Todd Brown for Fiscal Responsibility   Problems with Connecticut Government

Our State Government is driving away businesses, people and making it harder for the towns to do their jobs. Our State Government has a spending problem. Rather than address the problem by using controls on spending the legislature keeps raising existing and imposing new taxes. Our taxes are too high. The sales tax has grown back to almost the level it was before the income tax was imposed. The sales tax is growing in scope, clothes under $75 used to be exempt now everything is fair game. And don't try to make you own clothes either the sales tax now applies to thread and yarn. New items like pet boarding and airport valet services are also now taxed. We have the highest gasoline tax in the nation and yet my opponent is proposing tolls as a way to pay for highway funding. The HOV lanes around Hartford may be converted to toll lanes as a source of new revenue. Our government borrows money for projects of questionable return. Even in a time of tight money our state is spending on low priority projects like the Busway between New Britain and Hartford. Now renamed CTfastrak because of the negative images attached to the project because it is a huge boondoggle. It is a six hundred million dollar project. That works out to almost one thousand dollars an inch. The state tried to make the cost sound better by saying the state's part was only one hundred fifty million dollars and the federal tax payers would get stuck paying the rest. The logic is it is alright to waste someone else's money. Bringing Jackson labs to Farmington is a good idea, but the way the contract was written Connecticut takes all the risks and gets no guarantees in return. There are too many regulations coming out of Hartford. HB 5312 forced daycare workers to join unions. When has it become the government's job to force private employees to unionize? Trades people are forced to get expensive licenses, we require massage therapists to be licensed, radio and TV technicians need a license. Connecticut adopted California's emissions standards on new cars. On paper this sounds good making new cars cleaner. In practice the new cars come with less powerful engines that get worse gas mileage for a higher sticker price. The cleaner new cars do not address the pollution problem caused by older cars. Older cars get tested for emissions every two years. If a car fails the test the owner just needs to present an estimate of more than $787 to fix the problem and the drive can get a failed report and be allowed to pollute for the next two years. The state government is slow to act. Our permitting process has no guaranteed date for acceptance or denial. Projects wait while the state shows no sign of urgency. The priority in Hartford should be good government. The reality is getting reelected is priority number one.