Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

Having consolidated political power in Louisiana, Huey “The Kingfish” Long moved the seat of government from New Orleans to Baton Rouge, where there were fewer boozy night spots or opportunities for sexual hanky-panky,  and herded all Louisiana’s political animals into a brand new, free standing art deco building, the better to keep an eye on his political competitors. Autocrats can never be too careful; enemies are everywhere. It pays to pay attention. A populist progressive, Mr. Long also kept the newspapers humming. He was a political bad-boy who had a rich sense of humor and a photographic memory, operating in a state, somewhat like Connecticut, in which Democrats ruled nearly all the political roosts. “Keep your friends close, but enemies closer,” a lesson Michael Corleone claimed in The Godfather he had learned from Don Vito Corleone.

When Governor Dannel Malloy first came into office in 2011, there were boisterous rejoicings all around. Finally, after two Republican governors and an odd fish, Lowell Weicker, who won the governorship on his own party line, Democrats had a Governor they could call their own. On entering office, Mr. Malloy raised taxes, as had the odd fish before him. Mr. Weicker sired Connecticut’s income tax, after which most editorial pages in the state crowed their hearty approval. Taxes are good, and one can never have too much of a good thing. Whenever a budget deficit appeared on the horizon, Democrats raised their old tattered rhetorical flag: Connecticut does not have a spending problem; it has a revenue problem, the obvious solution to which was and is – tax increases. The Malloy tax boost was the largest in state history. During his second term in office, Mr. Malloy, in concert with dominant Democrats in the General Assembly, repeated his performance. By that time, state union advances...

The headline – “No Tax Increase Expected” – was unintentionally misleading. Plenty of people in Connecticut expect tax increases – or, at the least, revenue enhancers – sometime after elections in Connecticut have been put to bed. In our fair Republic, governors propose and legislatures dispose of budgets. Recurring deficits demonstrate that neither Mr. Malloy, the first Democratic governor since the Bill O’Neill administration, nor the Democratic dominated General Assembly have been adept at writing budgets.  The lede to the story in the Hartford paper was accurate: “Governor Dannel P.  Malloy will not propose tax increases next week during his annual budget speech at the opening of the legislative session, his spokesman said Wednesday.”

Republican leaders in the General Assembly want to discuss budget adjustments designed to liquidate an entirely predictable deficit with Governor Dannel Malloy and the Democratic leaders in the General Assembly behind closed doors . Devon Puglia, Mr. Malloy’s Director of Communications, has other ideas "The governor is out there making the tough decisions to make Connecticut stronger in the short- and long-term,” said Mr. Puglia, “ and we don't believe any one party has a monopoly on good ideas. However, if you have ideas, share them with the governor's office and with the public — because we should have a free and open debate about our future." But the governor DOES believe that one party, his own, should have a monopoly on good or bad budget ideas, and that is why, when entering office during his first term, Mr. Malloy made certain that there were no Republicans at the budget negotiation table when he hammered out his first budget. Mr. Puglia is new to ...