This time it is the very deep blue state of Connecticut - from City Journal:
Aetna-maggedon
Aetna, one of Connecticut’s largest employers, confirmed this week that it is leaving the state. Though rumors of an exit have swirled since last year, the news still comes as a shock. It extends a long run of bad news coming out of the Nutmeg State, including General Electric’s January 2016 announcement that it will relocate its headquarters from Fairfield to Boston, mounting population losses, and enormous fiscal challenges at the state and city level, which, in Hartford’s case, have prompted open discussion of bankruptcy.
Aetna has been in Hartford for over 150 years. It’s the city’s fourth-largest taxpayer and a major source of corporate philanthropy. Many details remain unclear regarding the insurer’s exodus, including how many of its Connecticut-based 5,800 employees will remain in-state. But the departure will do nothing to ameliorate the dire fiscal problems facing Connecticut and its capital city.
With one month left in the current budget season, Hartford has yet to close the massive deficit it faces for the next fiscal year. In fact, Mayor Luke Bronin and the city council never truly balanced this year’s budget: their plan for fiscal 2017 relied on an assumed $15.5 million in union concessions that have failed to materialize. Hartford’s budget woes are structural, rooted in excessive debt and an extraordinarily weak tax base. With limited options, the city recently solicited proposals for the services of municipal-bankruptcy lawyers.
Hartford’s budget is so strained in part because half of its tax base is tax-exempt. Over decades, the city failed to attract for-profit corporations, instead increasings its reliance on state government and nonprofits, such as hospitals and universities. For Hartford, a major company like Aetna is irreplaceable.
Another example of doing what sounds good instead of doing what does good. Liberals and their narratives; when will they ever learn...
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