By Mark Pazniokas

www.ctmirror.org

Hebron — Eleven candidates were invited, nine accepted and two bickered to the point that another proclaimed the night “an embarrassment.” And so it went Wednesday in the second of the Connecticut Republican Party’s five monthly showcases of the politicians vying to become the GOP nominee for governor in 2018.

GOP chairman J.R. Romano watches from the wings. (CLICK TO ENLARGE) Mark Pazniokas for CTMirror.org

With no practical way to thin the field, the Republicans are facing a long and bumpy road to their nominating convention in May at the Foxwoods Resort Casino, whose tribal owners are engaged in a multi-million-dollar lobbying battle at the state legislature over MGM Resorts International’s proposal to build a gambling resort in Bridgeport.

Peter Lumaj, a refugee from Communist Albania and an unabashed admirer of President Trump, who demonstrated in 2016 that decorum accomplishes little on a stage crowded with candidates, spent much of the evening goading his rivals, especially the five Republicans who have held public office. He repeatedly dismissed them as “career politicians,” members of a political establishment that has left the state in fiscal and economic disarray.

The candidates sat on stools arrayed across the stage of RHAM High School: Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton, businessman Steve Obsitnik of Westport, former U.S. Comptroller General Dave Walker, Lumaj, state Rep. Prasad Srinivasan, Shelton Mayor Mark Lauretti, former Trumbull First Selectman Tim Herbst, state Sen. Toni Boucher and Mike Handler, a top city finance official in Stamford.

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By Keith M. Phaneuf

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy today continued to set the stage for a landmark 2018 transportation finance debate, outlining nearly 400 capital projects worth $4.3 billion that would be suspended over the next five years because of inadequate funding.

The alternative to deferring upgrades to the elevated section of Interstate 84 in Hartford, the “Mixmaster” junction of I-84 and Route 8 in Waterbury and hundreds of other priorities. the governor and other advocates argued, is for legislators to dedicate more resources to a Special Transportation Fund on the fast track to insolvency.

“If Connecticut does not take the necessary action to allow us to restart these vital projects, not only will it put the state’s infrastructure into a further state of disrepair, it will hurt our economy,” Malloy said during an afternoon news conference at the state office building on Columbus Boulevard.

The governor, who has refused to say whether he will recommend tolls, gasoline tax hikes, or other revenue-raising measures when he presents his next budget to the legislature on Feb. 7, continued to play his cards close to the chest today.

By Keith M. Phaneuf

Legislators got some good news and some bad news today about the state budget.

The good news: State income tax receipts from December and January are running $900 million more than expected — driven largely by one-time decisions by taxpayers here prepping for major changes to federal income tax policies.

The bad news: Legislators can use only about $10 million of those funds to mitigate the $224 million budget deficit projected for the current fiscal year.

Why? Because the new budget adopted with bipartisan support last fall establishes a new “volatility” cap to force Connecticut to save more when the income tax performs well.

By Ana Radelat

Washington – “Blue” states like Connecticut that say they were targeted in the GOP’s federal tax overhaul are looking for ways to protect their residents from the negative impact of the new cap on the deductibility of state and local taxes.

The problem for many taxpayers in high-income states is that the new tax law limits to a total of $10,000 the deductibility of, in Connecticut’s case, state income and municipal property taxes.

That won’t affect many taxpayers in lower-income, lower-tax states like Alabama or Missouri, but states that have high incomes and costs-of-living, like Connecticut, New York, California, and New Jersey — states that also tend to trend Democratic — say they are being disproportionately punished and are looking for ways around the new limitation.

“Everyone is looking to see if there’s something we can do,” said Connecticut Department of Revenue Services Commissioner Kevin Sullivan.