Lamont: Hike Sin Taxes, Raise Vaping Age, Cut Reliance On Borrowing

Governor Ned Lamont appearing on Tom Dudchik’s CT Capitol Report show provided a preview of his upcoming budget proposal that includes new revenues for sin taxes, raising the age for purchasing tobacco and vaping products to 21 statewide, a 75 percent tax on vaping products, 10-cent tax on plastic bags, a 25-percent deposit on wine and liquor bottles. See associated videos.

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13 comments

  1. Woke me right up. A 25% tax on wine and liquor bottles? Wow, the send-up by Harry’s Wine Shop in Fairfield of the 2015 Chateauneuf du Pape may attract you to buy a case of this rated wine. At nearly $1,000 for a case (12 bottles with a discount) that would call for an additional $250 for Governor Lamont’s budget? Or was there a mis-reporting where 12 bottles @$.25 = $3.00? Time will tell.

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  2. No one can be surprised that a tax and spend governor would do anything other than what they do. His logic is to offer taxes on a host of products and services and then eliminate some of those and leave the taxes on others as to show the public that, “I’m looking out for you.”

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  3. Don’t be misled. The new taxes purpose is to fund the fixed costs promised to current and former employees. No one benefits from Connecticut’s status as a high tax state more than they do.
    What Connecticut needs is an employee whose value exceeds their cost.

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    1. LE,
      I am in agreement with your statement that the value of an employee should exceed their cost. How do we support such a belief? Perhaps more focus on who is employed, doing what duties, for what hours with a narrative providing all benefits and features of compensation as well as the financial values? And when people are employed, almost no matter what their employment something new comes under the sun and efficiencies and expenses change. So, training to maintain skills is important, too. And evaluations on a regular basis are required in fairness to employees but also to management as justification for promotion and compensation gains.
      LE, is there enough detail coming out of levels of government to see the expense to the taxpayer relative to the value of the public service employee? Time will tell.

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      1. JML, there is no mechanism to complete your supposed task.
        If you’re looking for a self-imposed cost/benefit analysis you won’t find one.
        The organizations you discuss are only capable of linear decisions which are always slow, gradual and incremental.
        When chaos arrives, non-linear thinking prevails. September, 2008 was the last time the Federal government did that. I don’ think Connecticut’s GA has ever engaged in the type of non-linear thinking that produces change. By intention, it’s not built that way.

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  4. Ned is on the right track here.. The Center on Addiction studies at Columbia University — CASA — has determined that, on average, states spend about 11% of their budgets in response to substance-abuse related issues, with alcohol being the abused substance generating most of other drug abuse and related problems ( see link — 4627271-Shoveling-up-ii-the-impact-of-substance-abuse-on-federal-state-and-local-budgets) … If we apply this to Connecticut, we can see that Connecticut is spending about $2 billion per year on substance-abuse related issues (about the same amount as our annual deficit…). Wouldn’t this indicate that we should be collecting taxes on abused substances at a rate that would cover this portion of the budget? (…Rather than taxing the incomes of worker-victims of their forced commute, per the regressive highway tolls advocated by some?…)

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  5. *** Lets pay the State debt, State intro-structure problems, public transportation problems, public education debacles, etc… with what? Incoming & out-going tolls are a must, tax hikes on those making $250,000 + a year need to put more in the kitty, medical marijuana bill must past & be regulated by the state, sin taxes also raised with tax increase on all casino gaming in state, new & old. The older the state gets & the higher the population grows in urban cities, along with everything else the more its going to cost local government to maintain the status quo! If this was Montana, or the Dakota’s then, yea no need for any more tax hikes but its not; Its one of the oldest states in the union. So OIB bloggers, how would you solve all the state’s problems? ***

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    1. Mojo, Inside the Problem-Solving Capsule begins here: We need a Sports Betting platform that produces annual profits of $40B. Dream big, win big. Here’s how we get there:
      Connecticut will need to include a micro-insurance policy with each bet/ticket. This will increase gambling velocity and make our model the envy of 49 states and the choice of patrons worldwide..
      Short version: this will require fourteen employees, a mobile app, templates from Connecticut insurance companies, lotto involvement, event curation and the kind of bandwidth that will make web providers choke!
      (wink)

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      1. Astute readers understand that if this idea reaches its goal Connecticut becomes America’s first tax free state where all its obligations are met, the sales tax reverts to zero, its population (and home prices) boom and all its revenue comes from one source: sports betting.
        Nice problem to have.

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