Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

Twain The reason we hold truth in such respect is because we have so little opportunity to get familiar with it – Mark Twain I’m going to try and say some non-twitter-like, intelligent things about progressivism, Connecticut’s media and what Karl Marx, were he alive today, might call the “correlation of forces” in our own state. By the way, I’m not sure how many people reading this know that for about four years in the 1850s, Marx, then living in London, was the European correspondent for the New-York Daily Tribune. He even exchanged letters with President Abraham Lincoln. Marx and Friedrich Engels wrote for a European, not an American audience. Their articles on the Civil War were later collected into a 325 page book, “ The Civil War in the United States.” It might be well to start this discussion with some undisputed claims.

Kudzu, everyone knows, is a perennial vine native to much of eastern Asia that destroys growth by wrapping itself around native plants and trees and shadowing them so that they do not receive the proper sunlight to grow and flourish. Unnecessary regulatory schemes are to the economy what Kudzu is to vegetation. The operative political rule should be – less is better. The COVID-19 virus, which for inexplicable reasons has resulted in a shortage of toilet paper on grocery shelves, will have long-lasting effects. Thankfully, grocery shelves empty of toilet paper will not be one of them. The shelves have been emptied by hoarders and not by an interruption in the supply chain. So, at some time in the future, when hoarders have had their fill of toilet paper, we may expect the bare shelves to be sagging with rolls and rolls and rolls of the precious product. At some time in the future COVID-19 will itself have petered out. We know this not from any assurances of politicians, th...

Martin Looney “When asked by a reporter whether the [toll] hearing would be opened up to the general public after hearing from experts and guest speakers,” the Yankee Institute reported, “[President of the Senate Martin] Looney said he was working out the details with House Speaker Joe Aresimowicz, D-Berlin. “'I’ve not had any discussions with the Speaker as to whether or not it would be structured in a way to carve out a special allocation of time for invited speakers or anything like that,’ Looney said.”

Lamont, Gunn and Luciano A recent media availability during which Governor Ned Lamont unveiled his new Transportation Plan, several times revised, was marred, but not irreparably so, by Hilary Gunn, who appeared at the event standing behind Lamont and Connecticut AFL-CIO union boss President Sal Luciano wearing a knitted yellow Phrygian or Liberty Cap embroidered with bold, all too visible letters that read – “No Tolls” in revolutionary red letters. Luciano’s presence at the press conference was not inadvertent. He was there to commend Lamont’s new transportation improvement plan on behalf of some union workers who stood to benefit by it – monetarily. “We have been assured by the Lamont administration,” Luciano said, “that this work will be built using project labor agreements. That’s important because it will protect taxpayers by eliminating costly delays due to labor conflicts or a shortage of skilled workers.” And, not incidentally, the project labor agreement...

Kevin Rennie wondered in his blog “Daily Ructions” why, under “the grocery tax set to take effect Oct. 1, six bagels won't be subject to the higher sales tax, but five bagels will, because they're considered to be prepared foods for immediate consumption.” And he then proposed a solution to the conundrum: “The legislature needs to change this law.” Governor Ned Lamont, Rennie wrote, is attempting “to erase the advantage grocery stores that sell prepared foods have over restaurants,” an alibi that seemed to him suspect. If Lamont were at all worried about the restaurant business in Connecticut, “he would not have singled it out for an increase in the sales tax from 6.35 percent to 7.35 percent. He wanted the money more than he cared about the cost of dining out and its consequences for restaurant owners, workers and patrons.” And, truly, if Lamont and his handlers were worried about equity alone, the governor and the tax hungry crowd of Democrat progressives in th...

  I can’t imagine how you can think philosophy and wine are similar—except in this one respect, that philosophers sell their learning as shopkeepers their wares; and most of them dilute it, too, and defraud customers  — Lucian, “The Sale Of Philosophers” Governor Ned Lamont has two serious problems. The first is his inexperience in Connecticut politics, which makes him the plaything of lean and hungry Democrat leaders who have a wealth of experience in Connecticut politics. And the second is  Red Jahncke . “First, it was diversion. Now it’s ‘interception,’” Jahncke writes in the  Connecticut Post . His article should have been titled “What a wicked web we weave when first we practice to deceive.”

Government begins to be a bother when it uses the power of the state to prohibit normative behavior. The primary instrument of compulsion in this case is – and should never be – the tax code. Ordinary people who would not know a political ideology from a lamppost may be forgiven for reacting normally to a government that uses the tax code to shape behavior. And yet this practice has become as common as table salt, which some people believe should be taxed exorbitantly because it isn’t good for you.

Arguing against a legislatively imposed minimum wage increase, Brian Jessurun, co-owner of four northeastern Connecticut restaurants, writes in an op-ed in a Hartford paper: “By all accepted accounting metrics, this state is virtually bankrupt. Reputable estimates place Connecticut’s unfunded liability debt at $70,000 per taxpayer, more than many of them have set aside for their own retirements. The only chance we have of getting out from under that burden is a burst of prolonged prosperity, which would increase state revenues without significantly increasing the taxes that are already driving away job creating businesses and tax paying residents.” At last, some readers of the paper in which the op-ed appeared might exclaim – light!

The Yankee Institute once again is ringing an alarm bell, this time over a tolling bill crafted by the Connecticut Transportation Committee (DOT) that “contains a provision which allows a tolling proposal by the Connecticut Department of Transportation to pass without a vote by the legislature.” This is not the first time the Democrat dominated General Assembly sought to escape its constitutional obligation to vote on every dollar it raises or expends. Under the terms of   Raised Bill 7280 , “the General Assembly will have only 15 days to vote on tolling recommendations from the Connecticut Department of Transportation after an informational hearing, otherwise the tolling proposal will pass and be submitted to the Federal Highway Administration,” according to the Yankee Institute.

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.

No one has yet asked Ned Lamont – according to recent polls, Connecticut’s next governor – how he plans to bring the state’s public employee unions to heel. Connecticut’s unionized, tax supported UConn Health Center is now, for all practical purposes, bankrupt. “As a public institution with a large share of unionized physicians and staff,” The Hartford Courant notes in a recent story, the UConn Health Center faces “added challenges. Pension liabilities for its more than 2,300 employees increased from $1.2 billion in 2016 to an anticipated $2.3 billion this year.”

Connecticut’s gubernatorial “debate” – Where are Lincoln and Douglas when you need them? -- between Ned Lamont and Bob Stefanowski appears to be stuck on a single “how” question: How will Stefanowski implement his campaign pledge to eliminate Connecticut’s income tax, once considered a final solution to the state’s debt problems, now a millstone around the neck of Connecticut. The media coverage of the debates has been diverting, but most reports have been stuck in a single groove, playing over and over the same starkly abbreviated section of a larger unheard song, rather as if inconvenient questions launched in Lamont’s direction will upset the precariously balanced apple cart that has been constructed over a period of three decades by the   Democrat General Assembly hegemon in charge of state finances. Stefanowski has said his pledge to eliminate the income tax within the space of eight years is an aspirational goal that will become operational two years into his gubern...

National Democrats are, ever so gently, following socialist Pied Piper U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders back to the cave.   Connecticut Democrats, progressive to the bone, are likely to go along for the ride. The Pied Piper, it will be recalled, was hired by the mayor of Hamlin to rid the town of rats, which he did by piping them an enchanting tune. The mayor of the town refused payment, and the Pied Piper later avenged himself by piping the town’s children to a cave, where they were never heard from again. There are two morals to the story: debts incurred must be paid, and the instruments of destruction you use against your enemies easily may be turned upon yourself. Forbes Magazine has examined the detailed Congressional Democrat tax hike plan. Many of us, including Newsweek magazine, have long concluded that " We Are All Socialists Now ."   The Democrat detailed plan includes, according to Forbes , an i ncrease in the top marginal income tax rate from 37 percent to 3...

LAME DUCK MALLOY LARDS PORKY BOND AGENDA :  STATE OF ANGER: GOVERNOR'S RACE GETS PERSONAL ” the banner headlines on Tom Dudchik’s  “Capitol Report” read, in screaming text. “Capitol Report” is an aggregator site much frequented by Connecticut politicians and state political watchers that retails important stories. The lede to the featured Hartford Courant story read, “The state Bond Commission will meet Thursday to vote on borrowing hundreds of millions of dollars to finance projects around the state, and the potential for a bonanza of funding for Hartford.”

George Orwell said that the most difficult thing for a writer to see were events occurring right under his nose. The same holds true for voters. For many of us, voting is a duty and an obligation, like going to church on Sunday. But how many of us remember the homilies on Tuesday? Perhaps even the minister has forgotten his invocations by then. One should not render oneself unconscious before voting. Look before you leap, think before you vote. We know that it will not do to overlook recent history, because recent history is armed and dangerous. It might be instructive to approach Connecticut’s economic problems from a “can’t do” perspective. What are the reigning “can’t-do’s” in Connecticut just now?

Jim Powell asked in an eye-opening piece in Forbes magazine 67 months ago, “ How Did Rich Connecticut Morph Into One Of America's Worst Performing Economies ?" A partial answer, freighted with supportive data, has now been advanced in a piece commissioned by The Yankee Institute titled “ Above the Law: How Government Unions’ Extralegal Privileges Are Harming Public Employees, Taxpayers And The State ."  Everyone, both inside and outside the state, is intimately familiar with the bad news most of us have internally affirmed during the past few decades. Consider the rise in the Connecticut’s “fixed costs,” a fixed cost being one that can be reduced only by extraordinary, politically unlikely efforts: “In 2006, fixed costs constituted only 37 percent of the state’s budget; by 2018 that amount was 53 percent.” In 2016, the Census Bureau reported that Connecticut was one of only eight states to lose population. Fixed costs are strangling the state’s economy and pus...

For more than a month, Democratic leaders in Connecticut’s General Assembly had been able to postpone a vote on a two year Democratic budget. Democrats did not bring their own budget to the floor for consideration, debate or a vote because they had no budget. Indeed, legislative Democrats avoided presenting a budget until the completion of secret so called “concession” talks with the State Employee Bargaining Agent Coalition (SEBAC) had been concluded. The legislature officially closed down for business on June 7 and no budget had been brought forward, even though Republicans had been pressuring Speaker of the House Joe Aresimowicz to bring to the floor their own budget, which contained some impressive reform proposals. The fiscal year ended on June 30 without debate on a budget. On July 18, Democratic leaders bestirred themselves hours after rank and file members of the state’s employee unions had voted favorably on the concession deal struck between Malloy and SEBAC. The rapid...

“No man's life, liberty, or property are safe while the legislature is in session” -- Gideon Tucker The headline of the story was worth a thousand words: “ As State Budget And Tolls Stall, Mushroom Hunting And Hate Crimes Bill Among Proposals Passed ." Connecticut Democrats, who still control the General Assembly, were unable to marshal sufficient votes  to pass a frequently unbalanced budget that  is in all probability unbalanced. But the mushroom hunting bill – never mind what it’s about – passed like a hot knife through butter. The budget failed to pass only 21 days after Connecticut citizens celebrated, if that is the word for it, tax freedom day, that point on the calendar at which Connecticut tax survivors have satisfied the insatiable lust of politicians for more revenue.

Forbes magazine asked last March “ Can Connecticut Be Saved ?” The bone-crushing statistics provided were telling: “Connecticut’s job-growth rate is a meager 1.1%, compared with the national average of 5.1%. According to the Connecticut Department of Labor, the state’s unemployment rate is 5.5%, compared with a national average of 4.9%. Connecticut ranks among the top 10 states for net out-migration, losing 140,571 taxpayers in that same 10-year time period. And this trend can be tracked over several decades. Between 1992 and 2014, Connecticut lost $12.36 billion in annual adjusted gross income (AGI).” Last July the  Mercatus Center  placed Connecticut number one among states having the worst fiscal conditions in the nation. So then, what can be done to pull Connecticut from its tailspin?

If it were possible for Governor Dannel Malloy to transfer Connecticut’s debt backward to previous administrations, he would do so a New York minute. This being impossible, he has shifted blame for the state’s current indebtedness to preceding governors, absolving from adverse criticism, for some odd reason, former Governor Lowell Weicker, whom he rarely mentions as being a governor who had run up future debt by increasing taxes and spending. Perhaps that is because Malloy himself has adopted Weicker’s strategy in attacking debt – raise taxes. Twice since he had been elected the first Democratic governor in twenty six years, Malloy has raised taxes, imposing on the state both the largest and the second largest tax increases in state history. The last Connecticut pre-income tax budget was about $7.5 billion; the current Malloy budget is nearly three times as large, every single penny of it having been appropriate from Connecticut’s real working party, middle class people mostly...