It came as no surprise to anyone living in this state that our new governor, Dannel Malloy, would immediately look to make raising taxes as part of his plan to close the estimated 3.5B budget gap for 2012. What really irritates me about it is that these increases will hurt the middle class greatly, everything from non-grocery food, gas, services like pet grooming, and others that were either non-taxed before or already have high taxes, like gas. Malloy and his officials call it “shared sacrifice” across the board, as income taxes will also rise to 5% for those making 20k-100k a year, elimination of the property tax credit, elimination of the tax-free weekend, and an increase of our sales tax to 6.35%, and .10% of that goes to the towns.

The issue to me in all of this is that we all knew of the budget issue since it croppd up shortly after the recession was announced in 2008-2009. The Gov. Rell dipped into the state’s “Rainy Day” fund and made other cuts and concessions to close the gap for that year, but if deeper and more serious cuts were not made in the next budget, it would widen once more. Many Malloy supporters like to dish on her for leaving the state in a jam, but really I pin this more towards the Dems in the state legislature that stalemated her attempts to call for a better balanced budget by eliminating more spending and cutting non-essential departments in programs within the state agencies. This of course cries foul with state unions and such because heaven forbid we the people who fund the state be allowed to consolidate operations during lean times. Rather, Malloy wants to seek “concessions” from unions which probably means more furlough days and other useless items that really just prolong the inevitable.

What grinds my gears the most is the notion that they expect the middle class in this state to foot most of the bill. By their definition, the middle is the 20k-100k bracket they are taxing 5% on income tax and increasing or establishing new taxes on the everyday things we use. Eliminating the tax-free weekend is also a huge loss for lower and middle class families as that often falls on the week before school starts and is a huge help in families buying things for their children’s back-to-school. It’s rather crass of them to assume that we are “out of the woods” in these tough economic times, while we are better positioned than a year or two ago, times are still tight and families don’t need more taxes piled on their already high plates of costs. To me, “fair” is our government doing the responsible thing and shedding redundant or non-working agencies and programs, reducing the number of state employees to save costs, and maximizing efficiency on existing programs. We live in an instant and digital age, and yet things are still done on paperwork and folders, when we could be converting a lot of things to computers or other means, that alone would eliminate the need for extra personnel. I know what you’re going to say, how dare I advocate people losing jobs.

To me, state and government jobs should have never been paid “career” jobs in the first place. You are there to perform a job that other people are paying for, almost like the conventions I staff every year. Sure the attendees pay to attend the event, and I get some things paid for like my food and room, but I am not getting salary or benefits and nor should I, it’s three days out of the year. What’s worse is these unions are strongarming into raising these people’s salaries and benefits without any additional capital coming in. In private business, you can’t even consider raising salaries unless you have the incoming revenue to afford it, if you don’t, you are toast. Why does government think it can operate like a private business? This “for the good of the people” crap is sickening, because you aren’t doing me any favors by raising my taxes just so you can afford to buy another state vehicle or hire five more people to sit behind a desk and shuffle papers. I probably do more work in a day than the average state worker does and my job is pretty low-key compared to many. I realize these are crude analogies I am crafting, but the point is, if you are taking out more cookies than you are making and putting in, eventually you are going to run out, and who is to blame, the one taking or the one creating?

Sadly, this is why I voted for Foley, because I knew Malloy would take the low road in this situation, he is a Democrat, and Democrats don’t reduce spending and shrink government, they tax and spend. Even the most moderate of Democrats don’t fully support the idea of limited government, and it’s sad because we as a country spend more time trying to make ourselves be some pillar of human morality and advancement, when we are no better than the rest of the world’s monkeys. I really wish we’d stop trying to be like everyone else and really establish this country’s real nationalistic pride, if we did, we would see the equality in all of us and understand that this country really is stronger as a whole rather than divided by race, religion, class, and lifestyle choices. Moving one step closer to a better tomorrow doesn’t start with spending more money on everyone, it starts by more people spending time with everything.