26 February—Claiming the politically expedient pretense of benefiting the middle-income middle class, Connecticut’s thieving, self-serving Democrat legislative whores have recently come up with some new ways to steal money from people who earn it so they—the duplicitous Democrat pols—can throw it at people who prefer the money to be given to them to buy their votes. Yes, most of the victims—the people who earn the money—are indeed considered middle income and middle class. Is that ironic or is that just typical political chicanery?

Democrat State Senate boss Martin Looney has introduced—by himself—SB 774, “An Act Adjusting Certain Marginal Rates for the Personal Income Tax and Establishing a Capital Gains Surcharge.” Looney wants to increase the highest marginal rates, add a surcharge to the trading profits of the non-indigent, and suck up to the faex populi who vote for him and his buddies by giving their tax rate a token reduction.

Looney also has introduced—also by himself—SB 776, “An Act Concerning a State-Wide Property Tax on Certain Residential Real Property.” This misnamed, misguided mansion tax imposes a two-tier state-wide surtax on homes assessed at over $1.5 million. Looney intends the ill-gotten proceeds to be used for education equalization grants, most often thrown at schools in Democrat strongholds.

HB 5422, “An Act Concerning the Creation of an Interstate Compact for the Tax Treatment of Investment Fund Net Profits Attributable to Certain Investment Management Services,” has 13 sponsors, all Democrats. And this one has some merit.

Hedge fund, private equity, and venture capital managers make out like bandits by taking their compensation as so-called carried interest. That’s considered a return on investment; so, like long-term capital gains, it’s taxed at a little over half the rate for ordinary income. The whole tax system stinks, of course, but that’s a particularly noxious loophole that needs to be closed at federal and state level. Don’t count on Republicans to do it. Either.

HB 5673, “An Act Concerning the Reformation of Certain Taxes and Tax Equity,” has six Democrat sponsors. Note that it refers to more fashionable “tax equity” rather than “tax equality.” Its stated purpose is “To reform certain taxes, to reduce taxes for middle-income taxpayers and seniors, and to increase collections, investigations, and reporting by certain state agencies.”

Pols like to claim that everything they do is for the benefit of the vaguely, conveniently defined middle income and middle class. So besides raising corporate income tax (remember that corporations don’t really pay taxes, their customers do) and imposing a surcharge on investment income, among other malicious fiscal abuses, this bill extends the state-wide property surtax to commercial real property with an assessed value of more than the magical $1.5 million. It also specifically requires the Department of Revenue Services to hire more tax auditors to oversee the heightened abuse of Connecticut taxpayers.

Reminds you of the $80 billion for a decade’s worth of IRS agents in Joe Biden’s fraudulent Inflation Reduction Act.

Will any of these bills get anywhere? For a number of reasons, Gov. Ned Lamont can’t be too enthusiastic about any of them. But you never can tell . . .