Letter To The Editor: Supporting Hwang And McCloat

To the Editor:

We are overtaxed, while our government overspends.

We have the second highest overall effective state and local tax rate, the third highest real estate taxes, and fourth highest vehicle property taxes throughout the entire country (Polansky, 2022).

Connecticut Democrats are touting a “$600 million dollar tax cut” in their state budget, but this is deceptive. The reason why we have a “budget surplus,” is because we have been overtaxed and our budget has been subsidized by federal COVID-19 relief (aka: still our tax dollars). With this “relief money,” the Governor increased state spending by 6.4 percent this year (Hwang, 2022).

What is more upsetting is that despite this celebrated “tax cut,” Democrat legislators have sent us down a path to an $800 million deficit next fiscal year in 2023 (Hwang, 2022). As of May 13th, the state also owes the federal government $495 million that it borrowed during COVID-19 (Hwang, 2022). Connecticut also has huge unfunded pension liabilities that all state residents are responsible for largely due to mismanagement and poor judgement by our Democratic leaders. Our State legislature and Governor’s office has been controlled by the Democrat party for far too long. Let’s give the Republicans the opportunity to get our fiscal house in order and make Connecticut the attractive and affordable place it once was.

I am a lifelong Nutmegger who was born here and have lived my entire life in Connecticut. I am so upset to see families and friends I have known for years leaving. Many folks took advantage of the higher real estate values with the influx of residents moving here from the only other two higher taxed states New York and New Jersey and cashed out. Prior to COVID real estate values in CT was not appreciating and was very slow moving. This is real estate depreciation is likely to return because Connecticut is not financially attractive to families and businesses. It is simply too expensive to live here.

Connecticut does not have a revenue problem we have a spending problem. Let’s fix our spending problems and make sure our hard-earned taxpayer dollar is spent efficiently.

This is why I am voting for state Senator Tony Hwang and state Representative Candidate Meghan
McCloat to be our fiscally accountable, voice of reason in Hartford.

Meghan McCloat is running for the 134th State Representative District (Fairfield and Trumbull). You can visit her website here: https://www.facebook.com/votemccloat134.

Tony Hwang is running for the 28th State Senate District (Bethel, Easton, Newtown and Fairfield). You can visit his website here: https://www.tonyhwang.org.

Christopher Shea
Fairfield, CT