Publicity is
justly commended as a remedy for social and industrial diseases. Sunlight is
said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient
policeman -- Louis Brandeis
And, Brandeis continued, “Selfishness, injustice, cruelty, tricks and
jobs of all sorts shun the light; to expose them is to defeat them. No serious
evils, no rankling sore in the body politic, can remain long concealed, and
when disclosed, it is half destroyed.”
Brandeis’ notion has long since become the anthem of modern journalism,
properly practiced. Political trickery flourishes in the dark. The magician must
shroud his trick in half light and distraction to pull the rabbit out of his
hat. Journalism, properly practiced, is the sworn enemy of secret cabals.
Those in Connecticut who have been wondering whether the Lamont
administration would be a continuance of the Malloy administration now have
their answer, thanks in part to the honest journalism of Courant investigative
reporter Jon Lender, who has lifted yet another veil. He titles his story “Confidential
proposal by political consulting and lobbying firms would try to sell Lamont’s
toll plan to legislators, citizens,’ though it might easily bear the title, “Here we go again: same old, same
old.”
“A blunt political playbook for winning legislative approval of tolls in
Connecticut highways — including ideas about dealing with ‘frightened’ and
‘vulnerable legislators’ -- … has been pitched,” Lender tells us, “ to at least
one local engineering firm that could, potentially, participate in development
of a system of electronic tolls as proposed by Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont.” The
24 page playbook “contained names and pictures of consultants’ ‘team,’
including Roy Occhiogrosso and Brian Durand, two former top staff members in
the office of Lamont's Democratic predecessor as governor, Dannel P. Malloy…
Whether or not this particular proposal goes forward, the document provides an
insight into the strategy and execution of campaigns to approve big legislative
initiatives, which can be lucrative for people and companies that work in
conjunction with the government on such projects. It plots how to marshal
support and overcome opposition. It illuminates the sort of political business
that gets proposed outside of public view, and is often consummated between
private interests and the people’s representatives.”
Lamont’s toll proposals – there were two of them; one proposing tolls
only for heavy trucks, and another proposing tolls for everyone – have met a
stiff resistance from the real financiers of the project, overburdened
taxpayers, and the “resistance” filled three overflow rooms during a recent hearing
of the transportation Committee at the Legislative Office Building in
Hartford. The Occhiogrosso playbook is designed to encourage progressive
legislators to abide by the toll venture even when met by a disapproving
resistance from taxpayers. It says in 24 pages – buck-up buckaroo! Pay no
attention to the murmurings of the “madding crowd,” a phrase plucked from
Thomas Gray’s “Elegy Written in a Country Churchyard,” which means means
“frenzied.” Indeed, the indisposition of the Malloy administration to cut
spending, along with its massive increases in taxes, would drive a saint into a
frenzy.
Tolling was unnecessary, many Republicans argued more than a year ago,
because the state legislature earlier on had adopted a measure to fortify the
transportation fund. However, “Lawmakers short-changed Connecticut’s Special
Transportation Fund by $650 million between 2011 and 2017, according to a
transportation funding document released by Senate Republicans — more than enough
to pay Connecticut’s portion of the new commuter rail line from New Haven to
Springfield, Massachusetts.”
In fact, sweeping the transportation fund has become the rule rather than
the exception in Connecticut politics. According
to a piece in the Yankee Institute many such “diversions” were made between the years 2014-2017. Lockboxes
were easily subverted by sweeping funds before they arrived in the lockboxes.
The Weicker income tax included a constitutional cap on spending that was from
the beginning rendered useless, according to a decision offered decades later
by Attorney General George Jepsen, because the legislature neglected to supply
the definitions that would have activated the cap.
Where there is a will to avoid spending cuts, there will be a way, and
Connecticut’s “fourth branch” of government, its state employee unions, in
combination with cowardly legislators and pro-union governors, have made
long-term, permanent cuts in spending nearly impossible.
Connecticut needs new revenue sources for one reason only: Its
expenditures far exceed its revenue – because progressive legislators and
governors cannot cut spending without politically cutting their own throats.
Occhiogrosso and his comrades in the consulting community will have a
rough go of it in the long run. Then again, in the long run, we are all dead.
In the short run, money is to be made. Lender again: the 24 page document “provides
an insight into the strategy and execution of campaigns to approve big
legislative initiatives, which can be lucrative for people and companies that
work in conjunction with the government on such projects. It plots how to
marshal support and overcome opposition. It illuminates the sort of political
business that gets proposed outside of public view, and is often consummated
between private interests and the people’s representatives.”
Just so: Your tax tears are their profits. This is not the first time a
governor has lip-synced Occhiogrosso’s messaging. Roy-O
“The Hammer” was a flak-producer in the Malloy administration; he dove into
a lucrative consulting business from which he continued to supply flackery
during Malloy’s second term. And now he has hitched up with the Malloy II
administration, during the course of which, relying on such advice as he and
his fellow consultants proffer, Lamont will attempt to convince the general
public and credulous news people that two and two equals five.
Comments