The most recent Quinnipiac University poll contains some interesting info for lower Fairfield County on taxes.
Although voters by a 60 to 30 percent margin want lawmakers to cut services over raising taxes, voters by 71 to 27 percent support hiking the income tax for couples earning at least $500,000, many of whom live in this region.
That is the proposal contained within the budget the legislature’s Democratic-majority passed in late May and Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell promptly vetoed in early July.
In a joint statement about the Q-Poll, Senate President Donald Williams, D-Brooklyn and Senate Majority Leader Martin Looney, D-New Haven said “on the most fundamental questions of how to balance the budget, the majority of people are against (Rell). Nearly three-quarters of those polled think her opposition to the progressive income tax for couples earning at least $500,000 is wrong. People clearly think that the state’s richest residents, many of whom enjoyed enormous tax breaks during (Republican) President Bush’s 8 years in office, should be a part of the budget solution, even if that means paying a little more in taxes.”
What Williams and Looney failed to acknowledge is that opposition to the tax hike from members of their own party prevented the Democrats from overriding Rell’s budget veto.
And based on the reaction of one of those “no” votes – Sen. Bob Duff, D-Norwalk – it is unlikely the Q-Poll is going to convince the “no new taxes Dems” to change their minds.
“We always have to do what we think is right regardless of what a poll says,” Duff said.
He said he was not surprised by the poll’s results.
“People in other parts of the state that have a lower cost of living earn less and would say ‘yes, tax the other guy’,” Duff said.
