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| Senator Joe Markley |
Editor's Note: While on the surface this may not seem to have any bearing on plitics here, in Ohio, it is presented as a caution, or warning, if you will, of what very well
could happen if we let our guard down. Never take anything for granted; never become complacent. If the Constitution State can fall prey to socialism and mismanagement, so can the Buckeye State.
“The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance,” John Philpot Curran, from a speech given in Dublin, Ireland, 1790.
By State Senator Joe Markley
If there’s a quote I’m tired of hearing, it’s the
one groundlessly attributed to Einstein, which defines insanity as doing
the same thing over and over while expecting a different result.
Of course there’s a reason the saying is so common,
at least in Connecticut: a lot of crazy repetition goes on at our state
capitol.
Take the fiscal policy of the Democratic party
since they’ve had total control of state government. Within a month of
his inauguration in 2011, Governor Dannel Malloy called for the largest
tax increase in our history, to close a multi-billion
dollar deficit. His legislative minions delivered the hike, along with
the spending increase the governor also requested.
Four years later,
faced with a comparable deficit, Malloy applied the same prescription:
another multi-billion dollar tax increase and more state spending, again
imposed solely with Democratic legislative votes.
When 2017 brought yet another deficit, the General
Assembly delivered yet another tax increase, which Malloy again signed
it into law.
Now our current year’s budget is $260 million in
the red, and the shortfall in the next biennium promises to be the
largest yet: over $4 billion. Our state’s economy is collapsing before
our eyes—and what does Malloy propose? More of
the same: increases in the gas tax, the cigarette tax, the hotel tax,
and the real estate conveyance tax; new tariffs on tires and
non-prescription drugs; reinstitution of taxes on social security and
pension income; and elimination of property tax and business
tax deductions.
