Soon to be former Governor Dan Malloy might easily imagine
himself in the role of the man who fell to earth from Mars.
Here is Malloy speaking about the “gridlock” in the General
Assembly: “We have discussions that are on hold with companies that want to
enlarge their footprint or move to our state who said, ‘Hey, listen, when you
get a budget, we’ll have further discussion,’” Malloy said. “We’re going to
lose thousands of jobs, potentially, because we can’t do the hard work that we
were elected to do? That makes no sense at all.’’ The clanging irony in these
lines – Malloy has chased more jobs and money out of Connecticut than any other
Governor in recent memory – no longer shocks people stunned by his reckless
policies.
Malloy’s is a voice that comes from a far shore. Gone –
perhaps forever – is the notion peddled by Malloy in nearly all his campaigns
that budget black-holes have been created by his predecessors, Republican
Governors Jodi Rell and John Rowland. Malloy “inherited” these problems, we
were told countless times, from do-nothing Republican governors. Actually, it
is Democrat dominated legislatures that have paved Connecticut’s road to Hell,
and the General Assembly has been the exclusive preserve of the Democrat Party
within the living memory of even ancient Connecticut editorial writers.
If budgets were the sole responsibility of governors, Malloy
would not now be bemoaning gridlock in the General Assembly. For the time being
at least, Malloy has been granted plenary powers over Connecticut’s government.
He currently disposes of more extensive executive power than ever did his
gubernatorial predecessors, Democrat or Republican. Sharp-eyed political
commentators and opposition party leaders in the General Assembly suspect that Malloy’s
extraordinary accretion of plenary power was all along part of an artful
Democrat strategy, the supposed frisson between the Governor and Democrat
leaders in the General Assembly being a politically convenient pose.
As head of state, Malloy has been able to reject out-of-hand
a Republican budget that passed both houses of the Democrat controlled General
Assembly, the only budget yet presented to the state’s lawmaking body. On a
suspicion that Connecticut’s left-leaning Supreme Court will support a Superior
Court judgement that the state’s distribution of funds to municipalities is
unconstitutional, Malloy has rejiggered state education funding progressively
so that so called “rich” municipalities will receive no funding at all, while
state collected taxes due to 28 townships will be redistributed to so-called
poor municipalities, most importantly for Democrats large population centers that depend for their sustenance on the
kindness of ruling Democrats.
This state of affairs – entirely the result of a single
party hegemonic General Assembly and a Democrat Governor who lacks only a crown
to be king – is now to be shifted onto the shoulders of the Republican minority
in the General Assembly. Really, if Republican legislators and a handful of
moderate Democrats do not come to heel and fall in line with ruling Democrat
leaders in the Governor’s office and the state legislature, they alone must
bear the inevitable consequences of Democrat misrule.
Even though Malloy vetoed the bipartisan Republican budget,
the great compromiser is, we are to suppose, working mightily to bring together
both sides in the budget stand-off, while washing his hands of any
responsibility for the predictable gridlock. Following Malloy’s veto of the
only budget affirmed by the General Assembly, the lame-duck Governor is
insisting that the approved Republican budget should not be a point of
departure for budget discussion. The two parties in dispute must begin from
ground zero, according to the Governor fallen from Mars.
Some architects of the sole budget that passed muster in the
General Assembly are amused that Malloy, the author of the two largest tax
increases in state history, is now frowning over the prospect of Republican budget
tax increases. In the manner of a drunkard swearing off alcohol, Malloy has
promised several times to eschew further tax increases, but ideologically
disposed Democrats in the General Assembly have yet to embrace Malloy’s oath.
The chatter about tolls, an additional progressive tax on redundantly rich
managers of hedge funds, a mileage tax, a tax on cell phones and many other
revenue enhancers continues apace as the Governor pretends – for what reasons
no one can guess – that he has just alighted from Mars on a strange planet he
has not been governing for the past two terms.
In Malloy’s sinking boat is a knot of moderate, Ella Grasso
Democrats, faithful to the bitter end progressive Democrats, and Democrat soldiers
used to jumping through hoops whenever one or another caucus leader in
the General Assembly barks a command. Progressives especially will have a tough
time selling their product to an increasingly dubious voter base in the
upcoming elections – because nothing Democrats have done during the entire
Malloy administration has pulled Connecticut from the mire. And, as indicated
by Malloy’s abysmal approval rating, a reckoning is long overdue.
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