Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

A Republican American story notes, “A top Democratic lawmaker is sponsoring legislation to raise the state sales tax from 6.35 percent to 6.85 percent to help cities and towns.” The top Democrat lawmaker is, of course, President Pro Tem of the State Senate Martin Looney, well positioned to sweep dedicated funds into the general fund, the graveyard of noble Democrat intentions.

The “concession” agreement fashioned between Governor Dannel Malloy and SEBAC that recently was approved on a narrow partisan vote in the Democrat dominated State House and Senate was, most people would agree, beneficial to unions. The agreement was quickly adopted by rank and file state employee union workers and, following its passage in the General Assembly, union lobbyists vigorously cheered the union-favorable pact. The concessions made by union negotiators during the secret conclave were the usual give-backs made by union leaders in the past. In return for temporary concessions – wage freezes that thawed after two years and increased thereafter by 3.5 percent– the SEBAC deal was pushed out 5 years to 2027, after which it might be re-negotiated or not. The two-year wage freeze was accepted by unions in exchange for four years without layoffs. The putative concessions, we are told, might save $1.57 billion over the next two fiscal years. However, nagging problems persist...

“Character is much easier kept than recovered” – Thomas Paine According to a story appearing in the Waterbury Republican American , “Former state Comptroller Bill Curry, the 1994 and 2002 Democratic nominee for Governor, was even more direct. ‘No one under any cloud of investigation is on any serious list for any appointment in any White House. It simply isn’t worth the enormous political and moral hazard,’ he said. Mr. Curry was a White House adviser to Mrs. Clinton’s husband," former President Bill Clinton. Mr. Curry believes that Connecticut Governor Dannel Malloy has no chance – zip – of acquiring a position in the administration of future President Hillary Clinton. 

Republican prospects nationally appear to be improving. Some polls indicate that Republicans will pick up 30-40 seats in the off year presidential election, which is a little odd because in off year elections convenient presidential targets are not present on the ballot. Current wisdom holds that off year elections are decided on local issues. There are convincing reasons to believe that will not be the case this time, and it is instructive to ask why. The Republican recovery may be attributed in part to an aggressive push by the White House and unpopular leaders in the congress on behalf of some divisive – and, perhaps more to the point – expensive programs. For the moment, national Democrats appear to be oblivious of the shoals and choppy water just ahead. Here in Connecticut, Peter Schiff, the Cassandra of the state, is warning that Gibraltar sized problems await us in the near future. The snowballing national debt, Schiff says, is unsustainable. Other Republicans point to the ...

A Hartford Courant castoff, Mark Pazniokas, went out and got a real job after he had lost his position on the paper. Mr. Pazniokas now writes for a news site called ctmirror, which has just filed a stunning story, “ Connecticut in the red on retiree pensions, benefits .” The story includes a pie in the eye chart illustrating Connecticut’s unfunded liability debt, a massive $57.8 billion. Such enormous debt is not likely figure in the calculations of Speaker of the House Chris Donovan, though the figure weighs heavily on the minds of some grown up Democrats. "Our kids and our grandkids are the ones going to be paying for this," said state comptroller Nancy S. Wyman. The state’s present $18.6 billion budget devotes one of every five dollars to pension contributions, health care funding for retirees and long term debt payments for schools and capital projects. Wyman says, “"It's not sustainable." The Waterbury Republican America, a sane whisper in th...