Thomas MacMillan Photo
One candidate said Connecticut can create jobs through tax reform and more transportation and education spending. The other candidate spoke of how Newhallville can borrow an idea from Bangladesh.
The candidates are East Rock Alderman Roland Lemar and East Rock psychologist Debra Hauser (pictured above), who are vying to become state representative in the 96th General Assembly District. The district, comprising parts of Hamden and New Haven, is currently represented by State Rep. Cam Staples, who will step down at the end of this year.
The two face off in a primary next Tuesday for the Democratic Party nomination. They’ve been running hard.
On the trail this final week, Lemar and Hauser have been hearing a lot about jobs and the recession, and been offering their prescriptions for how to turn the economy around.
Lemar said Connecticut can create jobs and develop the economy by fixing the tax system and investing in transportation and education. Those investments could be funded by a more progressive income tax that would also serve the purpose of easing the property tax burden, Lemar said.
Asked about how to boost the economy, Hauser mentioned investment in early childhood education and changing the tax structure. She also brought up an untested concept, at least in Connecticut: micro-finance, or micro-credit. It’s a concept made popular by Bangladeshi economist and Nobel prize winner Muhammad Yunus, who advocates the use of tiny loans for poor people looking to start small businesses. Hauser said she’s looking at the possibility of applying the idea to poor communities in Connecticut, specifically Newhallville, a neighborhood just west of the 96th District’s Whitney Avenue border (which straddles New Haven and Hamden).
Tackling The Economy
During door-to-door canvassing in East Rock this week, Lemar shared his thoughts on this year’s campaign issues. He said the number one topic on voters’ minds is the economy. Constituents are particularly concerned about jobs, Lemar said.
“Folks want a comprehensive strategy towards growing jobs,” Lemar said. That strategy, he said, can be found through a combination of tax reform and investment in transportation and education. The state needs to invest in bus lines and trains and create options that will help the state to be more competitive. Such investment will create construction jobs and attract companies to Connecticut. “Businesses are more likely to come when the transit is there,” Lemar said.
Businesses are likely to stay if the schools are good, Lemar said. “Investing in schools keeps people here.”
The change that can have the most impact, however, is tax reform, Lemar said. “It’s so much more expensive to do business here.”
The state budget crisis is a moment of great promise, Lemar said. Things have gotten so bad that the budget hole can’t be plugged with a quick fix like raising licensing fees. “Everything is on the table,” he said. “It’s an opportunity to radically re-think everything we do.”
At this moment of opportunity, Lemar said, he’d like to implement a progressive tax system under which people earning over $500,000 per year would see an increase in taxes. “It should be stepped up from there,” he said. People earning over $2 million or $3 million would see even higher taxes.
Such a tax structure would allow the state’s municipalities to ease their reliance on property taxes. The property tax system is “so antiquated” and “so damaging,” Lemar said.
Hauser agreed that property taxes are too high. One source of the problem is that the state doesn’t fully fund Payment In Lieu Of Taxes (PILOT) to towns with tax-exempt property, like New Haven. She said she would work for the full funding of PILOT. To do that, the state should be more aggressive about going after federal funding, she said.
Hauser made her comments during a Wednesday afternoon interview in East Rock Park, where she was joined by her communications coordinator, Maureen Gaffney.
Hauser agreed that the state of the economy is a hot topic on the campaign trail: “Everyone says they’re struggling.” People tell her all the time that they’ve lost their job or they’re “barely surviving” or they’ve had to move back in with their parents, she said.
Asked how she responds to such statements, Hauser began by talking about financial regulation. “I don’t buy the economic axiom that markets are efficient on their own,” she said.
To address the economy, the state needs to invest in early childhood education and health care, Hauser said. That’s an “investment in the next generation,” she said.
Hauser also said the tax base needs to be expanded by bringing in more business to the state. Banks need to be encouraged to lend more money, she said.
Hauser said she’s interested in applying the concepts of microfinance to struggling neighborhoods like Newhallville. “I would like to explore the possibility,” she said. “Micro-lending in urban centers” could foster entrepreneurship, she said.
In developing countries, micro-credit offers start-up capital small-scale entrepreneurs too poor to qualify for a regular business loan. For instance, a development agency might grant a small low-interest loan to a housewife in rural India, enabling her to buy a sewing machine and start a tailoring business.
Asked how the idea might apply in a neighborhood like Newhallville, Hauser said she hasn’t looked at the possibility too closely, but thinks it’s worth examining further.
Hauser later returned to the topic of Newhallville when she talked about addressing poverty.
She told the story of how she came to know the neighborhood through her daughter, who lost her father, Hauser’s first husband, when she was only 9 months old. As a teenager, her daughter was drawn to teens from Newhallville, some of whom had also lost fathers, to death or incarceration.
“She only wanted to be in Newhallville,” Hauser said. “My daughter opened my eyes to despair and hopelessness I couldn’t believe.”
Hauser said that through her daughter she got to know Newhallville neighbors who had no way to go to college, no income. Many children there have been traumatized by the loss of a parent to incarceration or drugs. Trauma has become a consequence of poverty, Hauser said. She said she “saw the despair in the eyes of children” in Newhallville.
Tax-And-Spender! Flip-Flopper!
Lemar and Hauser both agreed on the need to fund PILOT. They both said property taxes are too high. They both said education and small business development are keys to economic growth. Where do they differ?
“I’m a more moderate Democrat. I’m more fiscally conservative,” Hauser said. She said she doesn’t agree with the $471.6 million city budget that Lemar voted for recently, which include an increase in property taxes. “There comes a point when you have to be more conservative,” Hauser said. “I would have voted against the budget.”
Asked later where she would have made cuts to the budget, Hauser said she didn’t want to offer any suggestions without looking at the budget. But she would have gone line by line and reviewed “every dollar” to look for areas to cut.
Hauser would have made a terrible mistake by voting against the proposed budget, Lemar said. Had the budget not passed as amended, it would have reverted to the initial budget proposed by the mayor, including an 18 percent tax increase and a dubious parking meter monetization deal, Lemar said.
He said the difference between the candidates is that he has from the beginning stuck to a platform of growing jobs through education and mass transit, coupled with progressive tax reform. Hauser, on the other hand, has changed her positions several times, Lemar argued. He has in the past said that Hauser has come late to campaign positions that he had long been advocating.
As an example, Lemar said Hauser backtracked on her initial support for a sales tax increase. “She was all for a sales tax increase,” before abandoning that stance and supporting a progressive income tax.
“I’ve always been a proponent of taxing people who make over $500,000,” Hauser said. She said she is the only person in the race who supports a progressive income tax on people earning over $250,000 a year.
As for the sales tax?
“In the beginning of my campaign I did not know every issue,” Hauser said. She said her research had found that Connecticut has the lowest sales tax of any state in the Northeast. “I had briefly considered that,” she said. She didn’t then know that a sale tax has a disproportionate impact of poorer people, she said. “I had not realized that.”
“I do think carefully,” she said. “I’m not perfect. When something’s not quite right, I amend it.”
Previous coverage of the 96th District race:
• Hauser Gives Foley $250
• Lemar Sews Up 96th District Endorsement
• D’Agostino Out; Lemar Targets Reentry
• Hauser, Lemar Square Off On Homelessness
• Who’s The Outsider? The “Clean” Candidate?
• Surprise! Lemar, Hauser Have Company
• There’s This Spot Called “Fair Haven”
• State Rep Race Heats Up in Fair Haven
• Tax Ideas Claimed By All Candidates
• Morrison’s Out
• Hamden Or Bust!
• Candidate Fends Off Foreclosure
• Hauser Wants Data, Involved Parents
• Hauser Pays $25K For Own Campaign
• Hauser Spending Means More $$ For Lemar
• Hauser Spending Triggers Another Grant To Lemar