Rep. Themis Klarides: State too costly for graduates, businesses

Written by Maggie Caldwell, Staff Writer
Friday, 06 November 2009 10:39

Despite national recognition for its high standards of education, Connecticut is experiencing a brain drain, which is consequently contributing to present economic woes, according to local Republican state representatives.

At a Republican budget forum last week, state Rep. Themis Klarides (R-114th), who represents Orange, Woodbridge and Derby, said high taxes are forcing young people out of the state once they graduate from high school or college. Klarides was joined by state Rep. Vin Candelora (R-86th) who represents East Haven, North Branford and Wallingford, at the sparsely attended forum at Amity High School Tuesday night. Both representatives are members of the Legislature’s Finance Committee.

“We offer the best education around and then everyone leaves when they graduate,” Klarides said.

The departure of young people from the state is coupled with an exodus of businesses, which have been saddled with increases in income taxes and surcharges, Klarides said. Referencing a report by Expansion Management Magazine, she noted that 26,000 Connecticut businesses have closed in the past two years.

“They are leaving the state because they can’t afford to run their businesses anymore,” Klarides said, adding that further increases are called for in the 2009-11 budget.

The $37.6 billion budget passed in the Legislature and was enacted on Sept. 1, despite the fact that Gov. M. Jodi Rell didn’t sign it. Some of the changes in the budget include increasing the personal income-tax rate to 6.5% from 5% on couples making more than $1 million and single filers earning $500,000 a year, imposing a 10% income tax surcharge for three years on the largest companies, and increasing the cigarette tax to $3 a pack from $2.

The state, which faces an $8.5 billion deficit, was more than two months late with a budget for the fiscal year that began July 1.

State Senate Majority Leader Martin Looney (D-New Haven) voted for the budget and said the plan cut $3 billion in state spending, while updating the state income tax structure, and protecting “some critical and essential state services and programs for parents, children, students, businesses, the elderly and the poor. These are all highly positive outcomes in this biennial budget.”

Klarides said that despite Democrats’ claims, “we really didn’t cut the budget at all.”

In a slide show, Klarides pointed to statistics saying government spending has increased 270% since 1988, while population growth has only gone up by about 7%.

“We have a net loss in wealth because people are moving out of Connecticut at a greater rate than any other state besides New York and New Jersey,” Klarides said.

State Republicans proposed cutting spending levels back to those of 2007 by limiting state services.

“Nobody wants to cut anybody’s anything,” Klarides said, but then pointed to a Quinnipiac University Poll that showed 60% of respondents in favor of cutting services versus 30% in favor of raising taxes to balance the state budget.

Klarides and Candelora said programs such as the state’s free dental service provided for the poorest citizens should be given another look.

“You have middle and upper-middle class people who don’t get dental work done now... while people below a certain level get it for free,” Candelora said.

State Comptroller Nancy Wyman now estimates that the budget could be $624 million in deficit in the current fiscal year due to declining tax revenues.

Looney noted in a press release that a third of the deficit is due to increased spending in the executive branch.

“Connecticut is getting hit with a powerful one-two punch right now,” Looney said. “Not only do revenues continue to drop, but the governor is failing to make the spending cuts called for in the budget.”

State Senator Gayle Slossberg, a Democrat who represents Orange, Milford and West Haven, was one of only five Democrats who voted against the budget.

“I believe that in order to address the budget deficit, we need to reduce spending, and that was our first obligation,” Slossberg said.

“Clearly we’re not out of the woods in anyway, shape or form. This isn’t a surprise to anyone. What it tells us is that we need to change the way we do business in our state if we’re going to get ahead of these very quickly declining revenues. The numbers may be better on Wall Street, but there certainly hasn’t been any recovery on Main Street, and we need to be doing everything that we can do to address that to help peple.”

If declining revenues hit a certan trigger point, Rell is expected to present a deficit mitigation plan, and the legislature will be called back into session.