and curing a problem are not the same. Lamont opposes additional class-warfare tax hikes, but I see no evidence that he wants to undo any of the economy-sapping tax increases imposed in prior years.

So don’t be surprised if Connecticut stays near the bottom in rankings of state economic policy.

P.S. The last Republican governor contributed to the mess, so I’m not being partisan.

P.P.S. Though even I’m shocked by the campaign tactics of some Connecticut Democrats.

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In One Picture, Why Connecticut Is Going Downhill

In a column last week, I noted that Connecticut ranked near the bottom for state tax policy.

And if there was a contest for which state has gone downhill at the fastest pace, the Nutmeg State would likely prevail.

Less than 30 years ago, the state was reasonably competitive, largely because there was no state income tax. But ever since politicians in Hartford got access to that new source of revenue, the state’s finances have spiraled downward.

There are lots of interesting numbers (unfunded pensions, state spending growth, etc) I could share to illustrate the state’s grim outlook.

But sometimes a picture can say 1,000 words.

Some Connecticut communities are having local elections this November. Apparently, based on this horrifying yard sign, Democrats in South Windsor are bragging about “only” imposing a small tax increase.

By the way, they’re not just bragging about a small tax increase rather than a large tax increase. If I read the sign correctly, there have been tax increases every single year for the past decade.

So local Democrats are basically telling voters, “hey, we’re confiscating ever-increasing amounts of your money every year, but you should be grateful since this year’s increase was comparatively small.”

And, given Connecticut’s awful political climate, that’s apparently a winning message!

By the way, I’m not naive. Or at least not hopelessly naive. When I first saw this sign, I thought it was fake. Sort of like this protest sign from the Occupy Wall Street movement.

And since I have been burned before (this doctored Justin Trudeau quote about Brexit), I did some additional research.

I found the Facebook page for the South Windsor Democrats. Lo and behold, there was a campaign video bragging about all the smaller-than-usual tax hike.

They also shared a letter-to-the-editor bragging about how taxes “only” increased 1.9 percent this year.

It’s possible, of course, that someone went through all the trouble of creating fake signs, fake Facebook pages, and fake letters-to-the-editor. But that doesn’t seem to be the case.

This is real. Connecticut is such a mess that candidates try to get votes by bragging about confiscating more money, but at a slower rate of increase.

The only possible advice I have for state residents is to move. Florida would be a good choice.

P.S. South Windsor Democrats might actually have a semi-compelling message if Republicans had been in charge for the previous nine years and had been increasing taxes every year by more than 1.9 percent (and there certainly are plenty of terrible Republicans). But if that was the case, I assume they would have mentioned that in their campaign literature.

P.P.S. Since I’m not partisan, here’s some advice for South Windsor Democrats. Adopt D.C.-type budgeting and build in a “baseline” showing 5 percent annual tax increases. Then, when you “only” raise taxes by 1.9 percent, you can tell voters you actually gave them a 3.1 percent tax cut. You may be thinking that’s ridiculously dishonest and beyond the pale (and it is), but that’s how they do budgeting in Washington.

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America’s Best and Worst States for Taxes

Following their recent assessment of the best and worst countries, the Tax Foundation has published its annual State Business Tax Climate Index, which is an excellent gauge of which states welcome investment and job creation and which states are unfriendly to growth and prosperity.

Here’s the list of the best and worst states. Unsurprisingly, states with no income tax rank very high, as do states with flat taxes.

It’s also no surprise to see New Jersey in last place. The state has fallen dramatically, especially considering that it was like New Hampshire as recently as the 1960s, with no state income tax and no state sales tax.

And the bad scores for New York, California, and Connecticut also are to be expected. The Nutmeg State is an especially sad story. There was no state income tax 30 years ago. Once politicians got that additional source of revenue, however, Connecticut suffered a big economic decline.

Here’s a description of the methodology, along with the table showing how different factors are weighted.

…the Index is designed to show how well states structure their tax systems and provides a road map for improvement.The absence of a major tax is a common factor among many of the top 10 states. Property taxes and unemployment insurance taxes are levied in every state, but there are several states that do without one or more of the major taxes: the corporate income tax, the individual income tax, or the sales tax. …This does not mean, however, that a state cannot rank in the top 10 while still levying all the major taxes. Indiana and Utah, for example, levy all of the major tax types, but do so with low rates on broad bases.The states in the bottom 10 tend to have a number of afflictions in common: complex, nonneutral taxes with comparatively high rates. New Jersey, for example, is hampered by some of the highest property tax burdens in the country, has the second highest-rate corporate income tax in the country and a particularly aggressive treatment of international income, levies an inheritance tax, and maintains some of the nation’s worst-structured individual income taxes.

For those who want to delve into the details, here are all the states, along with their rankings for the five major variables.

If you want to know which states are making big moves, Georgia enjoyed the biggest one-year jump (from #36 to #32) and Kansas suffered the biggest one-year decline (from #27 to #34). Keep in mind that it’s easier to climb if you’re near the bottom and easier to fall if you’re near the top.

Looking over a longer period of time, the states with the biggest increases since 2014 are North Carolina (+19, from #34 to #15), Wisconsin (+12, from #38 to #26), Kentucky (+9, from #35 to #24), Nebraska (+8, from #36 to #28), Delaware (+7, from #18 to #11), and Rhode Island (+6, from #45 to #39).

The states with the biggest declines are Kansas (-9, from #25 to #34), Hawaii (-8, from #29 to #37), Massachusetts (-8, from #28 to #36), and Idaho (-6, from #15 to #21).

We’ll close with the report’s map, showing the rankings of all the states.

P.S. My one quibble with the Index is that there’s no variable to measure the burden of government spending, which would give a better picture of overall economic liberty. This means that states that finance large public sectors with energy severance taxes (which also aren’t included in the Index) wind up scoring higher than they deserve. As such, I would drop Wyoming and Alaska in the rankings and instead put South Dakota at #1 and Florida at #2.

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Connecticut’s Fiscal Decay

‘Two years ago, I wrote about how Connecticut morphed from a low-tax state to a high-tax state.

The Nutmeg State used to be an economic success story, presumably in large part because there was no state income tax.

But then an income tax was imposed almost 30 years ago and it’s been downhill ever since.

The last two governors have been especially bad news for the state.

As explained in the Wall Street Journal, Governor Malloy did as much damage as possible before leaving office.

The 50 American states have long competed for people and business, and the 2017 tax reform raises the stakes by limiting the state and local tax deduction on federal returns. The results of bad policy will be harder to disguise. A case in point is Connecticut’s continuing economic decline, and now we have even more statistical evidence as a warning to other states. The federal Bureau of Economic Analysis recently rolled out its annual report on personal income growth in the 50 states, and for 2017 the Nutmeg State came in a miserable 44th. …the state’s personal income grew at the slowest pace among all New England states, and not by a little. …The consistently poor performance, especially relative to its regional neighbors, suggests that the causes are bad economic policies… In Mr. Malloy’s case this has included tax increases starting in 2011 and continuing year after year on individuals and corporations… It is a particular tragedy for the state’s poorest citizens who may not be able to flee to other states that aren’t run by and for government employees.

Here’s some of the data accompanying the editorial.

Eric Boehm nicely summarized the main lesson from the Malloy years in a column for Reason.

If it were true that a state could tax its way to prosperity, Connecticut should be on a non-stop winning streak. Instead, state lawmakers are battling a $3.5 billion deficit. Companies including General Electric, Aetna, and Alexion, a major pharmaceutical firm, have left the state in search of a lower tax burden. Connecticut is looking increasingly like the Illinois of New England: A place where tax increases are no longer fiscally or politically realistic, even though budgetary obligations continue to grow and spending is completely out of control.

Unfortunately, the new governor isn’t any better than the old governor. The Wall Street Journal opined on Ned Lamont’s destructive fiscal policy.

Connecticut desperately needs a new economic direction. Unfortunately, the biennial budget soon to be signed by new Gov. Ned Lamont doubles down on policies that have produced abysmal results.The state’s economic indicators are grim. Connecticut routinely ranks near the bottom in surveys of economic competitiveness. Residents and businesses have been voting with their feet. According to the National Movers Study, only Illinois and New Jersey suffered more out-migration in 2018. General Electric left for Boston in 2016. This week, Farmington-based United Technologies Corp. announced it too will move its headquarters… Mr. Lamont’s budget seems designed to accelerate the decline. It increases spending by $2 billion while extending the state’s 6.35% sales tax to everything from digital movies to laundry drop-off services to “safety apparel.” It adds $50 million in taxes on small businesses, raises the minimum wage by 50%, and provides the country’s most generous mandated paid family medical leave. Florida and North Carolina must be licking their lips. …The state employee pension plan is underfunded by $100 billion—$75,000 per Connecticut household. A responsible budget would try to start filling the gap; the Lamont budget underfunds the teachers’ plan by another $9.1 billion, increasing the long-term liability by $27 billion. …Mr. Lamont proposes to slap a 2.25% penalty on people who sell a high-end home and move out of state. Having given up on attracting affluent families, he’s trying to prevent the ones who are here from leaving.

As one might expect, all this bad news is generating bad outcomes. Here are some details from an editorial in today’s Wall Street Journal.

…as a new study documents, more businesses are leaving Connecticut as they get walloped with higher taxes that are bleeding the state. Democrats in 2015 imposed a 20% surtax on top of the state’s 7.5% corporate rate, effectively raising the tax rate to 9%. They also increased the top income tax rate to 6.99% from 6.7% on individuals earning more than $500,000. The state estimated the corporate tax hike would raise $481 million over two years, but revenue increased by merely $323 million… Meantime, the state’s Department of Economic and Community Development, whose job is to strengthen “Connecticut’s competitive position,” in 2016 alone spent $358 million…to induce businesses to stay or move to the state. This means that Connecticut doled out twice as much in corporate welfare as it raked in from the corporate tax increase. …Thus we have Connecticut’s business model: Raise costs for everyone and then leverage taxpayers to provide discounts for a politically favored few. …The state has lost population for the last five years. …The exodus has depressed tax revenue.

And there’s no question that people are voting with their feet, as Bloomberg reports.

Roughly 5 million Americans move from one state to another annually and some states are clearly making out better than others. Florida and South Carolina enjoyed the top economic gains, while Connecticut, New York and New Jersey faced some of the biggest financial drains, according to…data from the Internal Revenue Service and the U.S. Census Bureau. Connecticut lost the equivalent of 1.6% of its annual adjusted gross income, as the people who moved out of the Constitution State had an average income of $122,000, which was 26% higher than those migrating in. Moreover, “leavers” outnumbered “stayers” by a five-to-four margin.

Here’s a chart from the article showing how Connecticut is driving away some of its most lucrative taxpayers.

Here’s a specific example of someone voting with their feet. But not just anybody. It’s David Walker, the former Comptroller General of the United States, and he knows how to assess a jurisdiction’s financial outlook.

…my wife, Mary, and I are leaving the Constitution State. We are saddened to do so because we love our home, our neighborhood, our neighbors, and the state. However, like an increasing number of people, the time has come to cut our losses… current state and local leaders have the willingness and ability to make the tough choices needed to create a better future in Connecticut, especially in connection with unfunded retirement obligations. …Connecticut has gone from a top five to bottom five state in competitive posture and financial condition since the late 1980s. In more recent years, this has resulted in an exodus from the state and a significant decline in home values.

All of this horrible news suggests that perhaps Connecticut should get more votes in my poll on which state will be the first to suffer fiscal collapse.

Incidentally, that raises a very troubling issue.

The former Governor of Indiana, Mitch Daniels, wrote last year for the Washington Post that we should be worried about pressure for a bailout of profligate states such as Connecticut.

…several of today’s 50 states have descended into unmanageable public indebtedness. …in terms of per capita state debt, Connecticut ranks among the worst in the nation, with unfunded liabilities amounting to $22,700 per citizen. …More and more desperate tax increases haven’t cured the problem; it’s possible that they are making it worse. When a state pursues boneheaded policies long enough, people and businesses get up and leave, taking tax dollars with them. …So where is a destitute governor to turn? Sooner or later, we can anticipate pleas for nationalization of these impossible obligations. …Sometime in the next few years, we are likely to go through our own version of the recent euro-zone drama with, let’s say, Connecticut in the role of Greece.

And don’t forget other states that are heading in the wrong direction. Politicians from California, New York, New Jersey, and Illinois also will be lining up for bailouts.

Here’s the bottom line on Connecticut: As recently as 1990, the state had no income tax, which put it in the most competitive category.

But then politicians finally achieved their dream and imposed an income tax.

And in a remarkably short period of time, the state has dug a big fiscal hole of excessive taxes and spending (with gigantic unfunded liabilities as well).

It’s now in the next-to-last category and it’s probably just a matter of time before it’s in the 5th column.

P.S. While my former state obviously has veered sharply in the wrong direction on fiscal policy, I must say that I’m proud that residents have engaged in civil disobedience against the state’s anti-gun policies.

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Senator Chris Murphy and the All-Encompassing State

As a former Connecticut resident, I’m ashamed that my home state, which used to be a success story with no income tax, has now morphed into a high-tax welfare state that is now increasingly infamous for the outflow of productive people and taxable income.

And even though I left several decades ago, I also feel vaguely guilty that my former state produces politicians such as Senator Chris Murphy.

Most people have never heard of him since he’s never accomplished anything in Washington. Though I would argue that’s a good thing since he’s a knee-jerk statist.

But I gather that Senator Murphy no longer wants to be in the shadows. Here’s a tweet he issued yesterday that has received a lot of publicity.

Last night proved, once again, that there is no anxiety or sadness or fear you feel right now that cannot be cured by political action.

— Chris Murphy 🟧 (@ChrisMurphyCT) July 28, 2017

Wow, this is an astounding display of statolatry. The kind of statement one might expect from a functionary from a totalitarian regime.

Or maybe a line from George Orwell’s 1984. Just think of the implications:

• Are you afraid of spiders? Hey, government can help!
• Are there dandelions in your yard? Don’t worry, Big Brother to the rescue!
• Did McDonald’s forget to include a toy in your Happy Meal? Time for political action!

While his views are reprehensible, I’m actually glad Senator Murphy inadvertently revealed his statism.

If nothing else, it’s produced some clever humor. The folks at Twitchy have been sharing this tweet, which came from a parody account for a North Korean news service.

US senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut province endorses Juche Idea of Great Leader Kim Il-Sung, political action as cure for all human ills https://t.co/e0wRit5yD6

— DPRK News Service (@DPRK_News) July 28, 2017

By the way, if you’re like me and are not familiar with “Juche,” it’s apparently a North Korean twist on Marxism.

In other words, take the traditional horror of communism and then add a layer of autarky to ensure even greater misery.

And here’s another amusing take, juxtaposing Murphy’s statolatry with Reagan’s wisdom (see last video from this collection). And they even demoted him to Representative rather than Senator.

But we shouldn’t merely mock Murphy.

His views truly are reprehensible because they imply there is no element of human existence that is independent of government. The state is everything.

And if that sounds familiar, it’s probably because you know something about economics, philosophy, and history. The most evil people in world history have expressed the same sentiment.

Such as the leader of Germany’s National Socialist Workers Party.

And the first dictator of the Soviet Union.

Though if I had to pick the quote that is closest to Murphy’s, it would be this awful statement from Mussolini.

Senator Murphy obviously doesn’t share the horrid ideology of either national socialism or international socialism, so his version of statolatry is far more benign.

Sort of like this cartoon instead of gulags and concentration camps.

But I still think his views are reprehensible. We’re not children and the government is not our parents. America’s Founding Fathers strictly limited the powers of the federal government because they understood the risks of a coercive state dictating our lives. Even if it’s benign statism rather than totalitarian statism.

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Connecticut’s Metamorphosis from the Nutmeg State to the Taxnut State

To pick the state with the best tax policy, the first step is to identify the ones with no income tax and then look at other variables to determine which one deserves the top ranking.

For what it’s worth, I put South Dakota at the top.

Picking the state with the worst tax policy is more difficult. There are lots of reasons to pick California, in part because it has the highest income tax rate of any state. But there are also strong arguments that New York, Illinois, and New Jersey deserve the worst rating.

And let’s not forget my home state of Connecticut, which invariably ranks near the bottom based on research from the Tax Foundation, the Mercatus Center, the Cato Institute, the Fraser Institute, and WalletHub.

The Wall Street Journal opined yesterday about Connecticut’s metamorphosis from a zero-income-tax state to a high-tax swamp.

Hard to believe, but a mere 25 years ago—a lifetime for millennials—Connecticut was a low-tax haven for Northeasterners. The state enacted an income tax in 1991 that was initially a flat 4.5% but was later made steeply progressive. In 2009 former Republican Governor Jodi Rell raised the top rate on individuals earning $500,000 or more to 6.5%, which Democratic Gov. Dannel Malloy has lifted to 6.99% (as if paying 0.01% less than 7% is a government discount). Connecticut’s top tax rate is now higher than the 5.1% flat rate in the state formerly known as Taxachusetts.

This big shift in the tax burden has led to predictably bad results.

…the tax hikes have been a disaster. A net 30,000 residents moved to other states last year. Since 2010 seven of Connecticut’s eight counties have lost population, and the hedge-fund haven of Fairfield County shrank for the first time last year. In the last five years, 27,400 Connecticut residents have moved to Florida. …More than 3,000 Connecticut residents have moved to zero income-tax New Hampshire in the last two years. While liberals wax apocalyptic about Kansas’s tax cuts, the Prairie State has welcomed 1,430 Connecticut refugees since 2011 and reversed the outflow between 2005 and 2009. Yet liberals deny that tax policies influence personal or business decisions.

The good news is that the state’s leftist politicians recognize that there’s a problem. The bad news is that they don’t want to undo the high tax rates that are causing the problems. Instead, they want to use some favoritism, cronyism, and social engineering.

Connecticut’s progressive tax experiment has hit a wall. Tens of thousands of residents are fleeing for lower tax climes, which has prompted Democrats to propose—get this—paying new college grads a thousand bucks to stick around. …proposing a tax credit averaging $1,200 for grads of Connecticut colleges who live in the state as well as those of out-of-state schools who move to the state within two years of earning their degree.

As the WSJ points out, special tax credits won’t be very effective if the job market stinks.

Yet the main reason young people are escaping is the lack of job opportunities. Since 2010 employment in Connecticut has grown at half the rate of Massachusetts and more slowly than in Rhode Island, New Jersey or Kansas.

By the way, this isn’t the first time that Connecticut’s politicians have resorted to special-interest kickbacks.

The Wall Street Journal also editorialized last year about the state’s one-off bribe to keep a hedge fund from fleeing to a state with better policy.

Last week the Governor presented Bridgewater with $5 million in grants and $17 million in low-interest, forgivable loans to renovate its headquarters in Westport along the state’s Gold Coast.

But the bit of cronyism won’t help ordinary people.

Connecticut has lost 105,000 residents to other states over the last five years while experiencing zero real economic growth. …So here is the new-old progressive governing model: Raise taxes relentlessly in the name of soaking the 1% to pay off government unions. When that drives people out of the state, subsidize the 0.1% to salvage at least some jobs and revenue. Ray Dalio gets at least some of his money back. The middle class gets you know what.

What’s particularly frustrating is that the state’s leftist governor understands the consequences of bad tax policy, even though he’s unwilling to enact the right solution.

Mr. Malloy said that other states including New York were trying to lure Bridgewater, and Connecticut couldn’t afford to lose the $150 billion fund or its 1,400 high-income employees. …The Governor’s office says Nutmeg State tax revenues could shrink by $4.9 billion over the next decade if all of Bridgewater’s employees departed. …“We see what happens in places like New Jersey when some of the wealthiest people move out of the state,” Mr. Malloy warned. This is the same Governor who has long echoed the progressive left’s claim that tax rates don’t matter. Maybe he was knocked off his horse by a vision on the road to Hartford.

This is remarkable.

Governor Malloy recognizes that tax-motivated migration is a powerful force.

He even admits that it causes big Laffer Curve effects, meaning governments actually lose revenue over time when tax rates are punitive.

Yet he won’t fix the underlying problem.

Maybe there’s some unwritten rule that Connecticut has to have bad governors?

Mr. Malloy’s Republican predecessor Jodi Rell raised the top marginal tax rate to 6.5% from 5% on individuals earning more than $500,000, and Mr. Malloy raised it again to 6.99%. Hilariously, Ms. Rell said last month that she’s also moving her residence to Florida because of the “downward spiral” in Connecticut that she helped to propel.

And lots of other people are moving as well.

The death tax plays a role, as explained in a column for the Hartford Courant.

Connecticut spends beyond its means and, therefore, taxes more than it should. …they’re driving the largest taxpayers away. We’ve passed the tipping point beyond which higher taxes beget lower revenues… The wealthy, in particular, have decided in swelling numbers they won’t be caught dead — literally — in our state. Evidence strongly suggests that estate and gift taxes are the final straw. To avoid Connecticut’s estate tax, wealthy families are moving to one of the 36 states without one.

And the loss of productive people means the loss of associated economic activity.

Including tax revenue.

Where wealthy families choose to establish residency has important ramifications for Connecticut’s economy and fiscal health. The earlier these golden geese flee, the greater the cumulative loss of golden eggs in the form of income taxes, sales taxes, jobs created by their companies, philanthropic support and future generations of precious taxpayers.

The data on tax-motivated migration is staggering.

Between 2010 and 2013, the number of federal tax returns with adjusted gross incomes of $1 million or more grew only 9.5 percent here vs. 22 percent in Massachusetts, 16 percent in New York and Rhode Island, and 30 percent in Florida. Slow economic growth and ever higher taxes are both cause and effect of out-migration. …In 2008, the state Department of Revenue Services asked accountants and tax lawyers whether clients moved out of state due to the estate tax, and 53 percent of respondents said it was the principal reason. …The outflow accelerated following 2011’s historic $2.5 billion tax increase. In the following two years, Connecticut suffered a net out-migration of more than 27,000 residents who took nearly $4 billion in annual adjusted gross income elsewhere, a stunning $500,000 per household. According to the Yankee Institute, the average adjusted gross income of each person leaving tripled in the past 10 years. At an average tax rate of 6.5 percent, this represents more than $250 million in lost income tax revenue annually, which is 50 percent more than the state collected in estate and gift taxes in 2014.

By the way, just in case some of you are skeptical and think that Connecticut’s deterioration is somehow unconnected to tax policy, I’ll close with this excerpt from some academic research that calculated the nationwide impact of state tax policy differences.

We consider the complete sample of all U.S. establishments from 1977-2011 belonging to firms with at least 100 employees and having operations in at least two states. On the extensive margin, we find that a one percentage point increase (decrease) in the state corporate tax rate leads to the closing (opening) of 0.03 establishments belonging to firms organized as C corporations in the state. This corresponds to an average change in the number of establishments per C corporation of 0.4%. A similar analysis shows that a one percentage point change in the state personal tax rate a§ects the number of establishments in the state per pass-through entity by 0.2-0.3%. These effects are robust to controls for local economic conditions and heterogeneous time trends. …This lends strong support to the view that tax competition across states is economically relevant.

To be sure, the numbers cited above may not sound large.

But keep in mind that small changes, if sustained over time, grow into very big results.

In the case of Connecticut, we have a state that has suffered dramatic negative consequences ever since the income tax was imposed back in 1991.

P.S. While my former state obviously has veered sharply in the wrong direction on fiscal policy, I must say that I’m proud that residents are engaging in civil disobedience against the state’s anti-gun policies.

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A Learning Moment about Government Greed for Yale’s Cloistered Academics

Even though it’s theoretically possible to design a desirable budget deal that includes a tax increase, I’m a big advocate of the no-tax-hike pledge for the simple reason that – in the real world – support for genuine spending restraint and real entitlement reform evaporates once politicians think higher revenues are an option.

Heck, bumping into the Loch Ness Monster while riding my unicorn is more likely than an acceptable budget deal including tax hikes.

Though I confess that my anti-tax resolve sometimes gets a bit wobbly when I think about unsavory tax breaks such as the ethanol credit, the state and local tax deduction, and the healthcare exclusion. I have to remind myself that while these provisions are very odious, they should be repealed as part of tax reform rather than as part of some deal that gives politicians more money to waste.

Now there’s another example of a tax that is very tempting, and it comes from my home state of Connecticut.

When I was growing up, the Nutmeg State didn’t have an income tax and it was a refuge for overtaxed New Yorkers. But then an income tax was imposed in 1991. And ever since politicians got their hands on this new source of revenue, the burden of spending has skyrocketed and Connecticut has become a fiscal dystopia.

So you would think I’d be reflexively hostile to additional tax hikes by the politicians in Hartford. And I should be, but I’m perversely intrigued by a new levy they’re considering. The Wall Street Journal opines on the proposal.

…most Yale University professors are proud to be progressives. Well, they are now getting the chance to live their convictions as Connecticut Democrats attempt to soak Yale’s rich endowment. Democrats in Hartford have proposed taxing the unspent earnings of university endowments with more than $10 billion in assets. Only Yale’s $25.6 billion endowment—the country’s second largest after Harvard—fits the tax bill. Yale’s tax-exempt investments earned $2.6 billion last year, eight times more than the University of Connecticut’s $384 million endowment. Oh, the inequality! …Hartford is already taxing anything that moves. Last year Democrats raised the top individual tax rate to 6.99% and extended a 20% corporate surtax. The tax hikes precipitated General Electric’s decision in January to move its headquarters to Boston. Between 2010 and 2015, Connecticut lost 105,000 residents to other states. For the last five years, it has recorded zero real GDP growth.

Nobody should be double taxed on income that is saved and invested, so my mind tells me that the right approach is to give all taxpayers the treatment now reserved for places like Yale.

But my heart tells me the opposite because it’s galling that Yale is dominated by statists who presumably want higher taxes on the rest of us, so maybe it’s time they swallow some of their own bitter medicine.

But the way, it’s not just state politicians that are salivating to pillage Yale. It’s now being reported that city politicians want a slice of the action.

The mayor of New Haven is backing a push to revisit an 1834 Connecticut statute affecting taxes for Yale University, saying new guidelines are needed to assess liability for the institution… “Since taxing real estate and other property is the only form of municipal taxation allowed by state law, more modern guidelines as to what’s taxable and what’s tax exempt are essential,” New Haven Mayor Toni Harp said this week in testimony supporting the legislation. …The Ivy League university has strongly objected to proposal.

Gee, I wonder if Yale also “strongly objected” to the various big tax hikes that have savaged the state’s investors, entrepreneurs, and small businesses? Or is their battlefield conversion against tax hikes solely a selfish gesture.

Needless to say, I’m sure it’s the latter, which is why part of me is thinking it would be rough justice if the jackals in state and local government descended on Yale.

That being said, I certainly don’t like the idea of these profligate politicians getting their greedy hands on even more money. So if they do impose taxes on Yale, I hope the university will consider a very thoughtful invitation from the Governor of Florida.

Gov. Rick Scott…issued a statement calling on the Ivy League institution to pick up stakes and move on down to sunny Florida. “We would welcome a world-renowned university like Yale to our state and I can commit that we will not raise taxes on their endowment,” Governor Scott said

Hmmm…. Better weather and no state income tax. Sounds like a good deal to me.

And since Florida doesn’t double tax anybody, Yale’s leftist professors could sleep easier at night since they no longer would be hypocrites who work at a school that enjoys tax-free status on its investments while neighbors are being taxed.

P.S. I should add Yale’s anti-tax leftists to my collection of statist hypocrites.

P.P.S. I might be willing to accept a tax hike if it somehow could be designed so that it only applied to advocates of higher taxes.

P.P.P.S. While some tax distortions are destructive, some are simply bizarre.

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