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| Martin Looney |
The day after the announcement had been made, the state’s
Democrat spinmeisters were busy putting a happy face on the event. We discover
from a Hartford Courant piece that pretty
much everyone in the state was surprised by the announcement. Political
cuckholds are always the last to know when their best laid plans are torn asunder.
State Representative Vincent Candalora, who has been
inveighing against the Democrat Party’s war on the middle class during the
recently concluded legislative session, made a sensible point. Perhaps,
Candalora said, UTC’s decision to shake the dust of Connecticut from its feet
and move to Boston may in some way be related to unfunded pension liabilities
“and other polices that he says hinder economic growth.”
Candalora modestly proposed, “This deal [UTC’s rude but
business savvy departure] is cooked but I hope we have a governor that is now
going to open up his eyes and stop talking in soundbites and start really
looking at how these proposals impact the state.”
Democrat Senate President Pro Tem Martin Looney, a big city
progressive, “rejected that narrative. He said UTC’s corporate move is further
evidence of the struggle Connecticut faces in trying to compete with major
league cities such as Boston and New York,” the Courant advised. And then
Looney offered a sport analogy: “It’s unfair in some ways to compare the
attractions of Boston to what we have in Connecticut. It’s like asking why, if you have two athletes
of equal athleticism... the 6-foot 9-inch player regularly out rebounds the
6-foot player. It’s a matter of size.”
It is not a matter of size. Massachusetts and New York were always
larger than Connecticut.
Even so, within the memory of Looney, a senator-for life of
26 years standing, Connecticut was yet able to compete favorably with the two
larger rivals, because the state’s policies were different – one might say more
modest – than those of its competitors. Connecticut’s budget was small and
manageable, and it was a low tax, low regulation state that provided a restful
harbor for companies buffeted by strong–armed government. Connecticut lost its
competitive edge as the state more and more came to resemble New York and
Massachusetts in its approach to governance, and it was politicians such as
Looney who leveled a playing field that had given Connecticut an edge over
both.
Looney has forgotten over the years much more than he knows
and now relies upon fanciful “narratives” that, for him, are politically
advantageous. According to Looney’s view, what Governor Ned Lamont really needs
to compete with Governor Andrew Cuomo is more state revenue, a reinvented state
government that will consign municipal governments to the trash bin of history,
and go-along-to-get-along reporters in the state’s media who are finding it
increasingly impossible to “see the thing right under their noses,” the most
indispensable virtue of a good journalist, according to George Orwell.
Looney added in a Washington Post story,
“It’s a matter of Boston being a magnet of all kinds. I think if we were
looking at a move to Springfield, Worcester, or Chicopee we would have more
reason to be concerned or to be self-reflective.” Why think about these things?
Defense industries such as Pratt&Whitney, Sikorski and Electric Boat are
immovably anchored in the state. Really, who cares about the movement to Boston
of 100 UTC executives? Democrat business experts in the General Assembly and
the governor’s office have everything well in hand. Stop thinking; it will only
distress you. Go back to sleep, please.
Following UTC’s announcement that it was merging with defense-giant
Raytheon and moving some one-percenter executives to Boston, Senator and former
Attorney General of Connecticut Dick Blumenthal marshalled his adjectives, according to a story in The Hour: “But
U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal said the merger ‘raises sweeping and
serious questions and doubts about its impact on the Connecticut workforce and
economy, as well as our national security and defense,’ and promised aggressive
scrutiny by Congress, the Pentagon, the Department of Justice and other
executive branch agencies.
“’I will demand answers immediately and publicly,’ he said. ‘As a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, I am troubled by the possible impact on cost and competition of defense products, which may significantly affect American taxpayers ... Of paramount interest to me is that the company match increasing defense and commercial contract commitments with additional jobs in Connecticut. I will be fighting to protect Connecticut jobs and workers every step of the way.’” This is not the first time abound the block between Blumenthal and UTC.
The so called “mansion tax” supported by Lamont and
progressives in the state’s Democrat dominated General Assembly – a 2.25
percent penalty tax levied on the state’s redundant rich when they sell homes
valued at $2.5 million and move out of Connecticut – was supposed to prevent
millionaire executives from bailing on their fare-share tax obligations. Blumenthal’s opposition may be the last unsuccessful attempt to cage the millionaires before they settle in Massachusetts, formerly
Taxachusetts.
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