The Commission on Fiscal Stability and Economic Growth — composed of Connecticut CEOs and business owners — released their much-anticipated recommendations today at the Capitol, which included a combination of tax increases, tax cuts, tolls and a $15 minimum wage.
It’s easy to see the rationale behind the deal. How could offering pasty-faced Connecticut residents direct flights to Ireland fail to rake in the cash? But things didn’t quite take off as expected so now, along with buses and trains, Connecticut is subsidizing airline travel — a sort of public transportation system for the sky.
Despite the Commerce Department’s report that Connecticut’s economy had grown 3.9 percent during the third quarter, the state’s economy has actually shrunk over the past year.
Newly released data from the Internal Revenue Service shows a record loss of high-income tax filers and their families in 2015 following the state’s second largest tax increase. A total of $2.6 billion in adjusted gross income was lost to other states as Connecticut experienced a net loss of roughly 20,179 residents.
The personal income growth for Connecticut residents was the slowest in the nation in 2017, according to a report by Pew Charitable Trusts. Personal income in Connecticut for 2017 actually dipped .6 percent into the negative, and the residents’ personal income growth rate since 2007 has been an anemic .6 percent.
Connecticut’s government spending outpaced the state's gross domestic product by a wide margin since 1990, according to a review of past figures compiled at U.S. Government Spending, an online database of state and federal spending.