Making Wealthy Elites Pay Their Fair Share

Tom has a two prong plan to create tax fairness and increase needed revenue for public education.

First, Tom will tax the Yale Endowment at the state level. Currently, the Yale Endowment pays an 8% Federal tax but no state taxes. This is not right. The Yale Endowment is so large that it would be listed near tenth in size if it got ranked along all of the largest hedge funds in the country. This endowment does not operate like a traditional university fundraising fund. Instead, it operates like a conventional private-sector, large-scale, multi-billion dollar hedge fund. Tom proposes a 2% state tax on this endowment, and, with the Yale Endowment holding approximately $44.1 billion in investments, that would produce roughly $882 million in yearly increased state revenue.

Second, Tom will fight for a 1% increase in the state Capital Gains tax. This is a tax wealthy people pay when selling stocks, real estate or personal items for a significant profit. Right now, Connecticut's Capital Gains tax is at 6.99%, and we would still be below our regional neighbors if we increased it by 1 %. For instance, New Jersey taxes Capital Gains at 10.75%, Massachusetts at 9%, New York at 8.82% and Vermont at 8.75%. This 1% increase would bring in between $235 million to $260 million in added yearly revenue depending on the year.

These two proposals will make our tax system fairer for working people and will bring in approximately $1 billion in added state revenue. John Santanella is against both tax proposals because he's in the back pocket of the wealthy elites.

Tom proposes that the bulk of this increased revenue go towards public education funding. Ned Lamont has held state education funding flat since 2019. However, when factoring in inflation, this flat funding has resulted in towns being shortchanged with education funding by the approximate sum of $400 million. This has forced towns to either raise property taxes, cut education services or a mixture of both. Tom proposes to change state law so that state funding for education gets indexed on the national inflation rate. For example, if the national inflation rate for a given year is 3.8% then Connecticut towns would automatically get a 3.8% increase in state education aid for that given year. It's a common sense idea, but you need to come up with a funding stream to make it work. These two tax reforms would provide the needed funding source to make this work for Enfield school children.

Again, John Santanella stands against these common sense tax reforms. He says that he is in support of increasing state funding for public education, but his words are disingenuous. If he was really serious about increasing state funding for public education then he'd have a plan. He's too self-centered to come up with a plan for this, and he rather stay in the back pocket of the wealthy elite then fight for Enfield working families. Enfield school children will get a fair shake when Tom gets elected.