You can fool all the
people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot
fool all the people all the time -- Abraham Lincoln
Somewhere in
Connecticut, the Gods of Irony are chortling.
Many moons ago,
Governor Dannel Malloy proposed a major infrastructure repair program that will
cost upwards of $100 billion over thirty years. Mr. Malloy’s legacy program --
assuming future legislators and governors do not pass along the debt to future
taxpayers beyond the specified payment period, a fanciful assumption -- will tie
the hands of Connecticut governors and legislatures thirty years out, crowding out
necessary spending until the debt is paid.
Knowing full well
that past governors and legislators, not excluding Mr. Malloy and the current
Democratic dominated General Assembly, have shamelessly raided dedicated funds
to finance their spending profligacy, Mr. Malloy dramatically proposed a
“constitutional lock box” to assure that dedicated infrastructure repair funds would
not be swept to cover General Fund spending.
However, Connecticut
recently and glaringly has had
current experience with failed attempts to limit spending. Connecticut’s
constitutional cap on spending – a spending lock box initially passed during
the administration of Governor Lowell Weicker as a sop to legislators who had
been wavering in their support of Mr. Weicker’s income tax -- has been
regularly overridden by spendthrift legislators, present company included. The
Democratic dominated General Assembly that presided over Mr. Malloy’s two
massive tax increases, the largest and the second largest in state history, has
contributed its mite to a spend and tax budget that has tripled in size since
the state’s last pre-income tax budget under former Governor Bill O’Neill who,
like his predecessor former Governor Ella Grasso, was no friend of income tax
measures.
Only a few months
ago, once again attempting to discharge a budget deficit through duplicitous
though legal means, Mr. Malloy and his partisan Democratic cohorts in the
General Assembly moved a huge chunk of ordinary budget expenses, pension
obligations, from under the cap, thus providing space in the biennial budget
for yet more spending. The creative subtraction also allowed Mr. Malloy and
Democratic leaders in the General Assembly to discharge a budget deficit – on
paper but not in fact. If the average householder in Connecticut were able to
deduct his mortgage payments from his annual budget costs, he would find it
much easier to balance his books – on paper. But this kind of budget gimmickry
is useful only to the self-deluded, or to politicians seeking reelection to
office. In the end, the state’s bills must be paid, invariably by taxpayers
who, once having discovered such dangerous persiflage, resent, in the words of
President Abe Lincoln, being fooled “all the time.”
Even the Hartford Courant is becoming impatient with all the tomfoolery. “Another year,
another big hole in the state budget, another patch-up job that does little to
prevent next year's crater,” the paper thundered in a recent editorial. Really,
someone has to have “tough talks with state employee unions to reduce health
care, pension and other costs going forward to give the budget a break.”
And, oh yes – about
that infrastructure lock box …
Several Republican House members -- John
Scott, who represents the 40th district of Groton and Ledyard; Mike France, who represents the 42nd district
of Ledyard, Preston and Montville; Kathleen McCarty, who represents the 38th
district of Waterford and Montville;
Aundré Bumgardner, who represents the 41st district of Groton and New
London; and Doug Dubitsky, who
represents the 47th district of Canterbury, Chaplin, Franklin, Hampton,
Lebanon, Lisbon, Norwich, Scotland and Sprague – have issued a scorching
manifesto.
The transportation “lock box,” they point out, is an old idea that has
been tried multiple times and found wanting. Legislators in the Democratic
dominated General Assembly have in the past consistently raided transportation
fund lock boxes to balance budgets. In the present instance, “… within hours of
this “lock box” vote, the legislature voted on a deficit mitigation plan to
balance the current budget, which is estimated to be between $350 and $370
million out of balance only a few months into the fiscal year. That vote
diverted $35.2 million from the STF [State Transportation Fund] into the
General Fund, illustrating the lack of discipline consistent with past
legislatures.”
An amendment offered by the Republican caucus to prevent such lock box
sweeps that would have allowed citizen oversight by challenging “asset removals
through legal action and provide the teeth that a law of this nature needs to
be successful” died on a party line vote.
An amendment that would prevent the General Assembly from including in
any implementer bill line items boosting costs that had not previously been vetted
in the usual manner through public hearings and legislative committee assent
very likely would not be considered by a General Assembly intent on fooling
some of the people all the time. However, that does not mean such amendments,
which limit the unrestrained spending appetites of legislators too cowardly to
disappoint the special interests that preserve their little hegemonies, should
not be proposed by the loyal opposition.
And that really is the problem, isn’t it? A legislature and executive
head of state that does not represent the general interest – all the people
most of the time – will be a truly representative government only some of the
time, putting the Gods of Irony out of business most of the time. Irony, most
of the time, is the trumpet call of moral and political dissolution.
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