Monica Potts says that while Democrats nationwide kowtow to the anti-tax crowd, Connecticut gubernatorial candidate Dan Malloy shows progressive taxation can be a winning issue:
In most respects, Connecticut is a progressive state; it went for Obama by 25 points, and has passed gay marriage and campaign-finance reform. But the state seems to have two allergies: to income taxes and Democratic governors. Malloy is trying to become the first Democrat to occupy the statehouse in 20 years. Connecticut had no income tax at all until 1991, when a quirky one-term third-party governor with nothing to lose, Lowell Weicker, pushed it through. It’s still one of the lowest in the country, and the result is a dependence on property taxes that exacerbates inequality in a state that has several of the richest towns in the U.S. as well as several of the poorest small cities.
