The Daily Campus

Issue date: 4/27/09 Section: Commentary

Facing a seemingly insurmountable budget deficit of at least $8 billion over the next two years, the state of Connecticut can use all the help it can get - and for once, the federal government seems inclined to come to its aid.

It's about time. "Tax and spend" blue states have been picking up the federal tab run up by their poorer, redder, ostensibly anti-tax counterparts for decades - and in Connecticut, the prototypical super-blue, super-wealthy state, citizens have been paying on average around $2,700 more in federal taxes than they receive from Uncle Sam. All, of course, while historic deficits have been run up, with interest that wealthy states like ours will have to pay off eventually.

So while the nearly $3 billion in federal stimulus money Connecticut will likely receive over the coming years is appreciated, it's not exactly cause for celebration (at $2,700 in unrequited taxes per year per resident, Connecticut gives Uncle Sam an annual handout in excess of $9 billion, which is more than our state's looming deficit).

President Obama's recently announced high-speed rail plan, however, is something for which Connecticut residents might be genuinely grateful. The plan to potentially construct 10 high-speed rail networks in major metropolitan areas doesn't specifically target Connecticut, but one of the plan's proposed networks is a northern New England rail network that might benefit Connecticut, and another is an east-west New York line that may be of use for the tens of thousands of Connecticut residents who commute to work in the Empire State.

Most importantly, however, the plan may help fund improvements to the current "high-speed" Amtrak Northeast Corridor network which runs through Connecticut. The state's rail network is an important part of why our economy has been so historically successful, and why Connecticut has led the nation in per-capita wealth and productivity recently. Nutmeggers are a highly-educated, extremely productive and crafty lot; hence our nickname, which derives from tales of early Connecticut traveling salesman pawning off onto the unsuspecting, carved wooden "nutmegs" - then a highly valuable spice. And it seems that when you give crafty Connecticut residents easy access to the resources of the metropolises of Boston and New York, they are able to turn that opportunity into a tidy source of income.

But unfortunately for the residents in the upper half of the state, only the Metro North leading to New York City is timely and affordable enough to allow for general out-of-state commuting. No surprise, then, that by far the wealthiest towns in Connecticut are all clustered in the counties closest to New York City, particularly Fairfield County.

But if Obama's rail plan were to improve Connecticut's rail system to a point where it became viable for residents throughout the state to commute to NYC - or Boston - then the state would undoubtedly benefit greatly, and some of Fairfield County's wealth would likely not only be shared around, but independently duplicated in the other counties. Now, that's something that would really deserve thanks.

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