It was Rahm Emanuel, then consigliore to the Obama
administration, now mayor of crime infested Chicago, who once reminded us that
clever Harvard educated politicians and street organizers should never let a
crisis go to waste. Progressives in the General Assembly have wholeheartedly adopted
Emanuel’s view.
In his most recent budget, likely unbalanced, Malloy will
present to the General Assembly a progressive measure that would “shift $407.6
million, nearly one-third of the annual cost of municipal school teachers’
pensions, onto cities and towns — a move that would hit the state’s wealthiest
communities the hardest,” according to CTMirror.
So some say. It is worth noting that the “progressive tax by
other means” will draw down municipal resources, weaken town government and
pave the way to a false solution: the replacement of town governments with a
regional structure overseen by a state that, unlike municipal governments, is chronically
incapable of balancing its own books. Once you allow the redistribution of
educational funds inequitably, the progressive scheme may be applied
progressively in other ways. The crisis in state government, for those operating
on the Emanuel principle, need not lead to more responsible state government. The
opposite is true: progressivism allows governing bodies to escape public
scrutiny, expand powers executed irresponsibly and lay the blame for misgovernment
on innocent parties.
During his past two campaigns, Malloy had vowed not to raise
taxes – for politically sound reasons. The governor and his progressive
comrades in the General Assembly had already instituted both the largest and
second largest tax increases in state history. Connecticut’s tax increases over
the years have convinced businesses both inside and outside the state that the
former insurance capital of the world – the nursery of Travelers, Aetna, CIGNA
and others – simply is not serious about controlling its reckless spending.
Even the Hartford Courant long ago abandoned its often
iterated notion that Connecticut was not suffering from a spending problem.
What ailed the state, the Courant had insisted in countless editorials and
opinion pieces, was a revenue problem the solution to which was tax increases. A
late convert to reality, Malloy’s budget guru, Ben Barnes, was struck late in
the game by the obvious bolt from the blue. And he warned us in sepulchral
tones that deficits would be with us well into the future.
The future is here. It is frighteningly like the past – full
of state employee pension IOUs, shrinking revenues and unpaid debts. If you
can’t raise taxes because you’ve vowed not to raise them, and you can’t make
permanent cuts in spending because supportive unions would heatedly object to
necessary reforms, what other course is opened to you?
Easy: You conduct a midnight raid on municipal resources. Most
Connecticut towns have over the years balanced their budgets, which are
financed through property taxes, the bulk of which is spent on teachers’
salaries and benefits. Those municipalities that have not addressed spending
reform, such as Hartford, Bridgeport and New Haven -- three metropolitan areas
essential to the election successes of progressive Democrats – are now teetering
on the point of bankruptcy. And their needs are to be met, hardboiled
progressives aver, not by making economies in spending but by shifting
financing from responsible to irresponsible municipalities; or, to put it in
rhetorical terms favored by progressives -- transfer payments must flow to each
according to his needs, from each according to his ability.
Hartford is poor in
revenue resources because half its property is untaxable and the city, relying
on transfer payments from the state, has not made serious attempts to control its
spending. In fact, economies made in salaries and benefits, if any, are nearly
impossible because these expenditures are set by the state through contract
negotiations conducted between the governor’s office and state unions. Such are
the roots of Hartford inability to shape its future through prudent tax and
spending measures.
Now then, the
proposed progressive solution to Hartford’s imminent bankruptcy – transfer tax
receipts from rich to poorer municipalities -- does nothing to address any of
these problems. It simply postpones solutions.
Allowing Hartford to
tax untaxable property at a reasonable rate and retain the tax receipts in its
own budget might help. Permitting the city to conduct direct negotiations with
its own unionized employees through statute rather than contracts might help.
Increasing the independence of cities through a reduction in state mandates
might help. Ending binding arbitration, in which unelected deciders shape union
contractual demands, would re-democratize municipal government. Expanding
educational opportunities through greater educational choices – charter
schools, private schooling -- certainly would help to invigorate the mission of
education, most importantly in public schools. Because the state underfinances
charter schools by about 17%, the founders of the Amistad Academy, who operate
several schools in Connecticut, will no longer be expanding in the state,
choosing instead to expand in Rhode Island and New York. But these are not the solutions being
proposed for debt infested cities that pass children through inferior and unreformable
urban schools.
No, instead of solving
Connecticut’s problems rationally and courageously, the state is proposing to
enrich itself at the expense of tax strapped municipalities, so that state government
may continue to finance without interruption its own past egregious spending
proclivities. And why? Because progressives are loath to let a crippling crisis
go to waste.
Comments