The CTMirror story noted that although budget projections filed with
the State Comptroller’s office showed “that finances were in balance and that
revenues for the General Fund — which covers most operating costs in the budget
— were coming in as anticipated,” a memo issued two months earlier requesting
agency heads to keep their budgets lean contained an estimated General Fund
revenue figure issued by the Governor Malloy’s budget guru, Ben Barnes, of $17.75 billion -- which was, CTMirror
computed, “$133 million less than the amount needed to balance the current
budget.”
Sadly, CTMirror’s
budget calculations most often have been more reliable than those cited by Mr.
Barnes. The Malloy administration has frequently overestimated budget revenue,
the lazy man’s way of budget balancing, and the math here strongly suggested
that the Governor’s office had supplied faulty budget projections to
Comptroller Kevin Lembo, a nasty piece of budget skulduggery.
The more things
change, the more they remain the same, the French say. If Democrats in charge
of both the Governor’s office and General Assembly have not learned how to
balance budgets – and they haven’t – they have been expertly finessing budget
figures for a long while, most damagingly before elections. If you can’t
balance a budget, the least you can do for your comrades up for reelection is
to pretend to have balanced the budget – usually by over-estimating the inflow
of revenue.
When Governor Dannel
Malloy first ran for office, he made the issue of honest budgets a priority. He
wanted to change the manner in which revenue was computed from a modified cash
basis accounting process that had allowed crafty politicians to fudge budget figures
and disguise red ink to a Generally Accepted Accounting Principals or GAAP system, which would make it far more
difficult for spending addicted legislators to fool most of the people most of
the time. This accounting change – and the latent promise of honest budgets -- signaled
to everyone that here at last was a honest broker who would not allow crafty
politicians, even those in his own party, to escape the only two real methods
of managing debt -- cutting spending and raising taxes.
Mr. Malloy and the
Democrat dominated General Assembly raised taxes twice; the first was the
largest and the second, following closely on its heels during the Governors’
second term, the second largest tax increase in state history. Peering from
behind the curtain was former Governor Lowell Weicker, the father of
Connecticut’s income tax, who offered a plenary indulgence to Mr. Malloy. Like Mr. Weicker, Mr. Malloy was a courageous
governor who did what was necessary. He raised taxes during a recession; or, as
Mr. Weicker put it during his own campaign for Governor, Mr. Malloy poured gas
on a smoldering fire -- with predictable results.
Had Mr. Malloy’s
spending cuts been commensurate with his tax increases? Not so much. Well into Mr. Malloy’s second
term, Mr. Barnes informed everyone, including dismayed Democrats in the General
Assembly who had dominated that body for twenty years and more, that the state
would have to get used to permanent deficits. The revenue well was running dry
because Democrats and Mr. Malloy had gone to the well far too often to purge
their budgets of red ink.
In the meantime,
businesses in the state had caught on to the game and were packing their bags.
The invisible signage posted all around Connecticut’s borders – “Lasciate ogni speranza,
voi ch'entrate" (Abandon all hope ye who enter here”) – was crippling
revenue inflow. Business flight and a recession prolonged by a Governor and
General Assembly averse to PERMANENT spending cuts had deepened the red ink.
When you are cutting funds compassionately given to the disabled in Connecticut
and at the same surrendering millions of tax dollars in crony capitalist tax
write-offs and credits to the largest hedge fund in the world, you have entered
the last circle of damnation.
In deep despair, Mr.
Malloy now is slashing his budget across the board. But of course there is little
reason to hope these budget cuts – and very painful ones they are – will not be
reversed after the upcoming election when, Republicans suppose, taxes once
again will be raised. All the signs point to another massive tax increase once
Democratic Big-Spenders have been returned to office. In the absence of a
massive revolt by voters in the next election, political demographics in the
state – Democrats outnumber Republicans by a two to one margin – virtually
assure further tax increases.
Comments