To the editor:
Does voting for an incumbent with seniority in the senate provide you and your family with better representation in Hartford? Over the past 14 years, Norwalkers seem to have wagered that because of the apparent power Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff has accumulated over the course of his political career, they will receive special benefits from the state as a result.
I am a business owner in a fast-paced global economy. I can’t rely on gut feelings when I make decisions about my business and my children’s’ futures. I have to take a look at the numbers to see if they support my initial hunches. That’s why I decided to test what Bob Duff’s “power of incumbency” means for parents, business owners, and all residents who pay taxes in Norwalk. Let’s take the ratio of taxes paid to the state versus state payments to municipalities, numbers that the nonpartisan Office of Fiscal Analysis and Department of Revenue Services compile. This is a pretty good indicator, since it measures how much funding your town gets in return for every dollar you and your neighbors pay to Hartford. The results are, to say the least, astonishing. Or, in the case of many Norwalk and Darien families who live paycheck to paycheck, these results are infuriating and wholly unacceptable.
