The morning after he spent the evening as President Barack Obama's hand-picked guest at Tuesday's State of the Union address, Connecticut's Democratic Gov. Dannel P. Malloy awoke to headlines announcing General Electric's decision to relocate the company from suburban Fairfield, Connecticut to Boston's Seaport district.
"We want to be at the center of an ecosystem that shares our aspirations," CEO Jeff Immelt said in a prepared statement.
In a political era when "success stories" are all too rare, Massachusetts shines as a remarkable counter-example. Once denigrated as "Taxachusetts" and infamous as a high-tax, Big Government beachhead, Massachusetts recently ate Connecticut's lunch (and breakfast, and dinner) by attracting its foremost corporate citizen, General Electric, to Boston.
Connecticut has much to learn from its northern neighbor's burgeoning prosperity. For now, however, it seems mired in the outdated public policies that once hobbled Massachusetts. According to the Tax Foundation's 2016 State Business Tax Climate index, Connecticut ranks 44th out of 50 states in property taxes; 36th in individual income taxes; and 33rd in corporate taxes. The combination means that Connecticut is the fourth worst state for taxpayers.
