The Connecticut Primary

Connecticut goes to the polls Tuesday for its primary.  Unlike the normal election, there are primaries for most state offices.  There are two main candidates for governor for the Democrats:  Joe Ganim and Ned Lamont.  Ganim is a convicted criminal from his days as mayor of the state's largest city.  Why would anyone vote for him?  Lamont is a perennial candidate who uses his vast wealth to promote himself.  He is self-important and his principles seem to change on a consistent basis depending on what the polls say.  Why would anyone vote for him?  On the Republican side, there are five main candidates for governor.  These five seem to be running a campaign based upon who can call for the biggest tax reductions.  One guy wants to cut the corporate tax and eliminate the income tax.  That would get rid of something like half of all state revenue.  He's going to balance the budget by renegotiating state workers' contracts, or so he says.  Why would anyone vote for him. 

I shouldn't be so negative about the calls to cut the tax rates in Connecticut.  We have managed to bring out taxes up very high so that economic growth in our state is a thing of the past.  In the fifteen years prior to the enactment of the state income tax, Connecticut had the fastest growing personal income of any state.  In the roughly twenty years since that tax was passed, we have been in 49th place among the states for personal income growth.  It has been an amazing decline.  It would do wonders for the state if the income tax could be cut by a dramatic amount.  Someone would need to tell us what portion of state services would be cut as well, however.  So far, the campaigns have mostly told us about tax cuts but not much about services cuts.  It's too bad that they don't treat voters like responsible adults.

In any event, we have five people that essentially no one knows running to face a criminal or a pompous jerk in November.  Heaven help the state.