“There’s an
honest graft, and I’m an example of how it works. I might sum up the whole
thing by sayin‘: ‘I seen my opportunities and I took ’em’” -- George
Washington Plunkitt
“The books
are always all right. The money in the city treasury is all right. Everything
is all right. All they can show is that the Tammany heads of departments looked
after their friends, within the law, and gave them what opportunities they
could to make honest graft -- George Washington Plunkitt
The figures –and the money – are now pouring into
Democratic Party coffers. And as the tide of campaign cash drowns Republican
Party hopes in the upcoming Connecticut elections, the Democratic Party in the
Gimme State resembles nothing so much as Tammany Hall in the early 1900’s .
Governor Dannel Malloy has become the party’s George Washington Plunkitt,
although the Tammany Hall boss, who operated from a bootblack stand at the New
York County Court House, was far chattier and much more frank than the current
governor.
According to a CTMirror report,
“Connecticut’s Democratic Party raised $2.1 million through its federal account
in 2013, buoyed by a roster of $10,000 donors that include the owner of the
2014 Republican convention venue, the Mohegan Tribe, and executives of
companies doing business with the state. The GOP raised $528,501.
“In end-of-the-year federal reports filed over the weekend,
the Democrats reported raising $137,646 in December, with six donors, at least
three of whom are involved in state projects, giving $10,000 each, more than
the entire GOP monthly collection of $44,986.”
If money is the mother’s milk of politics, Tammany Malloy is
its milkman. Welcome to the one party state, where all the books are in order, the
bulk of campaign cash flows to the party in power, and both the media and large
campaign contributors find themselves jostling in the same warm and cozy political
pockets. Everyone – but taxpayers, considered for purposes of campaigning a
voiceless minority party – benefits from supping on the distended teats of the
progressive, crony capitalist state.
There is in Connecticut no Thomas Nast, the cartoonist in
the age of Tammany who almost singlehandedly brought the big city New York
political machine to a grinding halt. Connecticut must make do with timid and
cowed cartoonists and commentators. The yellow journalist newspaper editors of
old have given way to weak-tea publishers of cash poor newspapers and reporters
content to co-operate with the reigning power, however ruinous to the public
good its policies may be.
Last week, in preparation for the Democratic Party’s
upcoming off year elections, Tammany Malloy, the ex-officio head of
Connecticut’s one party state, pulled a surplus out of his hat. It was a slender thing, only a spare $506
million budget surplus in a budget amounting to about
$20 - $23 billion for fiscal years 2014-2016. Almost immediately,
commentators and some politicians began to dispute the existence of the
surplus; the seeming black ink was a mirage, some said. Others
familiar with dictionaries pointed out that a surplus is by definition the amount
of money the state has overtaxed its citizens and as such should always be
returned to taxpayers in the form of adjusted appropriations. Pretty much everyone
agrees that the surplus will herald future billion dollar deficits.
The Office
of Fiscal Analysis has estimated deficits of more
than $1 billion for three years running starting in 2016 if the state
continues to spend at the same rate. Tammany Malloy decided to slice and dice
the purported surplus. He decided to return $155 million to taxpayers by way of
a modest one time only gas and sales tax refund. In addition, he dedicated a portion
of the one-time surplus, $100 million, to
prop up a massive hole in a pension fund raided by – let’s get this straight,
shall we? – a General Assembly that has been dominated by Democrats sometime
before many present General Assembly big spenders were in diapers. Connecticut’s
pension liabilities are “three times greater than the average of all states in
2011.” Connecticut's unfunded pension
liability, Moody’s Investors Service
found, “was 189.7 percent of its revenue,” according to a comprehensive report on state pensions in the New London Day.
The governor also injected $250 million of the one-time only surplus into the state's
rainy day fund.
Tammany Malloy decided to slice and dice the purported surplus. He dedicated a portion of the one-time surplus to prop up a massive hole in a pension fund raided by – let’s get this straight, shall we? – a General Assembly that has been dominated by Democrats sometime before many present General Assembly big spenders were in diapers. Connecticut’s pension liabilities are “three times greater than the average of all states in 2011.” Connecticut's unfunded pension liability, Moody’s Investors Service found, “was 189.7 percent of its revenue,” according to a comprehensive report on state pensions in the New London Day.
Tammany Malloy intends to return a sliver of the supposed surplus
to taxpayers upon whom he and Democratic leaders in the General Assembly had levied
the largest tax increase in state history. The ratio of new Malloy tax
increases to tax money returned is $2.6 billion to $273.4 million.
Thomas Nast would have mined that emaciated giveback for
half a dozen cartoons. And any yellow journalist worth his spit in the early
1900s would have laughed such pretentious nonsense to shreds. What is the exact
ratio of tax surplus money returned against Democratic campaign contributions
from donors Tammany Malloy has stroked and cultivated during his one-party
rule?
The well-financed one party Tammany Hall state apparently is
here to stay. Blue journalists in Connecticut even now are plotting to
co-operate with it. What Connecticut really needs -- in addition to tax relief,
more modest spending, less crippling regulations, smaller and more efficient
government, schools that produce scholars at about half the cost of public
education, politicians determined to restore Connecticut to its former glory as
an economic power house and cities that are not given over to gangs – is a new
form of yellow journalism barking at the feet of the new crony capitalist Boss
Tweeds.
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