"The business of America is business" -- Calvin Coolidge Governor Ned Lamont likes to talk shop with businessmen. A Hartford Courant story, “ Gov. Ned Lamont tells Connecticut businesses he’s ruling out ‘broad-based’ tax increases ,” will not please Democrat progressives in Connecticut who seem fully prepared to eat businessmen and businesswomen for lunch. The large and overbearing contingent of progressives in the state's Democrat Party caucus cannot be satisfied with sentiments such as this: “I’ve been pretty clear. I have no interest in broad-based tax increases,” Lamont told president of the Connecticut Business and Industry Association (CBIA) Chris DiPentima. And, he hastened to add, “Every governor, Republican or Democrat since, or including, Lowell Weicker, has done that and it did not solve the problem.” The problem is, of course, lavish, continuing, long-term spending -- and consequent increases in taxes. Taxes in Connecticut have been permanent, while cost
There was, during President Joe Biden’s inauguration, lots of ceremony, much of it older than Biden, but not a great deal of pomp. The pomp was dampened considerably by circumstances. On January 6, two weeks prior to the inauguration, the US Capitol building was illegally invaded by a platoon of discontents. Then too, Coronavirus, a national killjoy for nearly a year, is still with us. The masks on our faces, however necessary they may be, are beginning to weigh heavily on our spirits and seem to some an emblem of abject submission to a sometimes irrational authority. Lady Gaga’s rendition of the Star Spangled Banner was almost operatic. Most of us recall going mute in grammar and high school when we reached for the high notes. Gaga rolled over them like a ten-wheeler. The lady can sing. No one botched the oath of office. It remains to be seen how faithful the oath takers will be to their pledge “to execute the office of -- fill in the blank – and… to the best of [their] ability