By admin 
Under the mantra of “tax the rich,” liberal Democrat Josh Elliott has been calling for years for hiking the state income tax on Connecticut’s millionaires and billionaires.
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Elliott, a state representative from Hamden, has been joined by dozens of fellow Democrats in the state legislature, but they have been blocked repeatedly for eight years by one leader: Gov. Ned Lamont.
That dynamic, among other issues, prompted Elliott to run for governor in an uprising from the left that marks the first time since Democrat Ella Grasso in 1978 that anyone has challenged a sitting governor in a Connecticut primary.
Now, with slightly more than two weeks left before the Aug. 11 primary, Elliott is still banging the drum that caused him to enter the race.
In their only debate and across the campaign trail, Elliott has been pounding away that the rich pay a smaller percentage of their overall income in taxes than the working poor. He says the system is tilted against the working poor and favors the rich.
“I even played poker professionally, so I know when the game is rigged,” Elliott says in a campaign commercial. “We can do better. … Make the billionaires pay their fair share.”
Lamont has countered that his tax cuts have essentially eliminated the income tax for a family of four with two children that qualifies for the earned income tax credit and earns less than $55,000 per year. Statistics from Lamont’s budget office show that the top 2.5% of tax filers paid 41% of total state income tax revenue in 2022. At the other end, the bottom 49% of filers – representing essentially half of filers statewide – paid only 2.9% of the income tax. The top 1%, which includes filers at $1 million and above, pays about 30% of state income tax revenue.
During the campaign, Elliott has called for cutting property taxes and instead hiking the state income tax.
“We’re the second-most reliant state on the property tax, which is deeply regressive,” Elliott said during the debate on WTNH, Channel 8. “The only way we can fix this is through a fair tax structure, asking the wealthy to pay a commensurate amount, a fair amount.”
After that comment, when asked if he would raise taxes on the richest residents, Lamont responded, “Only when you need it. … By the way, we eliminated the income tax for most working families with the biggest middle class tax cut ever.”
In nearly eight years, Lamont has avoided tax rate hikes as the top rate has remained at the same level of 6.99% on the highest earners.
“Our income tax is one of the highest in the country, not the highest. It would be almost the highest if Josh has his way,” Lamont said. “Our sales tax is about average. Our property tax is heavy. That’s why I’ve increased municipal aid. I’ve increased the education cost sharing formula every year that I have been here, trying to do everything we can.”
But the problem, Elliott says, is Connecticut has underfunding problems in certain areas at the same time that “we have some of the wealthiest people who have ever existed in the history of our planet.”
Still, a large percentage of the population is living paycheck to paycheck, including some families earning more than $100,000 per year. That has pushed the average age of a first-time homeowner to 40 years old, he said.
The answer, Elliott said, is “I would eliminate the property tax alone, and have one tax and one tax alone, and that would be the income tax.”
Car taxes
One of the taxes in Connecticut that has been decried by critics as a nuisance is the car tax, which is a property tax on the value of automobiles that can differ sharply from town to town.
Ending the car tax has been a political football for more than 30 years as multiple governors have offered plans on how to cut the taxes while making sure towns are fully reimbursed. Each time, however, opposition by legislators and local officials has torpedoed the plan.
“Let’s look at what we’ve done,” Lamont said. “People have been talking about this forever. We capped the car tax, so you’re not paying a lot more for a car in Bridgeport than you would in Fairfield. It’s just basic fairness going forward.”
Elliott said the issue could be solved in part by making sure that more revenue is generated from the richest residents.
“The car tax is just an extension of the property tax,” Elliott said. “The reason is we need the wealthy to pay more.”
The biggest overall stumbling block is legislators have not found an easy way to replace more than $1 billion that is currently generated statewide by the car tax every year. Mayors and first selectmen rely on that money to balance their budgets, and two key lobbying groups, the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities and the Council of Small Towns, have both opposed eliminating the car tax.
The history is quite detailed.
In the early 1990s, then-Gov. Lowell P. Weicker Jr. called for phasing out personal property taxes over 10 years. After Weicker’s plan failed, then-state Sen. James Maloney of Danbury successfully pushed a proposal to eliminate the tax in future years. But before that plan took effect, Weicker’s successor, Republican John G. Rowland, persuaded the legislature to repeal the law after deriding the plan as “Maloney baloney.”
Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell then proposed a complete elimination in 2006 and 2007, while Democratic Gov. Dannel P. Malloy proposed a partial elimination in 2013 that would have applied only to cars with a market value of less than $28,500. But neither plan was adopted.
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Now, in 2026, the issue has still not gone away.
Abolishing the police
A long-running political controversy concerns the “defund the police” movement that peaked following the death of George Floyd in Minneapolis in May 2020 while handcuffed in police custody.
The issue came up in the race when Hartford Courant columnist Kevin F. Rennie noted that Elliott wrote 10 paragraphs in a June 2020 post on Facebook that the police should be abolished.
“I only say these things because I understand how hard it must be for colleagues to also take this position – that of abolishing the police,” Elliott wrote on Facebook. “And to be clear, abolishment is not the whole argument – setting up services so that we have a true reduction in crime is the other half of abolishing the police. We need to create a system that helps people.”
Asked about his position during the debate, Elliott said, “Do I believe we should wholesale abolish the police? No, I do not. But what I do believe is this: I believe that the socio-economic determinants of crime are what we should be focusing on. We need to make sure we invest in our police and make sure that they get livable wages. They have some of the most dangerous jobs out there.”
But Lamont said Elliott’s Facebook post went too far.
“It doesn’t make it any easier to recruit police when folks like Josh say I want to abolish you,” Lamont said. “It shows a certain disrespect for the folks who put their lives on the line to protect people. … But the idea of abolishing the police, even as a throw-off comment, was wrong.”
Masks for ICE agents
Under a new Connecticut law, law enforcement agents at the federal, state, and local levels cannot wear masks, except in certain specific instances such as undercover operations, SCUBA teams, bomb squads, and SWAT teams. The law was prompted by the tactics of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents in President Donald Trump’s administration who routinely wear masks to conceal their identities.
Both candidates were asked at least twice during the recent debate by Channel 8 reporter Mike Cerulli if federal ICE agents should be arrested in Connecticut if they wear masks in violation of state law.
“I think they should be subject to all the rules that all of our other police are subject to, including the inspector general,” Lamont responded. “That was what the police accountability bill was all about. That was a very important bill. We got that passed. I didn’t get it passed with any help from Josh Elliott. He slept through that vote. I’m wide awake, making sure that we’re protecting our people every day.”
“Yes,” Elliott said about arrests. “Here’s what I would say: that we are at a moment where we see the creep of fascism slowly across the U.S. Yes, Trump himself is just looking to benefit with crypto scams, making billions of dollars, but the white nationalists that are working with him are very happy to be detaining undocumented immigrants. If we aren’t doing anything to stand up for ourselves and protect our laws, we aren’t doing our jobs.”
In an email Friday to supporters, Elliott said the campaign needs to think big on a range of issues.
“Affordable housing. Fully funded public schools,” he wrote. “Electric rates that do not punish you for heating your home. In the wealthiest state in the wealthiest country in history, these are not extravagances. Why do we allow Connecticut to be the land of small ideas?”
Elliott added, “Look at what our volunteers are doing. Many of them expect a Lamont win, and they are out knocking doors, making calls, and telling family and friends about this campaign anyway, because they want a different outcome. That excitement is what decides an August primary. Nobody turns out to vote for a candidate they feel nothing for, in a race they assume that candidate has already won. Lamont’s campaign is built on that assumption. Ours is built on proving it wrong, and proving it wrong only happens if you come out and help.”
Presidential candidates
With the next presidential election only two years away and the start of campaigns even sooner, the candidates were asked for their predictions on the Democratic nominee.
Elliott picked former South Bend, Indiana, mayor and presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg as the next nominee.
A recent poll by Emerson College showed Buttigieg in first place with 19% among Democrats, followed by California Gov. Gavin Newsom at 17%. U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff of Georgia and U.S. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York City were tied at 13%. Other polls have had different front-runners, including AOC and former Vice President Kamala Harris.
While saying that he generally supports governors, Lamont said that his choice is U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, who has been increasing his national profile with appearances on CNN and “Meet The Press” on NBC, among others.
Trump too old?
Democrats have been blasting Trump since he was running for president in 2015, and polls have consistently shown that Trump is unpopular in Connecticut. With concerns about former President Joe Biden’s age still fresh in Democratic minds, the candidates were asked if Trump is too old for the job.
“He’s wrong to be president,” Lamont said. “He’s wrong for American values. … It’s not age. He’s wrong. Not too old. Just wrong.”
Elliott disagreed, saying that Trump is too old.
“I do think there should be an age cutoff,” Elliott said. “Here’s what I say about age. I want to see them do the job well and be ahead of the curve. … If you’re setting that barrier up for Donald Trump, you have to do it across the board.”
Lamont essentially dismissed Elliott as a minor player at the Capitol when he talked about the creation of a $500 million state fund that has been used at times to fill the gaps from federal cuts by the Trump administration.
“I sat down with the folks in the legislature to get this done,” Lamont said. “I’d say almost everybody in the legislature has been in my office making their case – except for Josh, somebody who’s never, I think, ever been in my office to make the case for something like this.”
Elliott countered that after many dealings with Lamont, he essentially has given up because “you know he’s not going to ask the wealthy to pay their fair share.”
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On the issues and the candidates, the voters will get to decide on Aug. 11.
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