After Several Major Tax Increases, Connecticut Still Can’t Make Ends Meet
16th October 2017
The rising cost of public employees’ retirement benefits has prompted the state to raise taxes three times in the last eight years. The public employee unions are adamant that the problem can be solved only by more taxation, and they have threatened to sue if any changes are made to the present payouts. Gov. Dannel Malloy and the General Assembly haven’t been able to agree on what to do, leaving the state without a budget for more than 100 days.
The state is $74 billion short of what it needs to fund those retirement benefits and the state’s bonded debt obligations. As of 2014, according to The Wall Street Journal, Connecticut ranked 48th in pension funding, meeting only 50 percent of its obligations. The state is looking at a budget deficit of $3.5 billion, out of a budget of about $19 billion.
The last time Connecticut faced financial difficulties of this size was in 1991. From 1984 and 1990, the cost of state pensions increased by 119 percent, according to The Connecticut Mirror. That led the state to impose its first-ever income tax. But the income tax revenue—$126 billion over the following 25 years—did little to restrain spending, and funding for pension programs is still inadequate. Retirement costs and debt services were 12 percent of the state budget 20 years ago. In this fiscal year, they will be 31 percent.
The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.