Financial Mines

Anyone who cares about business in the state of Connecticut should read the lead editorial in Saturday’s (8/29) Wall Street Journal.

According to the well-researched and written piece, since the enactment of the state income tax in 1991 by then-Gov. Lowell Weicker, the Connecticut has seen zero net job creation, and a population outflow of 113,000.

The income tax and all the other myriad taxes and fees in the state make Connecticut No. 3 in terms of tax burden on its individual citizens.

With proposed new taxes on wealthy individuals and businesses to balance the state budget, Connecticut will make itself even less competitive. And it’s pretty obvious which way the jobs and people will flow.

Hearst Connecticut personal finance columnist Julie Jason brought highlights of her new book,
The AARP Retirement Survival Guide: How to Make Smart Financial Decisions in Good Times and Bad, to a standing-room-only crowd Wednesday afternoon at Barnes & Noble at the Stamford Town Centre.  There will be video if I can ever figure it out…

A few years ago I traded in an SUV for a Pontiac Vibe, and upped my fuel efficiency from about 18 MPG to 28.5 MPG.  I got $1,500 for the trade in because my Blazer had pretty high mileage and with gas prices going up the value of a gas hog was going down.

But maybe I should have held onto the Blazer.  I would have tripled what I got for the trade under the cash for clunkers program.  Of course, I would have spent the difference on the inflated tab for gasoline over the past couple of years, not to mention taking a month or two off the lifespan of the McMurdo Ice Shelf with all the extra carbon I was releasing.

Instead, I did the responsible thing and spent my money — not a government handout — on a smaller, fuel-efficient car, only to see people being rewarded today for hanging on to their old gas hogs. Once again, a bit of public policy that seems relatively benign has the downside of rewarding people for  doing the wrong thing.