Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

Feeling the pinch, leading Democrats in the state legislature quickly settled on a means of bringing somewhat into balance a recently passed spending plan that Democratic State Comptroller Nancy Wyman asserted was about half a million short early in November, a few weeks after the legislature had passed the budget. The ladies and gentlemen in the legislature cut tax relief out of the spending lard. Wyman, of course, was too polite in her assessment of the budget, little more than a legislative Ponzi scheme designed to convince voters that the legislature, in tandem with the governor, had settled an annoying deficit. The budget itself -- a meandering $37.6 billion that disperses $18.64 billion this fiscal year and $18.93 billion in 2010-11 – was a chewing gum and string concoction that relied on one time revenue sources and disappearing savings. Moody’s Investor Service took one look at the budget, shrieked at the choices made by the legislature to address budget gaps and an ant...

It’s very nearly impossible to find out from the cursory accounts printed in most major newspapers what persuaded North Korean dictator Kim Jong Il to agree to shut down his nuclear program. We know positively it was not the allure of sweet reason. Since his ascendancy to the exalted position of “Dear Leader” following his father’s demise, Kim has not been friendly to reason, the delicate pressure put on his country by China, or U.S. President George Bush’s decision not to engage in direct talks with North Korea. Despite pressure put upon it by both Kim and some major American newspaper, Bush declined direct talks with Kim, preferring instead multilateral talks involving countries that would be impacted should Kim be successful in producing big boom weapons that would give the dictator a power he does not now possess to negotiate terms with other nations. Only a few months ago, the front pages of many newspapers bristled with accounts of Kim’s steadfast refusal to succumb to pressure f...