“When the enemy is making a false movement we must take
good care not to interrupt him” --
Napoleon
That the compromise budget is predominantly a Democrat production
should come as a surprise to no one. Weighing gains and losses in the scales,
the left in Connecticut, best represented by Speaker of the State House Joe
Aresimowicz, a union employee, has prevailed over its opponents.
The state’s Capital City, Hartford, teetering on the brink
of bankruptcy, will receive a bailout from state taxpayers, at best a temporary
solution to long- brewing, unresolved problems centering on the city’s hegemonic
political structure, and a virtual guarantee that the city’s political shakers
and movers will be bellying up to the bailout bar again in the not too distant
future. UConn funding, cut in the Republican budget that had passed both Houses
of the General Assembly, has been restored. Major changes in employee pensions,
a prominent feature in the Republican budget, were dropped – but not,
Republicans remind us, as a campaign issue.
Democrats yielded on shifting teacher pension costs to
municipalities, a major feature of Governor Dannel Malloy’s rule by executive
order regime. Republicans did succeed in imposing a cap on state spending as
well as limits on the bonding of long-term capital projects, though they would
be wise to make certain that proper enabling legislation is attached to the
measures. Some months ago, Attorney
General George Jepsen advised that the constitutional cap on spending, a
feature of the Governor Lowell Weicker income tax measure, was unconstitutional
because the General Assembly had never supplied definitions necessary to enable
the bill.
Taxes, a litmus test issue for Republicans, will be
increasing – again. Malloy, the outgoing Democratic Governor has now, with the
concurrence of the dominant Democrat General Assembly, raised taxes three times.
The lame-duck Governor is the author and inspiration of the largest and second
largest tax increases in state history, one of the reasons his approval rating
is in the tank. In a pot calling the kettle black political strategy, much will
be made by Democrats in upcoming campaigns of Republican duplicity on their unbudgeable no tax increase pledges, although it will be obvious to all that Republicans yielded to a superior
political force wielded by Democrats. Not sweet reason -- Democrats were never interested in palavering with Republicans on budget matters -- but superior force and numbers wielded by Democrats shaped the final budget product.
Malloy’s reaction to the compromise budget was, some think,
bitter – possibly because he was excluded from deliberations on what many hope
may be the final budget product in Connecticut – but perfectly in keeping with
his overbearing nature. General Assembly members wanted a budget they could
live with; which is to say, they wanted a budget they could campaign on.
Malloy, who bade goodbye to future campaigns months ago, need no longer
struggle to run on his lamentable record in office. Had he chosen to run again,
he doubtless would have sunk the re-election prospects of his fellow Democrats.
The compromise budget – such as it is – should be considered
a prelude to the upcoming 2018 elections.
Most savvy Democrats instinctively understand they need to put some
distance between non-lame duck Democrat legislators and Malloy, Connecticut’s
self-immolating Governor. And it is this perception that has made them amenable
to compromise, even as it has raised Malloy’s hackles.
If Malloy does veto the compromise budget, “the bad” will be
on Democrats. If the budget in its current form is not vetoed or passes as a
result of a successful veto override, both Republicans and Democrats will be
able to run in the upcoming elections as pragmatic compromisers. In the
seemingly endless prelude to the budget, both parties had staked out positions
on the economy and society that are widely divergent, the cause, some commentators
have said, of the long budget standoff. With the passage at last of a
compromise budget, divergence between both parties will increase rather than
diminish – because this divergence is rooted in two competing and opposite visions
of government. Never in Connecticut history has it been more true that the destination
of the state will depend on the road taken as determined by upcoming
elections, which is simply a way of saying that votes will determine
Connecticut’s now precarious future. And this time there will be no retreat from the road that
will, in Robert Frost’s formulation, “make all the difference.”
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