What every republican candidate in the state of Connecticut should know in running against progressive democrats
7.14.2009
By: Chris Janelli, CEO, Distressed Patriots for America
Governor Rell recently vetoed the current budget bill stating, “…it maintains the bloat of bureaucracy that is already unaffordable.” This is a problem for Connecticut, and other states, as long as progressive tax and spend democrats believe increasing taxes is the primary solution to a budget deficit.
As Connecticut follows in the fiscal footsteps of California with a projected two-year budget deficit of over $8.6 billion, it might be worthwhile to admit that government is inherently wasteful and not managed like the significant business it is. There are 131 democratic legislators out of a total General Assembly of 187, and the progressive democratic legislators within those ranks who are adept at spending other people’s money believe a “tax the rich more” budget policy is the solution to the current crisis.
In 1974, I joined Manufacturers Hanover Trust Company straight out of college with a BA in Political Science. Accounting was part of my initial training to become a commercial loan officer. Admittedly, I am not a numbers kind of guy but I quickly deduced that the only difference between $100 and $1,000,000,000 was seven zeros. It’s that kind of thinking that when put into practice can lead to serious trouble. I might also add the 1974 national debt was a whopping $435 billion.
At the risk of sounding like a dinosaur, commercial lending before repeal of the Glass-Stegall Act was fairly-straight forward. However, after its repeal by the Gramm-Leech-Bliley Act signed into law by President Bill Clinton in November 1999, financial creativity and engineering took on a whole new meaning. While this was a republican sponsored bill, it was overwhelmingly adopted by both parties.
Thirty-five years later with a national debt at a truly whopping $11.5 trillion and unemployment figures about to hit double digits with high expectations both will increase before year end, I find myself looking at the state of Connecticut and wondering what’s going on here and who’s making the business decisions? Based upon the following information, in my opinion Connecticut’s progressive Democratic majority is no better than inmate legislators running the state capital insane asylum.
The state’s two-year budget for 2009-2010 is approximately $35.58 billion, or about $18 billion a year. Based on the projected two-year $8.6 billion budget deficit and approximately 1.7 million Connecticut taxpayers, that’s about $5,059 per taxpayer. But things could get worse.
Obviously, simply raising taxes and/or cutting budget expenditures are not the only solutions although they may be the easiest short-term ones, which typically postpone long-term behavior modification to remedy recurring bad behavior. Or as Mark Twain said, “Never put off until tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow.”
The long-term solution should be to drill down into the bowels of the Connecticut government and start analyzing how tax revenues are being allocated and used, and how cost effectively the state’s management and administration is in managing and running the “business” of Connecticut. Put another way, can running Connecticut’s government be changed to running it like a business? Can a tiger change its stripes?
While the $18 billion annual budget is actually planned expenditures, if we assume there was no budget deficit and the state of Connecticut was a corporation its “revenue” would rank it about # 136 on the May 2008 Fortune 500 list of US companies. Fortune ranked Oracle Corporation revenues at $17.996 billion. However, Oracle’s 2008 revenues are reported on Hoovers as $22.4 billion with net income of $5.5 billion, but you get the point.
Unlike profitable Oracle, Connecticut is projected to run a $3.97 billion deficit in the fiscal year that begins July 1 and $4.71 billion the following year for a two-year total of more than $8.6 billion. That is, of course, unless the legislators either raise taxes or cut budget expenditures. However, that’s the simpleton’s solution, which again reminds me of what Mark Twain said, “Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But then I repeat myself.” Twain may have been referring to Washington, but no doubt he would have voiced the same sentiments for the home team.
So who’s running the show and what kind of experienced business executives are in the Connecticut legislature making these budget decisions, not to mention dreaming up and creating state legislation. While legislators may not be accountable to shareholders, they are accountable to Connecticut voters although even in a good year only a little more than 50% of eligible Connecticut voters actually vote. This voter apathy doesn’t really bother me as I assume people too lazy or (fill in the blank) to exercise their right to vote are better off not voting.
While I have not yet completed profiling all of the CT state senate and house legislators, it appears the ranks are heavy with career politicians, attorneys and teachers/educators, all of whom work part time; let me repeat that, part time. Part time is 6 months a year for base salaries ranging from $28,000 a year to $38,689 a year. Added to their base, House members receive a $3,500 stipend and Senators receive a $4,500 stipend, which they don’t need to itemize, plus each legislator receives health benefits, travel expenses, and possibly a pension if they serve the state for more than 10 years either as a lawmaker or a state employee, or combination thereof.
The Senate 30th District and House 64th District, which includes Salisbury, has a 5th term Republican Senator, Andrew Roraback, who is profiled as an attorney with previous political experience, and a 5th term Democrat Representative, Roberta Willis, whose previous experience is profiled as a Special Education Teacher with no previous political experience. However, I think 5 terms as a Representative qualifies as having some previous political experience.
The point is, Salisbury’s elected officials fit my emerging elected official profile mold, and with five terms under their belts as Salisbury’s representatives they are entitled to state pensions. However, as a Connecticut tax payer you might want to keep an eye on the ball.
According to a March 29, 2009 article in the Hartford Courant entitled Ex-Connecticut Legislators Snag Lucrative State Jobs And Find 4-Year Path To Comfort, with some political favors and successful finagling of the system, legislators have been able to “pile up money quickly so they can retire with pensions six and seven times higher than what their legislative pensions would have afforded them. It provides them pensions, based on their three highest earnings years, on par with or richer than those of people who toiled for the state for 30 and 40 years.” The article identifies numerous annual pensions of $60,000 to over $100,000. Because a state employee is eligible for retirement after only 10 years, these pension liabilities will eventually cost Connecticut tax payers tens of millions of tax dollars.
In no way do I infer or suggest that Sen. Roraback or Rep. Willis have not earned their pensions or that they would manipulate the pension system, but I do raise this broader question. In a business environment where employers intentionally employ part time workers so as to not have to provide them with an array of employee benefits, such as healthcare and retirement, why are part time legislators entitled to pensions, and after only 10 years of government service in any position? This must be one of those political perks that has the Term Limit crowd so riled up.
My gut tells me we could be attracting a different type of legislator by offering a significantly higher salary, and making it a fulltime job with a capped pension. Being fulltime might not necessarily require them to be in session thinking up more legislation, but it might give them available time to work on identifying waste and less than acceptable administration, and thinking of creative solutions to budget deficits other than raising taxes. Better yet, how about our legislators being part time employees with no pension, but a significant enough salary so that they could fund their own 401K. This arrangement, perhaps with term limits, would entirely eliminate the state’s long-term pension liabilities. I bet there would be a whole lot of retired, and now many out of work, business executives that would step up to run for office. But I digress from the State Budget.
If you are wondering where $18 billion a year is allocated, here is one analysis:
Human Services: 27.7%
Education, Museums, and Libraries: 22.9%
State Employee Fringe Benefits: 21%
Health and Hospitals: 9.4%
Corrections: 9.3%
General Government: 3.4%
Judicial: 3.0%
Regulation and Protection: 1.6%
Conservation and Development: 0.5%
Legislation: 0.5%
Lucky for us CT citizens, there is a flurry of “Connecticut Transparency Legislation” in House Bills 5954, 5959, 5962 and 5097 and Senate Bills 340, 521 and 523 that are intended to make it easy for citizens to track state spending, view the state budget, and examine & track state grants and contracts. However, given the lack of transparency of the current federal administration versus their promise to be the most transparent in history, I won’t hold my breath for anything too much different from our state.
The point is, Connecticut is running in the red and the budget deficit is growing. As government does not really produce anything and its only source of “revenue” comes through taxation, the question is how to stop and reverse this situation. As Connecticut emulates California in spending more than it takes in, we too might consider paying all government workers, many of whom are already being forced to take unpaid time off from their jobs, with IOU’s. Better yet, let’s pay all the part time legislators with IOU’s and see what happens.
Obviously, what’s good for the worker geese is not for the legislative ganders as exemplified by a republican sponsored amendment to decrease Connecticut lawmaker’s salaries by 5 percent over the next two years. It was the Fifth Amendment to the governor’s deficit mitigation plan. This amendment failed mostly along party lines by a vote of 111 to 35. Remember there are 131 democrats out of a total 187 legislators. With 146 votes cast, I guess there were 41 chickens somewhere else that day, or perhaps they followed Obama’s Senate strategy by voting present.
For Connecticut’s progressive legislators, the easiest and certainly the most “democratic” remedy remains raising taxes. How often do we hear in the media and read in the news that America is a democracy? Because we are a democracy, which is simply defined as rule by the majority, raising taxes is the simple solution when legislators, supported by the majority of their constituents, deem it necessary. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the current Congress that is simply out-of-control if not out of their minds. In comparison to the Congressional flood of massive debt loaded with pork, waste and bribes, Connecticut may seem a small feeder stream but it still begs the question: Just who in Connecticut is this majority and who actually pays the taxes?
According to the Yankee Institute’s analysis of who paid taxes in CT in 2007, their findings were as follows:
• The state income tax is Connecticut’s single biggest source of revenue, raising more than 50 percent of all General Fund revenue collected directly by the state (excluding Federal grants), or $7.5 billion in the fiscal year ending June 30, 2008. This was a 22 percent increase in total income tax revenue from just two years before.
• More than 1.7 million Connecticut taxpayers filed income tax returns in 2007.
• The top 20 percent of Connecticut income earners, those who make more than $100,000 a year, already pay 80 percent of state income tax receipts. (Note: Using the 1.7 million figure of filing “taxpayers”, 20 percent is 340,000 CT citizens, which leaves the remaining 80% as the 1,360,000 majority.)
• The top 6 percent of filers who earn over $250,000 pay half of all state income taxes. (Note: Using the 1.7 million figure of filing “taxpayers”, 6 percent is 102,000 CT citizens.)
• The top 1.3 percent of taxpayers, those earning more than $1 million, pay 35 percent of total income tax receipts, or more than $2.1 billion in 2007. (Note: Using the 1.7 million figure of filing “taxpayers”, 1.3 percent is 22,100 CT citizens that paid over $2.1 billion, or an average of $93 thousand in personal state income taxes.)
• The bottom 60 percent of Connecticut taxpayers – those with incomes under about $60,000 – paid less than 10 percent of state income taxes.
• The bottom 40 percent of all filers – those with incomes of less than $35,000 – effectively paid no state income taxes.
This scenario of who pays taxes in Connecticut also answers the question as to who pays federal taxes and is referred to as the classic “80/20” rule in which the bottom 80 percent of taxpayers, those filing at under $100,000, account for 20 percent of income tax revenues, while the top 20 percent of income earners pay 80 percent of income tax receipts.
On July 1st Gov. Rell vetoed the proposed two-year budget that called for $2.5 billion in tax increases and about $1 billion in spending cuts, saying “This budget squanders a golden opportunity to reshape and reduce the size of state government. Instead, it maintains the bloat of bureaucracy that is already unaffordable." The tax increases that the progressive Democrats have long sought would have come from increasing the state income tax for couples earning more than $750,000 annually to 7.5 percent, up from the maximum of 5%. Couples earning more than $500,000 annually would pay 6% increasing to 6.5% for the portion of income earned over $600,000.
For the record, Republican Senator Roraback voted against the budget (Bill # 1801) and Democrat Representative Willis voted for it; no surprises there.
While I am personally against the current forms of taxation and favor “Fair Tax” solutions (visit www.fairtax.org), I am not a full blown Libertarian nor am I against the wealthy paying more in taxes than those who are less able to pay; that would simply be un-American. However, there is something to be said for all Americans having a vested interest in their government by way of paying taxes, which one would think would make all citizens more aware and wary of how their elected officials spend and waste tax revenues. According to Joe Biden who says, “paying more in taxes is the patriotic thing to do for wealthier Americans,” I guess I have to assume that wealthy Americans are not very patriotic when it comes to paying taxes and that all not-so-wealthy Americans are. I’ll keep that in mind, Joey.
Purchasing gasoline is a good example of the Fair Tax at work. Everyone in America who buys a gallon of gasoline pays the feds 18.4 cents; yes, even illegal aliens pay taxes on purchases. According to the Energy Information Administration, the average state gas tax is 20.8 cents per gallon, plus there are local excise taxes on gasoline purchases that bring total taxes on gas in some states to over $0.60 a gallon. The taxes on gas are fair because people can often choose their mode of transportation, such as a private auto versus mass transit, or what fuel efficient or inefficient car or truck they want to drive, not to mention all of the luxury gas guzzling toys they want to own, from water jets to power yachts to race cars to airplanes.
Each year the Tax Foundation, a policy research group, estimates the average taxpayer's total state and local tax burden in each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia. According to their latest August 2008 calculations, Connecticut ranks # 3 in combined state & local taxes (per capita) at a rate of 11.1%. NJ and NY rank #’s 1 and 2 respectively and California ranks # 6.
Speaking of California, a spokesman for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger recently said California's budget deficit will hit $41.8 billion through the next fiscal year. This is what happens when state legislators addicted to taxing know no bounds to spending; are you listening Connecticut? And if Pelosi, Reid, Frank & Company gets their way, the federal government will step in and bail out CA. When that happens, watch for other states to line up at this Congressional feeding trough and watch the national debt further increase. There appears to be no unimaginable amount of debt that seems likely to limit the current administration’s running of the currency presses. But what the heck, the only difference between a billion and a trillion is 3 zeros, so why not simply add another 4, 5 or 6 zeros? And don’t forget the 80/20 rule; the politicians continue to see those wealthy “golden goose” tax payers ripe for additional plucking.
Yankee Institute’s report on Connecticut further sates, “it is worth noting that the rich also pay disproportionate shares of state sales taxes, inheritance and estate taxes, and real estate conveyance taxes. Also, when considering tax hikes on the rich, it is important to remember that the rich can – and do – move from higher-tax states to lower-tax places.” The states with NO personal income tax are Alaska, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Washington and Wyoming, and there are numerous other low tax states to consider.
In March, 2009 the American Legislative Exchange Council published a study revealing that “1,100 people a day move from the nine highest income tax states to the nine states without an income tax. Others choose not to move to high-tax states in the first place.”
Confirming this tax revenue drain on Connecticut, E.J. McMahon of the Manhattan Institute “found that Connecticut ranked 50th in the nation in terms of the rate of increase in the number of wealthy filers (those with Adjusted Gross Incomes of $200,000 or higher) between the years 2002-200, despite these being years of historic gains on nearby Wall Street. Connecticut raised its top marginal tax rate from 4.5 to 5 percent in 2003. Connecticut appears to be losing the competition for the nation’s biggest taxpayers.”
Taxes also matter greatly with regard to businesses, particularly to small businesses and entrepreneurs who often invest life savings and assume personal risk to create personal opportunity, but also jobs. Business taxes play a significant role in terms of a state’s competitiveness, economic growth and job creation. Unrelenting taxation will kill prosperity and private sector job creation.
According to The Small Business & Entrepreneurship Council’s “Business Tax Index” that pulls together 16 different tax measures and combines those into one tax score that allows the 50 states and District of Columbia to be compared and ranked, in 2009 Connecticut ranked 30. While certainly not the worst, neither is it overwhelmingly attractive. According to CTBudgetFacts.com, last year Connecticut lost 50,000 jobs. In June 2009, Connecticut’s unemployment rate hit 8.0%, up from 5.4% in May 2008.
As Connecticut heads into the budget deficit abyss, there are those who simply cannot think in terms of how to manage Connecticut to create a more robust economy and more jobs that generate more taxes, but simply advocate for more taxes on the so called “rich.” One such group is the New Haven-based Connecticut Voices for Children, an advocacy group that lobbies for more government social program spending. This organization complains that Connecticut’s income tax is “not progressive enough” and seeks to raise the top income tax rate on the rich from 5 percent to as high as 8 percent. According to Doug Hall, the organization’s acting managing director, “If you take a look at the work of Nobel-winning economists, they say placing taxes on those at the highest end is the most efficient way to close a budget gap.” Ah duhhhh; an average student in a high school economics class could have guessed that as one solution, but as a matter of record there are Nobel-winning economist that would disagree. But it’s also one of the surest ways to flush Connecticut’s golden goose tax payers to take flight and migrate to other states.
Another progressive tax activist group, Better Choices for Connecticut, is a coalition of organizations, including Connecticut ACORN, that “Advances opportunity for shared prosperity for all Connecticut residents.” If you want an eye opener to what “shared prosperity” means, read the ACORN preamble, (http://www.acorn.org/index.php?id=2706), which reads like it was written by Karl Marx.
Better Choices firmly supported CT’s Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee’s proposal (April 2009) that included a progressive income tax that would raise rates on the state’s wealthiest earners. The proposal calls for increasing the tax rate to 6% on taxable income for married couples earning more than $250,000, 7% on income greater than $500,000, 7.5% on income greater than $750,000, and 7.95% on income greater than $1 million. Currently the tax rate on married couples earning more than $200,000 is 5%.
Better Choices went further stating, “After federal tax deductions, the wealthiest 1% of Connecticut's families pay 4.7% of their income in state and local taxes. This is less than half the share of income paid in these taxes by the state's middle-income families (10.2%) or low-income families (10.9%).” However, these stated percentages also take into account that the state and local taxes include property taxes and fees that are not income-related and therefore naturally skew the results toward those with lower incomes who feel the pain as a percentage of their income. It also reflects higher local government budget expenditures and higher taxes, particularly with regard to education costs. In 2005, Connecticut filed a lawsuit against U.S. Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings for illegally imposing more than $50 million in unfunded federal mandates on Connecticut under the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act.
The Connecticut Business & Industry Association’s February 2006 report entitled, How State Mandates Affect Connecticut’s Cities and Towns, stated, “Partially funded and unfunded mandates are problematic and unfair, say the local officials, because they create significant fiscal and administrative burdens on municipalities. Unbudgeted mandates constantly cause cities and towns to determine whether to increase taxes and fees, or cut programs and services, in order to fund them. Sometimes the local government must do both. When local taxes rise or programs change, taxpayers often respond by pressing their municipal officials to do a better job of controlling spending. The fact is local officials are unable to control expenses related to state-mandated legislation. It’s a situation that has led several officials to claim that unfunded and underfunded mandates are simply a form of “taxation without representation.”
Frankly, I can’t disagree that the state's middle and low-income families need to be heard and supported and I believe advocacy groups play a vital social role in this regard. However, constant never-ending progressive taxation is not the long-term answer for Connecticut or America. What is taking place both locally and nationally could eventually lead this country into class warfare that might not be limited to being fought in the media. If you haven’t read about it, it’s been widely reported in the media that gun and ammunition sales are at an all time high throughout the U.S. and the Department of Homeland Security even went so far as to classify all returning military personnel and America gun owners as potential “Rightwing Extremists” in their unclassified report on rightwing extremism, radicalization and recruitment. (http://www.docstoc.com/docs/5410658/DHS-Report-on-Right-Wing-Extremism)
While there is always room for increased progressive taxation as long as there are individuals who generate significant income and wealth, and businesses that generate profits, we have to address and deal with the undeniable fact that government is inherently wasteful. Government is not run like a business, but perhaps it should be. Somehow I think the majority of the people we elect and keep returning to the state legislature are simply the wrong types and lack the requisite experience to run Connecticut as if it were a business.
At some point Connecticut citizens have to recognize that simply cutting state expenditures or continually raising taxes is not in their best interests, nor is it a long term solution to what ails the state. Until this is recognized things will only going get worse. Perhaps, just maybe, the governance of Connecticut may someday become more businesslike thus reducing non-productive government activity that leads to decreased spending and lower taxes, which in turn creates an environment that stimulates high income businesses and individuals to migrate into the state.
Which brings me back to the common misperception that America is simply a Democracy; actually America is a whole lot more. America is supposed to be a Constitutional Republic that is defined by the Rule of Law that protects the minority from the tyranny of the majority, although what is taking place in Washington gives all constitutionalists the willies. What’s going on in Connecticut is simply what’s going on in Congress, but on a smaller scale. The end result, however, will eventually be the same as will the victims – the American tax payer, the American economy and everyone who has to suffer through the next 4 years and the eventual unwinding of the mess that’s being created.
If Connecticut is to save itself from destroying its tax base, and perhaps even reclaim itself as the Constitution State in more than name only, there must be a major overhauling of the makeup of the General Assembly. The progressive tax and spend Democratic majority has to go. Republicans in name only that are not fiscal conservatives also have to go. This is an extremely tall order, but inroads can and must be made. Even the blind will see the realities and failure of Obamanomics as it becomes more evident as double digit unemployment, increased inflation if not hyperinflation, intolerable national debt that already costs Americans in interest alone another $400,000,000,000 annually in borrowed money increasing the national debt, the probable crash of the commercial real estate market and of course the stock markets. As middle of the road Americans that voted for Obama as a backlash to Bush realize they have been deceived and realize buyer’s remorse, they will seek fiscal sanity and abandon the progressive socialism running wild in Washington.
While McCain & Palin took an electoral vote whooping, one should remember the popular vote was 69,498,215 (52.9%) to 59,948,240 (45.7%); less than ten million votes out of 129+ million votes. Given Obama out-raised ($745 million) and out-spent ($730 million) McCain more than 2 to 1, this was not the resounding mandate that the Democrats would have America think it was. Under the name of Democracy, decades of constant encroachment by the federal government on the sovereignty of individuals and states, abetted by certain activist judges at all levels of the judicial system, including the Supreme Court, have dangerously deconstructed the U.S. Constitution. This ongoing process has eroded the foundation of the world’s oldest Constitutional Republic, which in the minds of liberals and progressives is both a good and natural outcome of American democracy.
Under a blitzkrieg of progressive liberal legislation, America is witnessing our Constitutional Republic be radically transformed into a democratic socialist government. It will be interesting to see how long the American public will stand for this transformation. I believe voter rejection will emerge as early as the 2010 elections. There are even a few main stream media that are waking up from a long deep sleep to realize that the Emperor has no clothes, staged press conferences are a sham, the great orator isn’t so great without his teleprompter and that they – the media – have been nothing less than lapdogs to deception.
At the close of the Constitutional Convention on September 17, 1787, Benjamin Franklin was asked, “What kind of government have you given us, Dr. Franklin?” He replied, “A republic, if you can keep it.”
Franklin’s words were prophetic. For too many decades Americans have failed in their obligation to force their elected officials to be accountable to the sovereignty of the people they serve. The result is dens of political iniquity at both the state and federal level. Professional politicians, the worst of whom are exemplified by the likes of Pelosi, Frank, Dodd, Schumer and Reid with their radical ideas and agenda of how to control individual liberties combined with their lifestyle of spending other people’s money are simply out of touch with the realities of the financial burden placed on the American tax payers and American businesses.
Distressed Patriots for America, a political activist organization I helped form, supports the Bill of Federalism drafted by the Constitutional scholar and Georgetown University law professor Randy Barnett. Comprised of ten separate proposed amendments, the Bill should be embraced by every fiscally conservative political candidate who is challenging any incumbent in the state of Connecticut in 2010 and 2012.
The Bill of Federalism consists of 10 amendments devised to protect individual rights, restore the balance between state and federal power as well as adherence to the original meaning of the Constitution. The proposed amendments are primarily designed to reverse Supreme Court rulings that have improperly expanded federal power while at the same time ensure that current constitutional protections of civil rights would be preserved and strengthened.
While the initiative for 2/3 of the states to call for a Constitutional Convention to ratify the Bill may likely never happen, the ten amendments and Prof Barnett’s comments to each amendment are powerful ammunition for any fiscal conservative or affected voter to use in their campaign against progressives. Three examples of these ten amendments include:
Repeal of the 16th Amendment and replacing it with a Fair Tax. The income tax vastly increased the power and the intrusiveness of the federal government, far beyond what the framers of the 16th Amendment ever imagined. This proposed amendment restores the original taxing power of Congress by denying it the power to enact income estate or gift taxes, or to circumvent this restriction by levying an annual tax on net consumption or expenditures; and
An amendment to establish congressional term limits by allowing two full terms for Senators and six full terms for Representatives. This restores what the founders referred to as "rotation in office," which has been undermined by various forms of incumbent protection that are difficult to identify specifically and correct; and
An amendment to stop Congress from imposing upon States or political subdivisions unfunded mandates necessitating the expenditure of state funds without reimbursing the states for their expenditures. Unfunded mandates let the federal government can take credit for adopting measures without incurring the political cost of increasing taxes or borrowing.
Not since the American Revolution has the call to individuals to stand up for their rights, individual and state sovereignty and the U.S. Constitution been so clear. This really is about saving our country for future generations.
The case for a federalism amendment by Prof. Barnett, The Bill of Federation with Prof. Barnett’s annotated comments, and other pertinent information is available at www.DistressedPatriots.US at the Amendments tab.
Contacts:
Telephone: 860-435-2010
Email: Chris@DistressedPatriots.US
Vivian@DistressedPatriots.US
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