The Red Line

Connecticut state employees are enjoying their sixth consecutive annual pay raise, pushing their wages up 33% under Ned Lamont and the Democrats. It is time for a wage freeze such as imposed by Lamont’s predecessor Democrat Dannel Malloy.

CT state employee wages are now the second highest in the nation. State employee compensation is ... $10.0 billion, or about $2,775 for every man, woman and child in the Nutmeg State.

Unionized state workers in Connecticut are dramatically overpaid. This is unfair and unsustainable. It is time for a wage freeze such as former governor Democrat Dannel Malloy imposed.

Democrats have given unionized state employees six straight annual pay hikes since Ned Lamont took office: 5.5%, 5.5%, 4.5%, 4.5%, 4.5% and 4.5%, which compound to 33%. A state worker making $100,000 in January 2019 is making $133,000 today.

I’ve said that Governor Lamont’s “Connecticut Comeback” and his claimed “progress on pensions” are myths, so I was interested in CT Mirror’s report that the “Brand new CT budget [is] already plagued by a $170 million hole” in the very first month of the new $26 billion fiscal year budget. This news doesn’t have the ring of a “comeback.”

According to the Office of Fiscal Analysis, the “hole” was caused by a $70 million “shortfall in the Higher Education Alternative Retirement [pension plan] line item.”

Another $40 million took the form of a “deficiency in the Teachers’ Retirement Board budget [teachers’ pension fund] due to a shortfall in the Retirement Contributions line item…” Doesn’t sound like progress on pensions.

April this year brought a nice surprise for federal and state tax collectors. Uncle Sam enjoyed unexpectedly robust net income tax receipts of $483 billion, amounting to a $103 billion or 27%, increase over April 2023, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Uncle Sam can use the revenue, but even a $100 billion surprise will hardly make a dent in ongoing massive federal deficits.

The increase was driven by a $77 billion, or 26%, increase in final payment of non-withheld income taxes, namely net taxes paid in estimated installments throughout the year. A large portion of non-withheld taxes are taxes on capital gains.

Connecticut enjoyed the same unexpected serendipity. Net non-withheld individual income taxes in April hit $1.7 billion, amounting to a $275 million, or 19%, gain over April 2023. Yet towering deficits loom.