The Editor's Notepod, Mon. Feb. 28, 2011

With Response Insurance preparing to leave the old International building in Meriden, it is appropriate to consider whether the effort to attract businesses through tax credits is worthwhile. While it is intriguing to see that some businesses have the right to negotiate their municipal taxes while others (corporate as well as private residents) do not, a basic inequity, it’s also true that without the incentives and the reduced taxes produced thereby, such properties would likely have remained vacant and producing no city revenue.

Nobody’s going to really root for new taxes, and Connecticut Governor Malloy’s budget, with its variety of taxes, is being “ripped” by critics. But it remains the case that the taxes people seem to hate the most are the ones which affect themselves.