According to the Courant, Senate Dems are convinced that voting on increasing taxes is a good thing. They frame it by saying it is an introduction of a progressive income tax. A progressive income tax is a good thing. A lower progressive income tax is a better thing. From the Courant:
Senate Democrats today intend to defy Gov. M. Jodi Rell by approving a progressive income tax scale that Democrats say will lower taxes for most residents and raise taxes on households earning more than $270,000 annually.
The announcement Monday by Senate President Pro Tem Donald E. Williams Jr., D-Brooklyn, comes as the legislature’s Democratic majority and the Rell administration are deadlocked over a tax-and-spending plan for the fiscal year beginning July 1.
Williams declined to predict if the tax vote would jump-start or further complicate budget negotiations as the legislative session lurches toward its adjournment deadline of midnight June 6.
“I can’t remember a situation quite like this,” Williams said.
Williams said he was unsure if Democrats could pass the tax package by the two-thirds margin necessary to overcome a gubernatorial veto.
Democrats can vote on taxes without Rell’s consent, but not spending. All budgets proposed this year - by the Republican Rell, legislative Republicans and Democrats - exceed the state spending cap, which cannot be topped without Rell’s permission.
Buoyed by rising revenues and pressured by fiscal conservatives in her own party, Rell has walked away from the across-the-board income tax increase she proposed in February to fund a major increase in state aid for local education.
She now opposes any tax increase.
State Senator Bob Duff can be reached here:
E-mail:
Phone:
860-240-0414,
or toll-free
1-800-842-1420
source: Courant, Senate Move Defies Rell:Democrats Will Go Ahead With Tax Vote, By CHRISTOPHER KEATING, And MARK PAZNIOKAS, May 29, 2007
