Governor Dannel Malloy’s last “State of the State” address might well serve as the last chapter of his forthcoming autobiography, to be titled "He Meant Well," assuming there is to be an autobiography.
Wisely, Malloy avoided mentioning the budget,
growing like a tumor on the side of Connecticut’s face. Budgets, getting and
spending plans two years out, map the destiny of the state. In place of
destiny, Malloy’s address was brimming with utopian froth.
"It's the kind
of speech,” President Pro Tem of the
state Senate Martin Looney enthused, “that helped him get elected in the first
place back in 2010 and reminds us of the true values on which he first ran. I
think many of those issues have been obscured by the budget crises we've had
over the years."
Value governors produce value speeches. But it was the
policy prescriptions Malloy embraced as a two term governor -- high and
frequent increases in taxes, inattention to budget creep, a reluctance to rein
in extravagant union demands, insufficient long term, permanent cuts in
spending, a reluctance to include Republicans in budget decisions – that contributed
to the state’s flight from reality and its many budget crises.
With apologies to Churchill, this was not a speech
that announced the end of the beginning of a progressive political struggle in
Connecticut. It was a speech, full of hopes and airy dreams, that should signal
the end of a progressive nightmare in Connecticut. In his last State of the
State address, Malloy had his mind set on fairness: “This common thread of
fairness has woven its way through Connecticut’s history, all the way to
present times. In recent years, we have worked hard to ensure that when it
comes to equity, justice and basic compassion for one another our actions have
lived up to our rhetoric …. We’ve been driven by Connecticut fairness.’’
Health care, Malloy said, is a fundamental right. Well, a fundamental
right is one extended equitably to all. The hidden stinger under the “right” to
Obamacare is a universal health care system run by the same folk who brought us
Obamacare, a wreck from within from its inception.
Malloy said the minimum wage must be raised. Some companies
whose profit lines have been improved under President Donald Trump’s tax and regulatory reforms already
have boosted their minimum wage. Profits increased by reduced taxation and
diminishing regulations are trickling down to employees. A state or federal
government ordered hike in the minimum wage, when the state or nation is
suffering anemic job growth, simply raises the cost of products and services.
Malloy said young offenders deserve a “second chance.” Journal
Inquirer columnist Chris Powell has pointed out that many young criminals, no less
lethal than old criminals, are given many more chances than two at the bar of justice. Justice does not
require indifference to criminality; it requires fitting punishments for crimes
– what used to be called “fairness” in the judicial community. In what sense is
crime forgiveness fair to the victims of crime?
Malloy’s Under
Secretary for Criminal Justice Policy and Planning Mike Lawlor,
just gave get-out-of jail-early credits to a relatively young criminal who
procured a gun while on parole and shot at a police officer. Had
the convicted criminal killed the officer, his widow and fatherless
children would not have considered the arrangement fair or equitable.
The bump stocks that “allowed the Las Vegas shooter to fire
at speeds similar to a machine gun” were, Malloy said, “completely and utterly
unnecessary in our society today.’’ Malloy did not disclose to his audience
that the National Rifle Association (NRA) he and other Democrat politicians have been
demonizing supports such a measure.
Not to put too fine a point on it, Malloy’s was a speech
that looked to the far rather than the near future, which does not bear close
examination. Connecticut near future is full of nettles and thorns, but the
distant, fair, far future is rosy with dreams and pleasant fantasies –
progressive fantasies.
State Senator Michael McLachlan pierced the fantasy. “The
building is burning down, down,” he remarked, “and we don’t have any money. Why
are you even saying things that you can’t possibly do? He just wasted
everybody’s time. He got people excited about ideas that we don’t have a prayer
of doing because there’s no money. It’s very sad. We’ve got to focus on red
ink. It’s $250 million now [in the current fiscal year], and it’s going to be
half a billion before you blink.’’
The solution to all the real and worsening problems
mentioned by McLachlan is obvious – don’t blink; just keep your wide and
hopeful eyes fastened on the glittering rhetoric, and forget the state of the
state. The politics of virtuous intentions is the progressive solution to all problems caused by progressives.
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