[kidyankee764]

Originally Posted by CT_Yank

Sorry but there is absolutely no way adding a boondoggle layer of county government would help at all. Go talk to your NJ friends how county layer helps, more police, more administrators..more nepotism, more grifts, more pensions. You want your 9k tax bill to become 12k, then do this.

Problem is NJ has county level government on top of everything CT/MA have. Southern states, for the most part, have solely county government.

I’m not suggesting “adding” another level of government. I’m suggesting a total overhaul of the way the state does business. The way it’s working now isn’t cutting it.

And all of that aside, I noticed my itemizing taxes paid comment was conveniently ignored.

[MikefromCT]

Originally Posted by JayCT

What is even more eye opening in the article is that the amount of tax exempt property in Hartford. It is almost 60% of the grand list now. I thought it was closer to 50%. That is insane. Jay

Perhaps it would be less than 60% if Hartford would build commercial or residential properties on the sea of vacant plots of land north of downtown on Main Street and elsewhere. So much of that area is just an urban prairie just sitting there, and this is where houses or duplexes once stood before being lost to arson or abandonment. Have you seen that area? There’s so much potential for growth of some kind, and it’s just empty.

It would be SIGNIFICANTLY less if we could remove churches from their tax-exempt statuses. Unfortunately, this is unlikely to ever be considered, but it should.

[JayCT]

Originally Posted by MikefromCT

Perhaps it would be less than 60% if Hartford would build commercial or residential properties on the sea of vacant plots of land north of downtown on Main Street and elsewhere. So much of that area is just an urban prairie just sitting there, and this is where houses or duplexes once stood before being lost to arson or abandonment. It would be SIGNIFICANTLY less if we could remove churches from their tax-exempt statuses. Unfortunately, this is unlikely to ever be considered, but it should.

A few empty blocks means little when you consider the entire city. I would guess a lot of it is state government buildings, churches, non-profits, public housing, as well as city owned properties like schools, parks, police and fire stations, etc. Jay

[kidyankee764]

Originally Posted by JayCT

A few empty blocks means little when you consider the entire city. I would guess a lot of it is state government buildings, churches, non-profits, public housing, as well as city owned properties like schools, parks, police and fire stations, etc. Jay

I think it’s time Hartford begin to combine city owned real estate, no?

[BobNJ1960]

Originally Posted by beerbeer

RHINOs will not solve the problems. The state needs conservative Republicans to get out of the current mess, another Jodie Rell will solve nothing. [b]Somebody has to come in and take an axe to the mountain of harmful anti-business regulations, cut taxes (or at least freeze them), cut back the number of bureaucrats in Hartford and tame the public sector unions.
[/i]s."

Amen!

[MikefromCT]

Originally Posted by JayCT

A few empty blocks means little when you consider the entire city. I would guess a lot of it is state government buildings, churches, non-profits, public housing, as well as city owned properties like schools, parks, police and fire stations, etc. Jay

Yes, but I was referring to the empty lots where there’s nothing. If the state or city owns these, it would be in the city’s best interest to turn it over to private enterprises where they can buy it, pay taxes on it, and do something reputable with it. The city can’t go on like this, perpetually relying on the government sector, how is this sustainable? Sure, the recent attractions like Yard Goats are nice, but what about for the people who live there after the lights dim and everyone drives back to the ‘burbs? People living north of downtown aren’t experiencing any sort of renaissance that we keep hearing about, and for those who do own property there and pay taxes, they deserve better. They’re still without a supermarket nearby, and having access to one would save those residents the hassle of having to travel out of the city for groceries and it would provide jobs where people could contribute and earn money — not a lot, but at least something for themselves. I use that as an example because it’s probably what that neighborhood needs more than anything, but it’s hardly the only thing. A neighborhood doesn’t have to be wealthy to be functional, and maybe there are things in the pipeline to improve things, but nobody’s talking about it.

[GeoffD]

Originally Posted by beerbeer

RHINOs will not solve the problems. The state needs conservative Republicans to get out of the current mess, another Jodie Rell will solve nothing. Somebody has to come in and take an axe to the mountain of harmful anti-business regulations, cut taxes (or at least freeze them), cut back the number of bureaucrats in Hartford and tame the public sector unions.

This week the Hartford business Journal has an issue dedicated to the crazy financial situation in Hartford. https://www.hartfordbusiness.com/art...-tax-structure It is Hartford specific, not focused on the larger state problems. But it is illustrative.

But the biggest pain point was property taxes. Though D’Aprile didn’t own D&D’s old Hartford quarters at 276 Franklin Ave. — his father actually does — he was still responsible for paying real estate and personal property taxes. At its peak, he owed $54,000 a year to the city — a sum that became too much to bear and led him to buy a smaller property less than four miles away in Wethersfield, where he’d eventually relocate his entire business and 38 employees."

Nah. The root cause is the weak residential property tax base in Hartford that pays very little property tax relative to the burden (schools, mostly) it puts on the city. 100,000 people with tons of children in a ghetto.


The same is true at the state level. You can zero out the pension liability and run a lean non-bloated public sector and the state still has a huge problem since so much of the budget is tied to propping up the bottom 20%.


If you want to cut spending, you have to deny poor people health care and that includes granny in the nursing home with Medicaid picking up the bill. Alabama caps per-person Medicaid hospital spending at $3,500/year. They don't allow much spending on the expensive chronic health issues. If you're poor and you get sick, you die. Education is the same way. In the poor areas, teachers make $30K and have enormous classroom sizes. I'm not saying expensive NEA union public school teachers in the northeastern failed cities do much better but you have zero shot at ending generational poverty doing it the red state way.

[kidyankee764]

Originally Posted by GeoffD

I'm not saying expensive NEA union public school teachers in the northeastern failed cities do much better but you have zero shot at ending generational poverty doing it the red state way.

And the blue state way is ending generational poverty?

[Mike 75]

Originally Posted by kidyankee764

And the blue state way is ending generational poverty?

I had the same reaction.

[JayCT]

Originally Posted by kidyankee764

And the blue state way is ending generational poverty?

It can for some. And it lessens the suffering of many, most of who are innocent children.

As someone who has a family member who was permanently impacted by the poor health care in one of those Red states, I see the importance of paying for decent healthcare for everyone. My family member is now permanently disabled and a burden to taxpayers all because the doctors refused to test her for years. When they finally did test her, it turned out she had a treatable disease that she had been saying it was for years. Unfortunately by that time her condition was too far along to be altered.

I have another friend who also had a series of medical problems topped by a very serious infection. She lives here in Connecticut. She was near death but got excellent care at Yale. She was there for 10 months but is now home and is starting to look for work. Soon she will be back close to normal and paying taxes instead of being a drain on taxpayers. Jay