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New Haven State Rep. Robyn Porter at Tuesday’s press conference: “Economic justice must come first.”
A new statewide coalition of community, labor, and faith organizations has partnered with New Haven State Rep. Robyn Porter to push proposed tax code changes that would raise $3 billion in new revenue from the state’s wealthiest residents, and send money directly into the pockets of the poor and working class.
That group — dubbed the Recovery for All coalition — held a kickoff press conference Tuesday morning online via Zoom and Facebook Live.
“Things were bad pre-Covid. They are unimaginable right now,” Porter said about her support for the new coalition and its proposed state legislation. “Folks are struggling to stay afloat. It is time for us to lift from the bottom. Because when we lift from the bottom, everyone’s elevated, and no one’s left out. And no one’s left behind.”
Tuesday morning’s virtual press conference.
The presser came one day after the state legislature’s Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee held a daylong public hearing on two proposed bills that won supportive testimony from nearly 300 of the coalition members.
Those bills are Proposed Senate Bill 821: An Concerning the Reformation of Certain Taxes and Tax Equity and Proposed House Bill 6187: An Act Concerning the Restructuring of Certain Taxes and Tax Equity.
Recovery for All Campaign Director Puya Gerami.
During Tuesday morning’s press conference, Recovery for All Campaign Director Puya Gerami — who is also a Yale history doctoral candidate and the education director for the state’s largest healthcare union, SEIU 1199 — said that the various tax code changes in the two nearly-identical proposed bills would bring in an estimated $3 billion in new revenue for the state each year.
Some of those changes include raising the marginal income tax rate on Connecticut residents making more than $500,000 per year, imposing a 2 percent statewide property tax on properties worth more than $1.5 million, taxing capital gains, dividends, and taxing digital advertising revenue earned in Connecticut by huge companies like Google and Facebook at 10 percent.
The proposed bills would also directly newly raised revenue towards poor and working class residents who have suffered the most economic pain during the ongoing pandemic.
They would expand the state earned income tax credit to 50 percent of the federal EITC level. And would send out one-time, $500 checks to everyone who lost their jobs and went on state unemployment during the first nine months of Covid-19.
Gerami noted Gov. Ned Lamont’s stated opposition to any kind of “broad-based tax increase” in the coming biennial budget.
“This legislation is not a broad-based tax increase,” Gerami said. “It very specifically targets the wealthiest among us,” and would bring in billions of dollars that can be invested in public amenities ranging from public transportation to expanded healthcare access to rental support.
“At the end of the day, it’s economic justice that’s going to really settle the score,” Porter said. Social justice, racial justice, juvenile justice are all important.
“But economic justice must come first. Level the field financially, and the other things will take care of themselves. Put the money in the pockets of the people who have worked for it.”
“Two Connecticuts”
Recovery for All members Rob Baril, Megan Fountain, Josh Pawelek.
During Tuesday’s press conference, representatives from what Gerami called the “three pillars” of the Recovery for All coalition — labor, community, and faith — spoke up about their support for raising taxes on the rich, sending more to the poor and working class, and better funding statewide social services.
SEIU 1199 President Rob Barill said that the 6,000 state employees and 20,000 long-term care workers in Connecticut who are members of his union have been “devastated” by the combined crises of the pandemic and Covid-induced economic recision.
“It really has been a catastrophe,” he said, with 22 members of his healthcare workers union having died from Covid and many having had to work in trash bags last spring and summer as they waited for personal protective equipment (PPE). Meanwhile, he said, the state’s richest individuals have never been more prosperous.
“We have two Connecticuts,” he said. “We have one Connecticut where conditions are as good as they possible could be. In Greenwich, Glastonbury, Simsbury. And we have the rest of us, who are struggling to find our place in this democracy that frankly leaves people out.”
Nicolas Rodriguez, a Hamden resident and member of the local immigrant advocacy group Unidad Latina en Accion, said that he and his wife have spent the past 21 years working at the same factory.
They don’t get medical insurance through their jobs, he said. And so he’s had to pay $370 a month for medical insurance for his wife, on top of a $4,000 deductible, in order to cover the cost of surgery for persistent gallbladder pain and bleeding.
“We live day by day, check by check,” he said, speaking in Spanish through an English language interpreter.
“I had Covid-19, and I still suffer symptoms, but I can’t stop working because we have so many expenses, which include mortgage, taxes on the house, which are way too high, and all of the medical bills.”
Manchester-based Unitarian Universalist Minister Josh Pawelek said that he and his fellow clergy across the state have heard story after story of suffering during the pandemic from renters, poor, low-income, working class, teachers, students, parents, elders, people needing healthcare, people struggling with addiction, small business owners, and more.
“Today we recognize a large swath of people in our state who are being left further and further behind by an economy that transfers most of its wealth to the already wealthy and a state government that chooses austerity instead of choosing bold policy objectives on behalf of poor, working class, and middle class people,” he said.
Hartford City Councilman Michtom.
And Hartford City Councilman and public defender Josh Michtom said that he’s tired of hearing wealthy people from the suburbs refer to progressive tax reform as a “handout” to undeserving city residents.
“This is not a handout,” he said. “The people of Hartford and New Haven and Bridgeport have been putting in work. We have been doing for you. We are the ones who host the things you need, but do not want.” The hospitals. The addiction support services.
And Porter cited a host of Connecticut-wide data that speak to broadscale inequality exacerbated by the pandemic.
The state’s 8 percent unemployment rate, meaning 200,000 unemployed workers and their families; more than 15,000 in danger of being evicted and who have requested rental assistance; one in five parents who say their kids do not have enough food; more than 200,000 without health insurance, even before the pandemic; 57,000 households experiencing the “debilitating digital divide”; and 41 percent of Connecticut adults who have reported symptoms of depression or anxiety during the pandemic.
“We are going to shake and rattle the cages until our people are free,” she said. “No more of being treated less than.”