There is a modest residue of “moderate Democrats” in the State General Assembly, according to the indispensable Yankee Institute. The moderate Democrat caucus – everyone these days has a caucus – numbers about 28 souls.
The term “moderate”, particularly as it relates to
economics, an art rather than a science, is not merely a meaningless point
between extremes.
Until the Democrat Party was dropped into the fiery furnace
of Keynesian economics, most Democrats were responsible moderates. Bill
Clinton, for example, was the last President, Republican or Democrat, who gave
the nation a balanced budget. He was, to be sure, a big spender – and so were
all other Keynesians who supposed that deficits were worry-proof because the
national debt was “a debt we owed to ourselves.”
This mode of thinking, which demolished spending barriers,
has now left us with a national debt currently tipping the scales at an ever
increasing $28 trillion, so rapidly has the debt we owe to ourselves
metastasized. Actually, the national debt, future generations of Americans will
be disappointed to learn, is a charge on the future which, as Yogi Berra once
said, “ain’t what it used to be.”
In Connecticut, the residue of moderate Democrats is
skittish about ever expanding budgets.
Their beef is displayed in a May media release: ““Moderate House Democrats applaud Governor Lamont’s stance on No Tax
Increases for the current biennial budget. The State of Connecticut should take
advantage of higher than expected consensus revenue, a healthy rainy day fund,
and its strong financial position to pass a budget that does not include tax
increases.”
Lamont appears to be fighting a rearguard action on tax
increases, but he is losing footing on stony ground. The White Knight of
progressivism in Connecticut, Martin Looney, a cagy President Pro Tem of the
State Senate, and progressive numbers in the General Assembly, are arrayed
against him.
The central and controlling Democrat Party ideological
imperative – tax more, spend more, tax more – what some would regard as a
vicious cycle for the taxpaying working class in Connecticut, now has a
receptive audience in much of the state.
This imperative has for decades leapt over any and every
rational proposal to cut spending, long term and permanently, so as to broaden
the constricting borders of what has been called "dedicated spending"
– that is, automatic spending that needs no biennial budget affirmation by the
General Assembly, supposedly in charge of getting and spending in Connecticut.
There are, in other words, two taxing tails and no
spending-cut head on the Democrat Party coin, so that whenever it is flipped,
the coin always comes up tails, a confidence trickster’s swindle.
When Chris Powell, formerly Managing Editor of the Journal
Inquirer, now a regular political columnist for the paper, was told that some
appropriated funding could not be touched in budget negotiations because they
were “dedicated funds,” his response was both lucid and revolutionary: Well,
undedicate them!
Republicans in the General Assembly, their numbers much
reduced, seemed to have settled on at least one campaign platform plank –
resolved: there shall be no net increase in taxes – and Lamont appears to be
sitting in the same pew. Naturally, appearances in politics, a house of
mirrors, are sometimes deceiving.
The fissure between leaders of the progressive movement in
the General Assembly, Looney and his counterpart in the House, Speaker Matt
Ritter, on the one hand, and Lamont and Democrat moderates on the other hand,
appears to be widening. And if legislation were tied to best arguments, Lamont
and Democrat moderates would prevail.
Last May, “Democratic
legislative leaders announced they were supporting tax proposals passed out of the Finance,
Revenue and Bonding Committee that would add a surcharge on capital gains and a
second income tax – called a “consumption tax”—on those making over $500,000
per year,” according to Yankee.
And there are more
post-Coronavirus, business crushing tax proposals in the progressive pipeline:
“Also included in the proposed taxes is a digital ads tax and making the
corporate tax surcharge — which was scheduled to sunset — permanent.
Altogether, the tax proposals add up to roughly $1 billion, which Democrat
leaders say will be reinvested into Connecticut with a focus on cities and
equity.”
These
entrepreneurial knee-capping proposals, moderate Democrats feel, are both
unnecessary – except perhaps for election purposes – and unwise. “With fiscally
sound budgeting practices, the state has positioned itself with an
unprecedented $3.5 billion rainy-day fund,” said Rep. Lucy Dathan, D-Norwalk.
“Combining this with strong revenue outlook for FY 21 and the incoming ARP
funds, we are able to better serve our residents and operate within our current
spending cap. Now is not the time to raise taxes.”
However, best ideas
and best practices are not always determinative in politics. “Government is
force,” said George Washington. Force and numbers often have trumped best
ideas, and in the General Assembly, Connecticut’s law making body, force and
numbers lie with Looney, Ritter and hordes of progressives.
Comments