The usual gubernatorial campaign in Connecticut begins with
brave platitudes and ends, once office has been achieved, with whimpering platitudes.
We recall a triumphant Governor Lowell Weicker warning
during his gubernatorial campaign that instituting an income tax in the midst
of a recession would be like “pouring gas on a fire,” then, having achieved
office, hiring as his Office of Policy Management Director Bill Cibes, who ran
an honest but losing Democratic primary campaign by agitating for an income
tax. Before you could say, “Let’s pour gas on the fire,” Connecticut had its
income tax. State businesses have taken note of the ungovernable growth in
spending and now have their eyes fixed on the exit signs.