Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

Demography, it is said, is destiny. If so, the most current report from the U.S. Census should serve as a splash of cold water in the face of Connecticut legislators. Marriage in Connecticut during the period surveyed, 2010-2014, has taken a massive hit. Experts say that young adults usually delay marriage because of the burdens of college debt, the high cost of rental housing and anemic salary growth. The high cost of rentals is a measure, in part, of the scarcity of rental housing; through budget mismanagement and a disinclination on the part of the dominant Democrats in the General Assembly to attack spending, Connecticut is still resting somnolently in the lap of a recession that disappeared years ago in the rest of the country; and UConn has just announced plans to boost tuition by thirty one percent.

This interview with Vivian Rockwell Nasiatka took place over a few days. As I was preparing to cast it into stone on Connecticut Commentary, the Washington Post ran a story on a Federal Reserve Bulletin that was profoundly discouraging. According to the report,“the median net worth of families plunged by 39 percent in just three years, from $126,400 in 2007 to $77,300 in 2010. That puts Americans roughly on par with where they were back in 1992.” The recession has left its mark upon us all. It has lingered so long because the fire brigade that was supposed to douse the flames instead, in the immortal words of former Governor Lowell Wicker, “poured gas on the fire” by boosting taxes. Less spending certainly would have helped to boost Connecticut’s prosperity. Instinctively, we know that business, rather than government, is the best economic pump primer. Instinctively, we know that redistribution of wealth does not increase wealth. In moving money from the real economy to government ...