Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

Newsweek was over confident. The magazine set up its front page showing Democratic Presidential nominee defeating real estate mogul Donald Trump – two days before Election Day. Scrap that. Prior to Mr. Trump’s victory, a Hartford Courant political writer instructed a Talk of Connecticut Election Luncheon audience that “The Donald” was sub-human , and Bill Curry, whose support of socialist Bernie Sanders quickly shifted to Democratic Presidential nominee Hillary Clinton once Mrs. Clinton had bumped off Mr. Sanders, declared that Mr. Trump was “emotionally unbalanced, a fascist, and a fraud” . Perhaps after Mr. Trump has been in office a couple of years, Mr. Curry will readjust his depreciation of President Elect Trump, even as he has frequently adjusted his politics between the now abandoned Mr. Sanders and the re-embraced Mrs. Clinton.

A recent Yankee Institute study – “Unequal Pay: Public Vs. Private Sector Compensation in Connecticut” – provides a data foundation that supports what everyone writing about budgets in the State of Connecticut has known for many years. The study shows that while the average non-tax supported worker in Connecticut earns a slightly higher salary than his state employee counterpart, benefits received by state employees far outpace those in the private sector by a ratio of about two to one. According to the study , total compensation for state employees, which includes salary and benefits, exceeds similar compensation for non-government workers in the state by at least 25 percent.

In case anyone has not noticed, we are in the midst of a Nietzschean transvaluation of all values epoch.  Last week, the United States Supreme Court raised the roof on marriage to accommodate gays, striking down with one bold stroke state laws governing marriage that the justices and the editorial board of the New York Times thought primitive and unnecessary. Gov. Dannel Malloy, WFSB reported , “called the decision historic and had a LGBT pride flag flying at the Governor's Residence in Hartford on Friday. ‘This is a historic moment, and we should recognize and celebrate its significance. Equality, freedom, justice and liberty – all recognized by the Supreme Court in this ruling that moves our nation forward,’ Mr. Malloy said.” His administration, Mr. Malloy has said previously, is the gayest in state history and has been full of historic moments.

When Republican candidate for governor Tom Foley addressed the Connecticut AFL-CIO , he was perhaps more frostily received than he may have imagined. Foley’s address to the crowd was summarized by one newspaper this way: “The Greenwich businessman devoted much of his speech in an attempt at convincing the delegates that, if elected, he will not propose legislation similar to the collective bargaining regulations passed by Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker. The anti-Scott Walker crowd wasn’t buying it. And when Mr. Foley sought to explain a phrase he had earlier used – “Looking for a Wisconsin moment in Connecticut… means I'm hoping we go from one-party rule to more balanced government, as Wisconsin did in 2010. It does not mean I will change the way collective bargaining works in our state." – titters arose.

Republicans this year asked Governor Scott Walker of Wisconsin, much maligned by union folk, to give the keynote address at the Prescott Bush Awards dinner in Stamford. Mr. Walker is a grown-up, so his address was low key, interspersed with amusing vignettes. There was very little coverage of Mr. Walker’s remarks in Connecticut’s media. Most of the media accounts went for the color and passed over the discomforting   substance.