National Democrats are, ever so gently, following socialist Pied Piper U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders back to the cave. Connecticut Democrats, progressive to the bone, are likely to go along for the ride. The Pied Piper, it will be recalled, was hired by the mayor of Hamlin to rid the town of rats, which he did by piping them an enchanting tune. The mayor of the town refused payment, and the Pied Piper later avenged himself by piping the town’s children to a cave, where they were never heard from again. There are two morals to the story: debts incurred must be paid, and the instruments of destruction you use against your enemies easily may be turned upon yourself.

Forbes Magazine has examined the detailed Congressional Democrat tax hike plan. Many of us, including Newsweek magazine, have long concluded that "We Are All Socialists Now." The Democrat detailed plan includes, according to Forbes, an increase in the top marginal income tax rate from 37 percent to 39.6 percent; an increase in the corporate income tax rate from 21 percent to 25 percent; an alternative minimum tax (AMT) for 4 million families; a cut by half in the "death tax" standard deduction; and other useful progressive campaign stuffers.

Even amateur historians will note that the first tax on personal income levied in 1861 to help pay for the Civil War was the camel’s nose in the tax tent. Ten years later the tax was repealed. In 1894, Congress enacted a flat rate Federal income tax, ruled unconstitutional the following year by the U.S. Supreme Court because the direct tax was not apportioned according to the population of each state, an imperfection eliminated in the 16th amendment ratified in 1913. The first 1040 form made its appearance after Congress levied a 1 percent tax on net personal incomes above $3,000 with a six percent surtax on incomes of those earning more than $500,000, essentially a millionaire’s tax.

The camel that occupied the tent after 1913 has metamorphosed over the years. The income tax is now progressive rather than a flat tax. And owing to political intervention, the tax is riddled with exemptions, as a result of which, billionaire Warren Buffett noted some time ago, those who can afford to buy politicians pay less in net taxes than their secretaries. The flat tax that began as a modest levy on high earners and millionaires has now trickled down to the bourgeois and small to medium sized companies. For companies the tax is a pass through to consumers. All business levies are recovered in higher prices for goods and services. The working class pays up and shuts up. State taxes are somewhat different; one can always move from a high to a lower tax state. In federal taxes, Connecticut ranks number 1, and the state is number 12 in state taxes. And of course, tax boosts increase the rate of spending. “Although the income tax brought in $126 billion between 1991 and 2014,” the Yankee Institute tells us, “Connecticut's government spending grew 71 percent faster than inflation, leading to budget deficits and, naturally, tax increases.”

Progressive Connecticut now operates on the same set of policy assumptions as the national socialists of the Democratic Party, the most poisonous of which is that if good government is good, more government must be better. However, since government of every kind does not produce wealth but merely confiscates it, redistributing wealth according to its own lights, taxation, the means by which the redistribution is effected, swells spending and creates debt that is progressively impossible to discharge.

This is exactly what has happened in Connecticut.

Don Pesci is a freelance opinion writer who lives in Vernon.