LARRY KUDLOW: A Sad Marker Is Set As GE Quits Connecticut In Wake of Tax Hikes:

Connecticut has the second-highest property tax in the nation, ranking 49th out of 50. The Tax Foundation ranks Connecticut 42nd out of 50 in terms of tax climate (Massachusetts ranks 24th), and second highest in terms of state and local income-tax collections per person.

Massachusetts? It dropped its corporate tax to 8% from 9.5% and has a flat income tax of 5.15%. Connecticut, on the other hand, jacked its corporate tax to 9% from 7.5% and its top income-tax rate to 6.99% from 5%.

These are sizeable differences in favor of Massachusetts. Taxes don’t matter?

And the dirty little secret is that the pension and health-care benefits of the government unions — which dominate Democratic state politics — are roughly 50% unfunded. This spells many future tax hikes. GE’s Mr. Immelt knows it.

Not all the blame goes to Democrats. Connecticut’s first personal income tax was put in place by a Republican governor, Lowell Weicker. And Republican governors ruled for 16 years prior to Malloy’s victory in 2010.

And in last summer’s budget battle, I don’t recall any Republican initiatives to slash business taxes.

One of the key points in the Connecticut disaster is that while big corporations can get $100 million in tax credits, the woman running a small struggling business in Naugatuck gets nothing. But she’s paying for GE’s tax credit.

Connecticut’s high-tax policies do not soak the rich. The rich leave. Meanwhile, exorbitant tax and regulatory burdens slam the middle-class wage earners who have been losing take-home pay for years.

Still though, it’s nice to see that, as with the network’s on-air “talent,” not even GE believes the “high taxes are patriotic” propaganda they paid to broadcast on MSNBC for so many years.