Sorry, but no. Virtually all Democrat and Republican caucus
leaders, closeted together for more than a week hammering out a compromise
budget, agreed that their talks were cordial, business-like, productive and
remarkably free of animosity. The compromise budget passed the Senate by a
veto-proof majority of 33-3, and there was much fist-bumping in the House when
the budget passed in the chamber by a veto-proof 126-23 majority.
To be sure, Republican leader in the State Senate Len Fasano
said that Governor Dannel Malloy had been excluded from budget negotiations
because he had shown himself to be uncooperative and an impediment to productive
discussions. And Republican leader in the House of Representatives Themis
Klarides was less temperate, though not less truthful, when she said in answer
to a reporter’s question, “We [Democrat and Republican leaders in the General
Assembly] were negotiating from draconian cuts of a governor who is a bully and
a baby and who continues to want to scare people in this state. I believe he
would have no problem operating this state by executive order until he leaves
[in January 2019]. He doesn’t care the pain he’s putting towns and cities
through. I do not understand how the person that is supposed to be the leader
of this state just sits in that office or wherever he goes and throws bombs at
people. … The second that we went off and met on our own, he acted like a baby.
There is no place for a baby leading the state. So unfortunately, we had to
take over.’’
It is no secret – especially not among Republicans – that
the bristly Malloy, who once referred to himself as a porcupine, can be
unforgivably petulant and vindictive. Klarides’ bright flare must be seen
against a dark background of unjustifiable and shabby mistreatment. Upon
becoming Governor, the first time Democrats had held this position in 26 years,
Malloy immediately elbowed Republicans out of the room whenever dominant
Democrats fashioned their budgets. This ostracism was to last throughout
Malloy’s eight years as Governor; budget after budget remained unsoiled by
Republican input.
And then, as happens in Greek tragedies, a reversal of
fortune occurred. After three major tax increases, accompanied by countless
budget deficits, the real state – not the state that appears as a sugar plum in
the dreamy imaginations of hegemonic Democrats – began to collapse. Tax
increases produced deficits and diminished revenues. Connecticut’s third
recession malingered through the entire Malloy administration; it is with us
still. The editors and writers of well-respected financial magazines began to
laugh boisterously at Connecticut behind their clenched fists. Major companies
pulled up roots in the state. Malloy’s favorability rating plummeted. Republicans gained seats in the Senate, now
tied at 18-18, and in the House as well. Companies long rooted in the once rich
soil of Connecticut pulled up stakes and moved elsewhere to less tax punishing,
lower regulatory states. The Mayor of Hartford, once Malloy’s chief counsel,
hired lawyers to facilitate bankruptcy. Unwilling to present a budget to the
General Assembly they controlled, Democrats invested Malloy with plenary powers,
which he soon put to good political use. Malloy weaponized a judicial decision
that found Connecticut’s grants to educational institutions in the state lawless
and unconstitutional. Henceforward, Malloy decreed, state educational grants
would be parceled out progressively, and 28 municipalities would receive no
state grants at all. Connecticut’s municipalities, all of which had for years
integrated the state grants into their own budgets, gagged at the prospect of
the destructive changes. Democrats threatened numerous tax increase schemes.
Malloy declared himself a lame-duck.
And then, putting a cherry on his cake, Malloy vetoed a
Republican budget that had passed through both houses of the legislature. Democrats
still had not offered a budget. It was at this point that both Democrat and Republican
leaders in the General Assembly decided to gather together and produce a
compromise budget without Malloy in the room, and it is against this background
that Klarides’ discontent with Malloy should be assessed. Who, with a straight
face, will say that her casus belli is
unjustified?
Lately, the Malloy administration has been pointing to language affecting hospitals in the budget bill that might result in a $1 billion gap in revenue collection. General Assembly leaders dispute the finding by Ben Barnes, Malloy's budget guru, and insist that both the General Assembly and Hospital lawyers perceive no problem in the language; should there be a problem, the language can easily be adjusted. It is a dubious nail upon which to hang a veto, and given that the compromise budget is veto proof, it would be an act of supererogation to veto it.
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