Wall Street Journal raises alarm at “The State Wealth-Tax Alliance”–including Connecticut–in a week of bad economic news. Lego legs it to Boston. State losing people again.
An alliance to raise taxes in nine states will add to the bad economic news buffeting Governor Ned Lamont this week–and it’s only Wednesday. The Wall Street Journal editorial page shines a light today on a growing coalition of Democratic legislators from nine states intent on imposing a wealth tax on their most affluent residents.
Connecticut governors have long been sensitive to the state’s coverage in The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal. Ned Lamont, a Greenwich Democrat with deep roots in the world of finance, pays close attention to the Journal’s influential editorial page. Lamont refers to the 2018 Journal opinion piece headline “What’s the Matter With Connecticut?” in his freeform public remarks emphasizing his stewardship of the state’s finances. Today’s editorial raises a threat to Lamont’s efforts to reassure business leaders that it’s a new world in Connecticut with one of their own in charge and resolute.
Democrats finally have a strategy to stop billionaires from fleeing high tax states: Block the escape routes. That’s the logic behind coordinated moves in progressive states to tax wealth. The reforms aren’t likely to pass immediately, but they illustrate the increasingly open socialist goals of progressives and their public-union backers.
The confiscatory tax alliance emerged late last week when lawmakers from eight states unveiled plans to target wealthy residents. California, New York, Illinois, Maryland, Hawaii, Minnesota, Connecticut and Washington state are all represented, and several of the sponsors have already released bills. “We are here today to put billionaires and multimillionaires on notice,” said Washington state Sen. Noel Frame on a Zoom call. “They will pay what they owe.”
Fund Our Future is coordinating the movement. Read more about it here.
Tuesday brought more immediate bad news for jobs and opportunity in Connecticut. Lego, the toy buying block maker, announced it will move its headquarters from Enfield to Boston. The global company will begin packing up in 2025. The company’s American headquarters employs more than 700 workers in Enfield.
Lego signaled its commitment to Connecticut was fading when it announced last summer that it would build a $1 billion, 1.7 million-square-foot manufacturing plant in Virginia. The facility will provide more than 1,700 jobs.
Economist Don Klepper-Smith provided more grim news Tuesday. The number of people moving to the state is outstripped by the leavers. Connecticut suffered a net loss of 13,547 our neighbors between July 2021 and July 2022. See the numbers at the top of this posting.
Published January 25, 2023.