Wealthy to Lamont: Raise our taxes
HARTFORD — A group of wealthy Connecticut residents are asking the General Assembly and Gov. Ned Lamont to raise the income tax on individuals like themselves.
So far, eight people have signed a letter to Lamont and lawmakers asking for higher taxes, according to a draft obtained by Hearst Connecticut Media.
“We ask that in this year’s biennial budget, you increase the income tax on us — Connecticut’s wealthiest residents — so that we can close the budget deficit and invest in Connecticut’s future,” they wrote.
The effort is being organized by a group calling itself “Fair Share Connecticut,” directed by Phillip Vander Klay, of New Haven, with support from the House Democratic Progressive Caucus.
Neither the governor’s budget, nor the legislature’s Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee tax package approved Wednesday, included an income tax increase, which Lamont has strongly opposed. Lawmakers’ tax proposal did include a surcharge on the capital gains tax for investment income.
Raising taxes on the wealthy via the income and capital gains taxes are priorities of the Progressive Caucus, which has 44 members — or about half the House Democrat caucus — in 2019.
“There is a tremendous amount of bipartisan public support for having the one percent pay their fair share,” said Rep. Anne Hughes, D-Easton, Progressive Caucus co-chair. “There seems to be roughly 36,00 of Connecticut’s most fortunate that averaged
ist and author who was the program’s keynote speaker.
Connecticut reported 39 incidents last year, down from the 49 reported in 2017. Of these, there was one assault, 19 reports of harassment and 19 cases of vandalism, according to the report.
Swastikas were etched into a picnic table at a housing complex in Ridgefield twice last year and swastikas and other graffiti have been spray painted multiple times at Ridgefield High School and the Aldrich Museum and Masonic Temple on Main Street in the past two years.
About half of the incidents in Connecticut happened at middle and high schools, including swastikas and other graffiti painted on walls at the Academy of Information Technology and Engineering High School in Stamford, eggs and stones thrown at Jewish students’ cars and swastikas were painted at Amity High School, a note left in a Wilton locker that said Jews will burn and Greenwich’s football team using “Hitler” and “Stalin” to tell players how to move, Prince said.
In Weston, where Prince lives, anti-Semitic graffiti appeared at the schools, which prompted officials to make a video that called out the action and send it to the parents.
These programs are especially important as surveys have shown more people think the Holocaust didn’t happen or that stories about it are exaggerated, Prince said.
“Tonight we say never again and stand guard,” she said.
One woman at the program said she’s experienced anti-Semitism her whole life, but it was through words alone. She said she worries now that the hate is backed by guns.
In October, 11 people were shot and killed at the Tree of Life Synagogue in Pittsburgh and on Saturday a woman was killed and three others injuured, including a rabbi and an 8-year-old girl, when a man opened fire at a synagogue in California.
Though the overall number of incidents in the U.S. is down, due to the decrease in vandalism, the number of assaults and harassment is up nationally, according to the report.
Connecticut seems to be on par with the number of incidents in the rest of the country, though it’s located near some of the states with the highest incidents, including Massachusetts with 141 incidents, New Jersey with 200 and New York with 340 incidents. These states tend to have higher incidents because they have more Jewish people, according to the Anti-Defamation League.
Prince said she’s unsure why there have been so many incidents in Connecticut schools specifically but schools need to do more than speak to the offending student in the guidance counselor’s office.
Last year, the General Assembly approved a bill introduced by then-state Sen. Toni Boucher, R-Wilton, whose district includes Ridgefield, that would require Connecticut high schools to teach the history of the Holocaust and other genocides.
Statewide, Connecticut has already made progress by toughening the punishment for anti-Semitic incidents, making it a felony now instead of a misdemeanor.
Prince said these incidents tend to happen as demographics shift within a community — as it becomes more diverse. She said social media has enabled the spread of antiSemitism.
The numbers crept up over the years, but the real uptick in anti-Semitic incidents started about three years ago during the presidential election in 2016.
“If it seems permissible at the highest level of government, it becomes permissible,” she said, adding more people are saying things they wouldn’t have before.
She said the issue transcends politics and people must call it out whenever they see it, regardless of party because both those on the left and right have done or said anti-Semitic things.
“It can feel you’re squeezed from both sides,” she said. “It does not come from one side of a political spectrum.”