Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

There is only one Republican State Senator who voted against the Malloy-Sikorsky-Lockheed Martin-Governor Dannel Malloy deal, pompously called “Connecticut Strategic Investment Act.” That would be Senator Joe Markley , who most certainly is not against strategic investment. Like many conservatives, Markley believes that production should be directed by the needs of the market place – not by politicians operating hand in glove with mega companies to arrange deals profitable to both. Senator Markley thinks crony capitalism, not at all the same thing as strategic investment, is a bell sounding the death knell of business in Connecticut. Crony capitalism is at best a polite form of bribery.

Mark Bertolini CEO Aetna Humana In Mario Puzo’s “The Godfather,” Michael Corleone, plotting to kill a crooked cop, says to his brother Sonny, “It's not personal, Sonny. It's strictly business.” Ya’gotta do what ya’gotta do. If Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini does move Mother Aetna’s home office from Hartford, Connecticut to Louisville, Kentucky’s largest city, he can also plead it’s only business. General Electric (GE) recently uprooted itself from Fairfield, Connecticut to Boston, Massachusetts – just business, nothing personal… please try to understand. "We've done the analysis," Mr. Bertolini said five years ago , "and, quite frankly, Connecticut falls very, very low on the list as an environment to locate employees . . . in large part because of the tax structure, the cost of living, which is now approaching, all in, the cost of locating an employee in New York City.” Such “hits,” to borrow the Mafia term, are not generally shouted from the ...

The news was leaked in advance of the formal announcement. Capitol Report, Tom Dudchik’s popular Connecticut aggregation site, announced in a bold red headline -- BOSTON GLOBE: GE MOVING TO BOSTON, BOMBSHELL: GE EXEC CALL BAKER, WALSH . And several sub stories were listed: FLASHBACK: Looney: 'I think they doth protest too much'... FLASHBACK: Sharkey accuses GE of 'fear-mongering'... FLASHBACK: Aresimowicz tells GE suits 'take a weekend off from the yacht'...

The juxtapositions are jarring. According to one story , Governor Dannel Malloy has spent “$1 Million To Lure 16 Jobs to Stamford.” Mr. Malloy is lending MC Credit Partners $1 million at a two percent interest rate, and the company will be able to convert half of the loan into a gift “if it adds 10 people by 2018 and maintains 26 employees through 2020. If it only adds five workers, $250,000 of the loan will be forgiven.” Connecticut -- for all practical purposes, a one-party state -- has now become a gambling den for crony capitalists. The sixteen jobs for which Mr. Malloy paid nearly a million were filched from New York City, whose crony capitalist governor, Mario Cuomo, would happily pay an equivalent amount on jobs he may in the future manage to filch from Connecticut. Mr. Cuomo recently put in a bid for General Electric (GE) jobs after the company’s CEO, Jeff Immelt, expressed profound dissatisfaction with Connecticut’s chronically out of balance and business-hostile...

The following address was given to the Wallingford Rotary at IL Monticello Restaurant in Meriden on Sept 2. I want to thank Mark Davis for inviting me to speak to you today. As you know, he’s been involved in the Wallingford Rotary for years. After you’ve put in productive years with Rotary, you acquire bragging rights, and this Rotary has much to boast of. Mark doesn’t hold back. He and others regard Rotary as the best volunteer social organization in the country and he’s proud to associate with this  Rotary in particular, which started in 1923 and has given nearly a million dollars in grants to nonprofits. You are to be congratulated on your energy, business intelligence and community concern.

“I don't give reasons. I give orders!” -- Captain Ahab, Moby Dick It seems only yesterday that Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey was threatening to hold a net on the borders of Connecticut and catch companies as they fled a tax prone Democratic Governor and majority Democrats in the state’s General Assembly. Governor Malloy derided the notion. Christie, a blustery Republican, was an easy punching bag. Not so Governor Andrew Cuomo, who recently met with CEO of General Electric Jeff Immelt to discuss moving GE business from Connecticut to New York.

"All this was indispensably necessary," replied the one-eyed doctor, "for private misfortunes are public benefits; so that the more private misfortunes there are, the greater is the general good" -- Candide, by Voltaire   Before progressive extremists in Connecticut’s General Assembly succeed in passing the second highest tax increase in state history, which followed by a few short years the highest tax increase in state history, warning flags were waving at them from every corner of the state. Three of the state’s largest companies – Aetna, Travelers and General Electric – offered demurrals on the budget that were airily dismissed by ardent progressives.