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Tough Times - or Bad Management?
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Business New Haven
2/4/2002
By: BNH
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At the end of December 2001, unemployment in the state of Connecticut stood at 3.6 percent. The national unemployment rate at that time was significantly higher at 5.8 percent - a figure Connecticut hasn't touched for a full year in more than six years.
In 1996, the city of New Haven had an unemployment rate of 6.8 percent. By December 2001, it had fallen to 3.8 percent, only slightly higher than the state average. In 1996 1,700,000 were employed in Connecticut; in 2001 only slightly fewer had jobs. With numbers like that it's hard to blame "the economy" for Connecticut's current budget shortfalls.
The more likely truth is that Connecticut lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have proven that they would rather spend money than protect the interests of taxpayers. The friction between Democrats and Republicans seems mainly over just how to spend it.
By virtue of increasingly generous support from the state, the city of New Haven has been able to reduce taxes over the past several years. How generous? In 1996, New Haven taxpayers ponied up nearly half (48 percent) of the cities revenues; by 2000 that figure had fallen to just 39 percent.
Perhaps that's great public policy from the city's perspective, but if the state has to increase taxes and cities like New Haven have to begin cutting services and raising taxes - even with an unemployment rate below four percent - it is plain the problem is spending.
It is time for lawmakers to start getting real, along with the rest of us.
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