It
began as a “First Five” program and then, as happens with the usual
governmental fix, quickly expanded, while retaining in its name the modest
number “Five.”
The
day after Democratic voters in Connecticut went to the primary polls and chose
Elizabeth Esty over Chris Dovovan in the 5th District campaign for
the U.S. Senate, Mr. Donovan having caught his foot in an FBI snare, Governor
Dannel Malloy announced he had given to Bridgewater, the world’s largest hedge fund,
a $25 million ten-year forgivable loan
at 1 percent, a $5 million job training grant, a grant up to $5 million for the
building's alternative energy systems and up to $80 million in urban and
industrial reinvestment tax credits.
Bridgewater is the eighth recipient of state largess in Mr. Malloy’s “Next Five” program; the name of the program, open ended to any business chosen by the governor as a fitting recipient of taxpayer dollars, has been changed to comport with reality, the “Next” suggesting that there will be no terminus beyond “Five.” It does not take long for new governors to become conversant in Orwellian Newspeak.
The
reality is: The state of Connecticut is now in the corporate bribing business.
The
seven companies that so far have joined the former “First Five” program are: Cigna
in Bloomfield, ESPN in Bristol, NBC Sports in Stamford, Alexion Pharmaceuticals
in New Haven, CareCentrix in Hartford, Sustainable Building Solutions in North
Haven and, most recently, Deloitte in Stamford.
As
befits the largest hedge fund in the world, the CEO of Bridgewater, founder and
chief investment officer Ray Dalio, is the highest paid hedge fund manager in
the world at $3.9 billion per annum. Mr. Dalio will be moving his company from Westport,
Connecticut to Stamford, Connecticut. “First Five” originally was intended to
lure out of state businesses into Connecticut.
If
Occupy Wall Street were still in business, tents would be sprouting somewhere
near Stamford's Harbor Point development where, according to co-CEO of
Bridgewater Greg Jensen, the company intends to construct a 750,000-square-foot
of space in two buildings on a forested campus. Mr. Jensen’s yearly salary was
not mentioned in news reports touting Mr. Malloy’s big catch, but it’s probably
up there in the stratosphere of other one percenters who’s fannies have been
spanked by Occupiers and their sympathizers in Connecticut’s General Assembly,
Speaker of the House Chris Donovan among them. Mr. Donovan’s jihad against under
taxed hedge fund operators is legendary.
The
Occupiers might have had a sympathetic U.S. Representative in Mr. Dovovan had
the FBI not rooted up some corruption truffles in his campaign. Last Tuesday Mr.
Donovan was womped by Elizabeth Esty, wife of Mr. Malloy’s Commissioner of the
Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) Daniel Esty. Mrs. Esty
is believed to be a moderate Democrat. She will be facing moderate Republican State
Senator Andrew Roraback in the general election.
The
original progressives, like their modern counterparts, looked upon big business
with a baleful eye; Teddy Roosevelt played a prominent role in the election of
1912 by vowing to break up the Big Trusts whose path to power in the economy
ran through Washington D.C. and state houses.
Oddly,
in the modern period, trust busters tend to be conservative Republicans, who
are convinced that too-large-to-fail businesses should not be artificially
propped up by Washington and state house crony capitalists. In the progress of
progressivism from 1912 to 2012, the impulse to level the economic playing
field by removing governmental preferments showered upon large businesses by
incumbent politicians thirsty for campaign contributions gravitated from
progressive Democrats to anti-crony capitalist conservatives.
The
architecture of Mr. Malloy’s “Next Five” program virtually assures that capital
investment cash provided by taxpayers will flow to mega-businesses such as
Bridgewater, thus giving too-large-to-fail corporations a leg up over their
smaller competitors, who are left to struggle in the usual Darwinian economic
universe that rewards free enterprisers who have earned their own success
without battening on the teat of Trust enablers.
Here
is a difference between the two parties that Roraback the Moderate Republican
might well stress in his campaign against Mrs. Esty, doomed by her association
with the Malloy administration to support the transference of tax dollars from
Social Security recipients to Mr. Dalio’s gold lined pockets.
The
best, most efficient and least corrupt way to spur business activity in
Connecticut is to reduce business taxes – for all businesses, not for those
relatively prosperous select few whose tin cups are filled by phony progressive
crony capitalist governors. Now that Mr. Donovan has been sidelined by an FBI
sucker punch, real 1912 progressives in the state could use an honest political
broker.
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