What Ails Connecticut?

Chris Powell, managing editor of the Journal Inquirer and a columnist for the paper, here offers a summary view of the way we are.

Mr. Powell has been playing on these keys for some time, without much effect.

Through a slow process of attrition, Mr. Powell says, Connecticut has ceded much of its powers to various factions, placing the entire state at the mercy of aggressive self interested groups:

“With its extravagant laws for collective bargaining for public employees, Connecticut has put itself under minority rule in the extreme. First the sovereign people have to get the permission of their employees just to operate a government. And then that government's operations are largely determined by a minority of those employees. It's one thing for unions to ensure that they can be taken out on strike only by a supermajority vote; strikes can be long and brutal and any begun with less than the overwhelming support of union members are likely to fail. But a supermajority just to ratify an agreement is something else, especially a supermajority for an agreement acknowledged by both union leaders and their best friends in politics as likely the best in the country.”

The whole column – which those of us who fear for the future of Connecticut would be well advised to tuck into our wallets, so that it may instantly be referenced – may be found here.

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