May 6, 2013
By: Ben Zimmer
Read the full article in The Day

Two Connecticut think-tanks - the liberal Connecticut Voices for Children and conservative Yankee Institute for Public Policy - are having quite an intrastate smackdown over the fairness of the state's tax code.

At issue in the dispute is whether wealthy Connecticut residents pay their "fair share" in taxes. Unsurprisingly, the liberal Voices argued that they do not, and that the state should therefore raise taxes on the wealthy. The conservative Yankee Institute, of course, argued that the wealthy pay more than their fair share and Connecticut should repeal or scale back the earned income tax credit, which transfers money to low-income taxpayers.

The paper lays out a set of specific regulations for which the benefits do not exceed the costs, or for which the benefits could be achieved in less costly ways.  The regulations identified in the paper include certain occupational licensing requirements, employment regulations, and environmental regulations.
 
Connecticut has seen no net job growth in the past two decades, and the state's recovery from the 2008 economic downturn has been much weaker than the recovery in neighboring states and the country as a whole. Creating a more balanced regulatory climate in the Connecticut is one of the keys to restarting the state's economy, and this paper provides a starting point of specific action steps the General Assembly could take to begin doing this.

Click here to read the full paper