Who Killed Cock Robin? Connecticut’s Disappearing Surplus

This campaign year Governor Dannel Malloy had hoped to present voters with a tax rebate drawn from a budget surplus. The rebate, a slender $55 per person, disappeared because the budget surplus disappeared. On Tuesday, the bad news filtered down from the legislature’s nonpartisan Office of Fiscal Analysis; state income tax receipts for the current budget ending June 30 will fall $357 million short of what had been budgeted. The crystal ball gazers in the Malloy administration affected surprise; the governor was disappointed. He wanted everyone to know, however, that in the event Connecticut produces a future surplus, some of the over-taxation would be remitted to taxpayers by Mr. Malloy, assuming the governor is returned to office in the next election cycle.

A number of economists, the usual culprits, were trotted out to explain who killed Cock Robin.

The explanations were lucid and nuanced. One economist connected with UConn explained why “less than three months after the administration touted a $213 million surge in income tax receipts, on Wednesday, it likely will report a revenue loss close to twice that size,” according to a story in CTMirror.

“We are in a very, very different kind of world,” said Professor Fred V. Carstensen, who heads the University of Connecticut’s economic think-tank. Yes indeed, “Graduate assistants at The University of Connecticut, “according to the piece in CTMirror, “have voted to unionize -- making them the school's largest union, with 2,135 members.”

The brave new world has arrived, even at Connecticut’s most pampered university. Mr. Malloy has consistently thrown tax dollars in UConn’s direction. The governor could well afford to be generous after having imposed on struggling workers in the state the largest tax increase in Connecticut’s history. Alas, it was not enough and, shortly after arriving at UConn, the university’s new president, Susan Herbst, raised tuition. UConn has become the prodigal son of Connecticut’s progressive governor. The disappearing state surplus, Mr. Carstensen was careful not to mention in his remarks to CTMirror, was to be carved out of that massive tax increase. But somewhere on the road to prosperity, the tax increase was offset by a decline in business activity.

From Economics 101, possibly still taught at UConn, we know this: Raising taxes during the state’s longest and most crippling recession is not likely to increase business activity. That was the message delivered by then President John Kennedy in 1962 to the New York Economic Club. And it is growth in business that floods national and state treasuries with surplus wealth.

In his eye-popping speech, Mr. Kennedy reasoned: 1) increasing taxes to finance future federal programs was no longer possible because there are rational limits to all good things, and successive tax increases had outstripped the tolerance levels of taxpayers, a situation remarkably similar to present conditions in Connecticut following two massive tax increases; 2) therefore, it would be prudent to increase future revenues by decreasing marginal tax rates, which in turn would increase business activity, thereby flooding federal and state treasuries with a net increase in taxes that later might be used to finance Great Society programs. Mr. Kennedy was right on all counts.

According to Don Klepper-Smith, once chief economic adviser to former Gov. M. Jodi Rell and presently an analyst with DataCore Partners in New Haven who is often cited in Connecticut news accounts, Connecticut is facing a “non-traditional business cycle,” and traditional tools previously used “for fixing the state budget in the two decades before the Great Recession” -- most notably a boost in the income tax – are no longer effective. In times past, Connecticut’s “heavy reliance on Wall Street and investment-related income taxes” brought the state budget from red to black.

Not anymore.

Following the CTMirror report, the Hartford Courant noted that all of Connecticut’s revenue streams were down. Projected Revenue was down $461.5 million since January. The state income tax, Connecticut’s largest revenue generator was down from $9.021 billion in January to $8.632 billion. The income, sales, corporate profits, inheritance and estate, and cigarettes taxes were all down.

The way to recovery for Connecticut – a long and painful road – was sketched out by Mr. Kennedy way back in 1962: Reduce taxes and excessive regulation; cut spending every year until Connecticut’s economy shows positive signs of recovery; extend the retirement period for state workers; de-unionize government operations wherever possible; end practices such as binding arbitration that drive up municipal costs; reduce municipal mandates and vote out anyone who has sacrificed the long term health of the state for temporary political advantages.

That would be a start along a path to recovery.

Connecticut’s Media-Progressive Complex: Or -- It’s The Spending, Not The Taxes, Stupid

CTMirror asks in a recent story “Is it time to overhaul Connecticut’s tax system?”

The progressive wing of the Democratic Party, now in the ascendency in Connecticut, has been trying to “reform” the tax system ever since it was last reformed in 1991 by then Governor Lowell Weicker, the father of Connecticut’s income tax.

In the course of its story, CTMirror quotes William Cibes, identified as “state budget director under Weicker and also co-chairman of the finance committee in 1989-90,” on property taxes. Mr. Cibes recently testified before the General Assembly’s Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee, which in the next few weeks will endorse a measure “that could launch a top-to-bottom analysis of how Connecticut taps taxpayers’ wallets.” Mr. Cibes testified that “high property taxes are a major reason why Connecticut’s tax system is broken. So property tax relief would lessen the economic burden on businesses, municipalities and individuals… Property taxes are relatively stable. But when a state relies excessively on property taxes to fund important services like education, infrastructure and public safety, businesses and individuals are punished.

Mr. Cibes’ statement was remarkably similar to an earlier Op-Ed piece printed in CTMirror written by John A. Elsesser, the town manager of Coventry: “The good thing about property taxes is that they are relatively stable. As part of an overall revenue structure, which is relatively balanced among taxes on property, sales and income, they make sense. But when a state relies excessively on local property taxes to fund governmental services, as does Connecticut, it’s reasonable to begin working to fix what House Speaker Brendan Sharkey has termed a ‘broken’ tax system.”

Mr. Cibes and Mr. Weicker were both prime movers in the effort to adopt an income tax. While campaigning for governor, former Republican U.S. Senator Weicker, running within a party of his own making, had eschewed an income tax as a means of liquidating a Democratic generated billion dollar deficit. Adopting an income tax, gubernatorial campaigner Weicker said, would be “like pouring gasoline on a fire.” Mr. Cibes had run for governor on an income tax platform, but he and his platform were decisively rejected at the time by 65% of Democrats.

While Connecticut’s income tax was muscled through the General Assembly by Governor Weicker, the income tax idea and its implementation originated with Mr. Cibes, whom Mr. Weicker tapped to head the state’s Office of Policy Management. Declining to run for a second term as governor, a grateful Weicker, before leaving office, created a plush featherbed for Mr. Cibes, appointing him the first Chancellor of Connecticut’s new Connecticut State University System. Like old soldiers, old political operatives never die, but neither do they fade away. They become associated with lobbying firms or pad their retirements with pensions drawn from tax dollars.

It should surprise no one, least of all the editors of CTMirror, that Mr. Cibes continues to insist that Connecticut is undertaxed. Mr. Cibes certainly is within easy reach of the reporters and editors of CTMirror. Mr. Weicker’s former OPM chief was one of the co-founders of CTMirror and serves on its board of directors, as does Stanley Twardy, former Chief of Staff for Mr. Weicker. According to a report in Raising Hale, CTMirror is published by Connecticut News Project. A review of political contributions by board members of CTMirror shows that eight of the ten board members have made donations to political candidates totaling more than $125,000, seventy five percent of which enriched Democrats.

The Weicker-Cibes income tax of 1991 dropped the sales tax rate from 8% to 6% and the corporate tax rate from 13.8% to 11.5%. A Rainy Day tax fund, since depleted by spendthrifts in the General Assembly, was also introduced, along with a largely irrelevant constitutional expenditure cap. Through inadvertence or design, the Democrat dominated General Assembly never quite got around to implementing the constitutional cap and, following the passage of the Weicker-Cibes income tax, spending in the state tripled within the space of three governors, two of whom were Republicans.

Mr. Cibes’ pitch on the necessity of tax increases sounds wearily familiar, especially coming on the heels of Governor Dannel Malloy’s massive tax increase, the largest in state history, which out-revenued even the Weicker-Cibes income tax.

Commending a plan put forward by “Better Choices For Connecticut”, progressive tax grabbers, Mr. Cibes argued a few years ago in his pitch for higher taxes that Connecticut could not possibly offset its deficit through spending reductions alone, and he called for a “fair share’ sacrifice on the part of taxpayers and tax gobblers, a motif candidate for governor Dannel Malloy deployed effectively in his campaign.

The revenue proposals promoted by “Better Choices For Connecticut” and embraced by Mr. Cibes included an increase in the income tax for “those who can best afford it,” likely anyone making more than $250,000 per year, an increase in corporate taxes and an increase in the sales tax. The corrective measures promoted by Mr. Cibes insert progressive features into the Weicker-Cibes income tax, considered by some when it was passed as insufficiently progressive. At the time of passage, Mr. Cibes had told the New York Times that the architecture of the tax made it more progressive than it seemed. But progressives believe you can never have enough of a good thing.

Once the new revenue proposals are imposed on the Weicker-Cibes income tax, Connecticut will have adopted the same tax scheme Mr. Cibes promoted when he ran for governor way back in 1991. Property tax relief is little more than a convenient cover that will allow progressive Democrats to boost taxes when, after the upcoming elections, the state once again finds itself confronting a $2 billion deficit brought on by exorbitant spending. And the reporters and editors at CTMirror are too bright not to have noticed the obvious sham. One can only conclude that in failing to report sufficiently on one of its board of directors, CTMirror did not wish to place before its readers such inconvenient truths as might disturb Mr. Cibes and others who financially support the Connecticut News Project.

A Touch Of Tammany, The Real One Percenters And The Malloy Crony Capitalist Bank

“There’s an honest graft, and I’m an example of how it works. I might sum up the whole thing by sayin‘: ‘I seen my opportunities and I took ’em’” -- George Washington Plunkitt

 “Malloy has said the party's standard will be accepting donations allowed by law. State contractors are banned from giving to state campaigns, but they are allowed to donate to federal campaign accounts” – CTMirror

“The books are always all right. The money in the city treasury is all right. Everything is all right. All they can show is that the Tammany heads of departments looked after their friends, within the law, and gave them what opportunities they could to make honest graft  -- George Washington Plunkitt 

The figures –and the money – are now pouring into Democratic Party coffers. And as the tide of campaign cash drowns Republican Party hopes in the upcoming Connecticut elections, the Democratic Party in the Gimme State resembles nothing so much as Tammany Hall in the early 1900’s . Governor Dannel Malloy has become the party’s George Washington Plunkitt, although the Tammany Hall boss, who operated from a bootblack stand at the New York County Court House, was far chattier and much more frank than the current governor.

According to a CTMirror report, “Connecticut’s Democratic Party raised $2.1 million through its federal account in 2013, buoyed by a roster of $10,000 donors that include the owner of the 2014 Republican convention venue, the Mohegan Tribe, and executives of companies doing business with the state. The GOP raised $528,501.

“In end-of-the-year federal reports filed over the weekend, the Democrats reported raising $137,646 in December, with six donors, at least three of whom are involved in state projects, giving $10,000 each, more than the entire GOP monthly collection of $44,986.”

If money is the mother’s milk of politics, Tammany Malloy is its milkman. Welcome to the one party state, where all the books are in order, the bulk of campaign cash flows to the party in power, and both the media and large campaign contributors find themselves jostling in the same warm and cozy political pockets. Everyone – but taxpayers, considered for purposes of campaigning a voiceless minority party – benefits from supping on the distended teats of the progressive, crony capitalist state.

There is in Connecticut no Thomas Nast, the cartoonist in the age of Tammany who almost singlehandedly brought the big city New York political machine to a grinding halt. Connecticut must make do with timid and cowed cartoonists and commentators. The yellow journalist newspaper editors of old have given way to weak-tea publishers of cash poor newspapers and reporters content to co-operate with the reigning power, however ruinous to the public good its policies may be.

Last week, in preparation for the Democratic Party’s upcoming off year elections, Tammany Malloy, the ex-officio head of Connecticut’s one party state, pulled a surplus out of his hat.  It was a slender thing, only a spare $506 million budget surplus in a budget amounting to about $20 - $23 billion for fiscal years 2014-2016. Almost immediately, commentators and some politicians began to dispute the existence of the surplus; the seeming black ink was a mirage, some said. Others familiar with dictionaries pointed out that a surplus is by definition the amount of money the state has overtaxed its citizens and as such should always be returned to taxpayers in the form of adjusted appropriations.   Pretty much everyone agrees that the surplus will herald future billion dollar deficits.

The Office of Fiscal Analysis has estimated deficits of more than $1 billion for three years running starting in 2016 if the state continues to spend at the same rate. Tammany Malloy decided to slice and dice the purported surplus. He decided to return $155 million to taxpayers by way of a modest one time only gas and sales tax refund. In addition, he dedicated a portion of the one-time surplus,  $100 million, to prop up a massive hole in a pension fund raided by – let’s get this straight, shall we? – a General Assembly that has been dominated by Democrats sometime before many present General Assembly big spenders were in diapers. Connecticut’s pension liabilities are “three times greater than the average of all states in 2011.”  Connecticut's unfunded pension liability, Moody’s  Investors Service found, “was 189.7 percent of its revenue,” according to a comprehensive report on state pensions in the New London Day. The governor also injected $250 million of the one-time only surplus into the state's rainy day fund.

Tammany Malloy decided to slice and dice the purported surplus. He dedicated a portion of the one-time surplus to prop up a massive hole in a pension fund raided by – let’s get this straight, shall we? – a General Assembly that has been dominated by Democrats sometime before many present General Assembly big spenders were in diapers. Connecticut’s pension liabilities are “three times greater than the average of all states in 2011.”  Connecticut's unfunded pension liability, Moody’s  Investors Service found, “was 189.7 percent of its revenue,” according to a comprehensive report on state pensions in the New London Day.

Tammany Malloy intends to return a sliver of the supposed surplus to taxpayers upon whom he and Democratic leaders in the General Assembly had levied the largest tax increase in state history. The ratio of new Malloy tax increases to tax money returned is $2.6 billion to $273.4 million.

Thomas Nast would have mined that emaciated giveback for half a dozen cartoons. And any yellow journalist worth his spit in the early 1900s would have laughed such pretentious nonsense to shreds. What is the exact ratio of tax surplus money returned against Democratic campaign contributions from donors Tammany Malloy has stroked and cultivated during his one-party rule?

The well-financed one party Tammany Hall state apparently is here to stay. Blue journalists in Connecticut even now are plotting to co-operate with it. What Connecticut really needs -- in addition to tax relief, more modest spending, less crippling regulations, smaller and more efficient government, schools that produce scholars at about half the cost of public education, politicians determined to restore Connecticut to its former glory as an economic power house and cities that are not given over to gangs – is a new form of yellow journalism barking at the feet of the new crony capitalist Boss Tweeds.

Dannel Daedalus Gets Antsy

It’s now official, though it may take some time for Governor Dannel Malloy’s message to trickle down to the members of Connecticut’s all Democratic U.S. Congressional Delegation: “I understand this frustration,” Malloy said. “I’m frustrated. I think the federal government has messed up big time. This couldn’t have been a worse rollout, except in the states that embraced what we’re trying to do. In Connecticut, we're signing up people left and right.”

Mr. Malloy’s “rebuke of the White House over Obamacare” may be found in a short piece in CTMirror, “Malloy rebukes White House over Obamacare.”

Mr. Malloy’s rebuke, it should be noticed, does not touch the essence of the Affordable Care Act, more popularly known as Obamacare. The act itself, he thinks, is praiseworthy, but its execution leaves much to be desired – unlike Mr. Malloy’s own flawless roll-out of the Connecticut Obamacare exchange.

Right from the get-go, Mr. Malloy stepped boldly, even eagerly, on the Obamacare plank. Unforeseen – actually, they were foreseen – technical problems arose, called “glitches” by the White House, and the roll-out flopped so dramatically that even President Barack Obama’s Stakhanovite supporters, as well as the president himself,  were forced to admit the Obamacare launch was an abject failure. The Daily Show’s Jon Stewart, for instance, was not amused.

“The bad” was on Mr. Obama, said Mr. Obama --  just before he tossed his problem to Mr. Malloy.

“They shifted their problem to me, and I don’t appreciate it,” said Mr. Malloy, according to CTMirror.

The problem shift occurred when Mr. Obama, under pressure from former President Bill Clinton to keep his often stated promise that the little folk could keep their insurance policies if they liked them, kept his promise, causing supporters in blue states such as Mr. Malloy’s considerable agita.

Obamacare was all along designed to shift people out of their preferred insurance plans into Obamacare. The forcible push towards Obamacare was to follow on an insistence that insurance companies deep-six plans considered “substandard” by the new insurance mavens in the Obama administration. Under pressure to abandon plans that, for instance, did not require men to purchase maternity coverage, the insurance companies bowed to White House pressure and canceled their so called “substandard” plans. In point of fact, the substandard plans were designed to appeal to a diverse marketplace: In the real marketplace outside the walls of the Washington D.C. Beltway, needs determine the nature of sellable products; inside the Beltway, political considerations determine public needs.

When Mr. Obama, purely for political reasons, caved under pressure from Mr. Clinton and numberless incumbent Democratic Congressmen whose seats would have been threatened by broken promises, the diverse plans abandoned by the insurance companies could not, purely as a practical matter, be restored. Humpty Dumpty had already fallen from the wall. The insurance companies also had ventured far out on the Obamacare plank, along with Mr. Malloy. What drew them there was an artful measure in the Obamacare law that would force young people by means of monetary penalties to purchase insurance policies they did not need or want.

By restoring his promise – for a year only – Mr. Obama created a big problem.

The astute Obama-watcher will notice that this big problem – How is it possible to finance Obamacare if the president allows substandard policies, if only for a year, to remain, washing away the breakwater that prevents the monetizing of Obamacare? – is not a technical glitch. It is essential to the success of Obamacare.

One supposes that Mr. Malloy and the Malloyalists, the brightest brains ever assembled in Connecticut to assist Mr. Malloy in re-inventing what used to be called “the insurance capital of the world,” understand all this better than more pedestrian geniuses.  But it simply is not in the political interests of Democratic Party power brokers in Connecticut publicly to notice big problems. And so, all the political chatter is of technological glitches foisted by imbecilic federal agents upon a Democratic regime in Connecticut that now feels it must put some distance between itself and a technologically incompetent president whose vision – the radical readjustment of a sixth of the U.S. economy – remains, never-the-less, doable.

This unearthly hubris is a larger problem still; it torched the wings of Daedalus and may yet incinerate the ambitions of progressive utopianists in Connecticut. It will not dissipate until the architects of disaster are removed from office.

Supreme Court Cleans Up Blumenthal’s Augean Stables

Last week, Connecticut’s Supreme Court overturned on process grounds a jury's decision that the state of Connecticut should pay $18.3 million to Computers Plus, a company that once operated out of East Hartford.

The jury found that the state – specifically, then quick-to-sue Attorney General Richard Blumenthal -- had defamed the owner of the company and violated her due-process rights. The jury’s multi-million dollar award should be taken as an indication of the depth of the state’s perfidy in driving Computer Plus out of business on a fraudulent claim of wrongdoing.

The jury award was later whittled down by another judge who, punitively in the interests of justice, moved the decimal point an integer to the left and reduced the jury’s award to $1.83 million.

Judges in Connecticut are loathed to incur the wrath of politicians, and Attorney General Richard Blumenthal had for 20 years been a very resourceful politician. Before Mr. Blumenthal killed Computer Plus, it ought to be noted, the company was a very successful woman owned small business.

Mr. Blumenthal is now a U.S. Senator in Connecticut’s all Democratic U.S. Congressional delegation. During his progress up the greasy pole, Mr. Blumenthal had crawled over heaps of bodies in order to arrive at his exalted position, one of them being the owner of Computer Plus, who did not take kindly to being defamed by Mr. Blumenthal and so sued him. The case was strong enough to have persuaded a jury of Mr. Blumenthal’s peers that he had wronged the lady, and the jury award was an attempt by ordinary citizens to make her whole, $18.3 being the value of the business destroyed by Mr. Blumenthal.

The lede for the story in CTMirror ran as follows:

“The Connecticut Supreme Court Monday [8/26/13] dismissed a small company's $18.3 million defamation claim against the state that became an issue in the U.S Senate campaign of Attorney General Richard Blumenthal in 2010.”

Connecticut’s Supreme Court, we are told, “offered no opinion on the substance of the claims and counter-claims” decided by the jury. The high court instead “focused on the narrow question of whether the state, by suing the company for civil damages, had waived the immunity against civil lawsuits generally enjoyed by public officials and state agencies… In a unanimous opinion by Justice Flemming L. Norcott Jr., the state's highest court concluded that sovereign immunity protected the state in the case. It set aside the reduced $1.83 million damage award, and dismissed all claims by Computers Plus.”

In its decision, the high court ruled that a private person unjustly deprived of property by the state must, before filing a suit, obtain from the state’s Office of the Claims Commissioner an approval to sue; the decision of the claims commissioner may then be appealed to the General Assembly. This process, which places decisions properly made by the judicial department directly in the hands of the legislature, is itself constitutionally questionable.  One purpose of the litigatory merry go round is to frustrate aggrieved citizens from seeking redress directly from the judicial department. The high court ruling permitted the justices to over-leap the findings issued by the lower courts.  

Case closed, next…

For some who have paid attention to high court decisions in which the political status of prominent politicians lies in the justice pans, the decision of the court in this instance is not surprising. But what are the real world consequences that follow upon the servility of courts to the political establishment? The commissioner of the Office of the Claims Commissioner, an executive agency, is J. Paul Vance, son of Department Spokesman/Media Relations Commander at Connecticut’s State Police. Mr. Vance reports to Governor Dannel Malloy, the state’s chief executive.

At a minimum, the highly politicized decision, masquerading as a finding that turns on a process point, is a firm indication to citizens of Connecticut  who may in the future be harmed by high-handed suit-prone attorneys general that they cannot receive simple justice from the courts, because “the state” is encircled by a near absolute sovereign immunity so impenetrable to common sense and simple justice that it may only rarely be breeched -- not even by an aggrieved woman initially sued by the state upon whom once attorney general  and now U.S. Senator Dick Blumenthal had waged, according to a jury verdict, an unjust war in the course of which her company had been litigated out of existence by Mr. Blumenthal.

Really, one wants to respond with pikestaffs and pitchforks to the high court’s decision. The owner of Computer Plus – as well as the owners of all small businesses in Connecticut – has been told by the Supreme Court that she has no direct recourse to the courts after the state first initiated a suit against her.

No, instead of applying to the courts for succor in response to a state initiated suit since determined by a jury to be ill advised, the aggrieved and damaged owner of Computer Plus must first apply to politicians, the initial cause of the misery and near poverty brought upon her by ambitious, publicity hungry politicians on the make.  

When apprised by an English court that the law supposed Mr. Bumble’s wife “operated under his direction,” Mr. Bumble, a character in Charles Dickens’ Oliver Twist, erupted, “If the law supposes that, the law is a ass — a idiot.”

Under the new regimen imposed by the court, the state may invidiously sue a business; the owner of the business then must apply for judgment to an executive administrator who answers to the governor; should the owner wish to contest the judgment, he must apply to the General Assembly; and should the case proceed to trial, the state attorney general – the very agency that initiated the fraudulent suit – will prosecute the case in court.

The question before the general public is: How would the public know if its state were an idiot?

Democratic Arrogance And The Budget

Having raised taxes during his first term by $1.5 billion, the largest tax increase in state history, Governor Dannel Malloy is now poised to sign a biennial budget the bottom line of which is either $36.6 billion or $44 billion, according to CTMirror. Over two years,” CTMirror reports, “the new budget would spend $44 billion, based on the current method for reporting Medicaid spending,” a true figure of expenses now hidden behind an iron mask of gimmickry.

Democrats in the General Assembly – Republicans by design were excluded in the construction of both Mr. Malloy’s budgets – this year engaged in the most costly gimmick in state history, moving upwards of $6 billion in Medicaid costs outside the state’s constitutional cap, a sleigh of hand that makes a fiction of both the cap and the constitutional voice of all the citizens in Connecticut, whatever their political affiliation. Medicare costs for the next fiscal year amount to about $5.3 billion, part of which, about $3 billion, is offset by federal aid. The federal government -- now in arrears by about $17 trillion, a debt that has been increasing on an average of $2.77 billion per day since September 30, 2012 -- partially finances Medicaid for the first two years of Obamacare, after which the states assume payment for both the program and Medicaid liabilities, which will be considerable.

The constitutional cap was a legislative placebo offered by the administration of former Governor Lowell Weicker that enabled Mr. Weicker to harness a few votes in the General Assembly to pass his 1991 income tax – after Mr. Weicker had publically sworn in his gubernatorial campaign that instituting an income tax while the state was facing a deficit of a little over $1 billion would be like “pouring gas in a fire.” The ploy worked, the income tax was passed and, in the course of the following two decades, the bottom line of Connecticut’s budget more than tripled – that’s TRIPLED. Connecticut’s last pre-income tax budget was $7.5 billion; the current Malloy budget is $18.6 billion in the fiscal year beginning July 1 and $19 billion the next fiscal year.

In 2013, we may conclude positively and without any ambiguity 1) that spending follows in the rut of taxation so that increased taxation ALWAYS is followed by commensurate increases in spending, 2) the word “constitutional” is an term of art among Connecticut progressives in the legislature and the state house, and 3) Connecticut is now – like some of its corruption clogged, mismanaged cities – a one party state.

The two most important characteristics of progressivism are its disdain for limits and its blind faith in the omni-competence of government. Joined to a unitary state, the heady combination is both intoxicating and corrosive to liberties. Not only is the Malloy administration the most expensive in state history, it is also the most aggressively progressive.  

Democrats in Connecticut completed their absolute control of state government the day after Dannel Malloy was sworn in as Governor, and the problem with absolute power, Lord Acton reminds us, is that it corrupts absolutely. “Great men,” Lord Acton averred, “are almost always bad men.”

The limitless power now enjoyed by Democrats in Connecticut would make a saint stray in the direction of arrogance, and none of the members of the state’s General Assembly are saints. If men were saints, government itself would be unnecessary; so said James Madison, widely regarded as the father of the U.S. Constitution as well as the Bill of Rights, both of which set limits to governmental power.

Madison’s full quote, found in the Federalist Papers, should be swallowed whole unparsed:

If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself. A dependence on the people is, no doubt, the primary control on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.”

One of the auxiliary precautions that people supposed would prevent the state’s General Assembly from spending at will was the constitutional budget cap – RIP, June 1, 2013.

Republicans Shown The Door Again

A newspaper reports that Republican leaders John McKinney and Larry Cafero, both of whom have professed interest in running for governor, are once again being shut out of budget negotiations by Governor Dannel Malloy.

This is getting to be a habit.

During Mr. Malloy’s first budget -- By the way, has Mr. Malloy’s budget EVER been in balance? – the governor unceremoniously showed the door to Republicans.

Mr. Malloy brought Republicans back to the table on two occasions: during a special session, when Mr. Malloy needed some help balancing his chronically out of balance budget, and during negotiations on a gun restriction bill following the mass murders in Sandy Hook.
 

On both occasions, Mr. Malloy and accommodating Republicans were praised by left of center commentators in the media for their show of bipartisanship. Here in Connecticut, it was said, bipartisanship was much in the air, and it was hinted that the U.S. Congress, deep in the mire of partisan deadlock, certainly could take a lesson from a state in which both parties came together to settle a budget deficit and pass the most restrictive gun regulations in the nation.

Republican players both times were happy to play. Now, as the General Assembly begins to tinker with Mr. Malloy’s second budget, Republicans once again find themselves sent to Coventry.

The exile of Republicans to Coventry, where they will be expected to bide their time in prayer and holy silence, does not bode well for the state. It means that Mr. Malloy and his confederates – most importantly state unions, who made out like proverbial bandits the last time Republicans were frozen out of budget negotiations – will be unobstructed in shaping their second biennial budget.

The shape of Mr. Malloy’s second budget may be deduced from his first. On that occasion, it should be recalled, Democratic leaders in the General Assembly pre-approved Mr. Malloy’s budget prior to his negotiations with SEBAC, an organization of unions authorized to negotiate contracts with the state. One commentator wrote that leaders in the Democratic dominated General Assembly conferred upon the governor plenipotentiary powers to negotiate contracts that would impact the budget nine years out.

The negotiations were messy but profitable in the end for unions. The “savings” in Mr. Malloy’s first budget were amorphous, the tax increases painful. Progressive Democrats were tolerably satisfied with Mr. Malloy’s first budget. The tax increases, job investment money removed from the private sector and delivered to government coffers, gave crony capitalist progressives enough funds to “invest” in enterprises that in the future would pay out dividends, in the form of votes and political contributions, to Democrats.  Frozen out of the process, Republicans were free to assail a budget that had no Republican fingerprints on it.

A fairly comprehensive review of Mr. Malloy’s second budget by CTMirror is riven with doubts and fears. One always snaps to when one happens upon a budget review entitled “Promises, Gimmicks and a Historic Shortfall.”

After imposing on the state the largest tax increase in its history, Mr. Malloy made a firm vow to forego further tax increases.

“With a gap of $1.2 billion projected for the fiscal year that starts in July,” CTMirror advises, “Malloy not only is seeking more sacrifices, but he's also turning to taxes and some of the gimmicks he swore off of two years ago.”

The gimmicks include an extension of expiring tax increases on businesses and power plants, a reduction of tax credits for working poor families, funding cuts to colleges and universities at a time when higher education continues to increase tuition and fees, deep cuts both to hospitals and health coverage for thousands of low-income adults, a raid on the transportation fund and, that old standby, borrowing hundreds of millions of dollars to pay ongoing bills -- all this from an administration that boosted taxes considerably while it publically scorned prior administrations for resorting to discreditable methods in balancing budgets.

It does not help at all that the national economy continues to founder under the ministrations of Barack Obama, the most progressive president in modern history. Had Mr. Obama concentrated during his first term in office on rebuilding the shattered mortgage market, the American economy would have surged forward. But instead, Mr. Obama grasped for a national health care brass ring first proposed in the 1912 national election by the father of the modern progressive movement, Teddy Roosevelt. Obamacare, payment for which has now come due, is but a baby step on the road to nationalized health care. Should anyone care to preview the final product, a Veteran Administration hospital is on view in Rocky Hill, Connecticut.  

In a high tax, over regulated, foundering economy, tax receipts simply dry up. Investments in the private economy also dry up as investors, hampered by excessive regulation and punishing taxes, hoard their dollars waiting for relief from a redistributionist minded government.

The late Maggie Thatcher, Prime Minister of Britain, use to say that “the problem with socialism is that, sooner or later, you run out of other people’s money.” The government of Connecticut – yet a far cry from the socialist utopia envisioned by Eugene Debs, the Socialist candidate for president in 1912– is running out of the money its governor hopes to be able to “invest” in crony capitalist enterprises that mollify the state’s clamorous left of center interests.

It’s a problem.

Prelude To A Presser

The Chris Donovan presser -- the first time the 5^thDistrict nominee of the Democratic Party for the US Congress had appeared to answer media questions concerning the arrest of his former finance chairman – was preceded by a prelude in which Donovan spokesman Gabe Rosenberg, laid down the ground rules for the presser.

Mr. Rosenberg read from the following statement:

“I have to take a minute to set some ground rules. This is a very serious matter, and we have treated it that way. Chris has retained attorney Shelly Sadin of Bridgeport to represent him, his campaign, and his legislative office, and she’s here in front.”

Ms. Sadin is a white-collar criminal defense lawyer associated with the Bridgeport firm of Zeldes Needle & Cooper.

“Chris’ lawyer,” Mr. Rosenberg continued, “has made it clear that while she recognizes the importance of Chris speaking directly to the public, he needs to take great care not to do anything that might interfere with an ongoing federal inquiry.”

A CTMirror report put it this way: “Donovan is under no legal prohibition to refrain from discussing the case, but his lawyer, Shelley R. Sadin, is intent on keeping on good terms with the U.S. attorney's office as Donovan tries to remain a witness, not a target.”

Mr. Rosenberg continued, “This includes speaking publically about matters that are not public,” a prohibition that seems over-broad. The kind of orange juice Mr. Donovan drinks in the morning might qualify as a matter that is not public. But Mr. Rosenberg qualified the qualifier: “That means no questions about what he told the FBI in a brief and voluntary interview last week, and what he will share with them as the investigation proceeds.” These restrictions beg for alternate investigations. Would it have been permitted had a reporter asked Mr. Donovan in what sense his interview with the FBI was “voluntary?”

The prohibitions having been presented, Mr. Rosenberg went on to tell the media what the Speaker would, on the advice of his lawyer, be inclined to share with the media gathered to question him: “Chris can and will tell you directly what he has already communicated through his staff: that he did nothing wrong; that he is shocked and disappointed by the allegations against his former campaign staff; and that he intends to promptly and freely cooperate with the government, so that it can complete its work,” mostly matters already covered by other flack catchers, among whom may be numbered Tom Swan, the director of the Connecticut Citizen’s Action Group (CCAG), an organization once committed to consumer protection that now rents out Mr. Swan to left of center Democratic politicians seeking office.

Mr. Rosenberg asked for Mr. Donovan the same respect he media had afforded Republican Party leader Larry Cafero, who was also questioned by the FBI, and offered a cautionary note: “I will remind you now, Chris Donovan has not been accused of any wrongdoing.”

Righto! The FBI investigation, details of which Mr. Donovan has pledged not to reveal, is yet in its early stages. Investigations of this kind, particularly when they are accompanied by parallel inquiries, tend to bottom out as people – though not, of course, the lawyer-up Speaker, who does not wish to compromise the FBI investigation – chatter away. It is perhaps too early to suppose that one who “has not been accused of wrongdoing” is therefore innocent of wrongdoing. In the early stages of former Governor John Rowland’s impeachment, Mr. Rowland was thought by those connected with his campaign to be innocent of wrongdoing.

“None of us committed to this campaign,” Mr. Rosenberg concluded,“would be here if we were not convinced of his honesty, his integrity, and his desire to serve the families of the 5^th Congressional District. With that, here’s Chris Donovan.”

Considering the prohibitions imposed upon Mr. Donovan by Ms. Sadin, only about ten percent of the candidate for the U.S. Congress stepped forward to handle the questions posed by a narrowly restricted media.

Even so, some questions bordered on dangerous ground. And when one or anoher reporter was presumptuous enough to put unwanted questions to Mr. Donovan, now thoroughly lawyered-up and armor plated, the imprudent queries were batted away by the vigilant Mr. Rosenberg, who popped up from time to time to warn a straying reporter that he was violating the ground rules.

The associated Press noted in a report: “Gabe Rosenberg, Donovan's spokesman, interrupted the news conference several times to say the speaker will not discuss details of what he may know about the investigation, including his interview with the FBI.”

A YouTube of the presser may be found here.

How We Got Here And Why We Aren’t Going Anywhere Fast

Governor Malloy’s “shared sacrifice” was never evenly – some might say “fairly” -- distributed. Progressive Democrats, in fact, do not believe in shared sacrifice. Their credo includes, on the tax side, a progressive income tax in which the “rich,” defined as anyone making more than $200,000 per year, pay the lion’s share of governmental “investments.” SEBAC negotiator Dan Livingston is typical of the genus.

In a progressive regime, the majority of people “invest” relatively little in their government and prudently vote for Democrats, who collect little from them in tax payments (AKA “investments”) while showering them with benefits. Whatever name one chooses to put to this lopsided getting and spending process, it is not “shared sacrifice.”

Nationally, the wealthiest 1 percent of the population earns 19 percent of all income and pays 37 percent of the federal income tax, a figure that excludes payroll taxes for Social Security and Medicare. The top ten percent pay 68 percent of the tab. The bottom 50 percent, those below the median income level, earn 13 percent of the income and pay 3 percent of the tax.

Combining payroll and income taxes, a Brooking Institution study offers the following breakdown: The richest 1 percent pays 27.5 percent of the combined burden, the top 20 percent pay 72 percent, and the bottom 20 percent pay just 0.4 percent. The bottom quintile is low because an earned income tax credit reimburses some or all of their 15 percent payroll tax. In Connecticut, low income groups pay little or no taxes and will be eligible shortly for a newly instituted income tax credit.

The opposite of a progressive tax, a flat tax, which does provide equity in tax collections, would more fairly share the sacrifice; nearly everyone would pay the same tax rate, all exemptions would be eliminated, the simplification of the tax code would facilitate payments, and a majority of the citizenry would be invested, both as tax providers and consumers, in their government.

Mr. Malloy began his journey as governor promising transparency in government, an end to budget trickery, and shared sacrifice. On the route to government as usual, he bumped into a General Assembly dominated by caucus leaders who for years had been politically wedded to union causes, a group of union negotiators who failed miserably in selling Mr. Malloy’s Plan A to rank and file union members, and a gang of crying mayors who winked at the glowing tax faggots so long as they were assured they would not be burned at the stake. Mr. Malloy also entered into an amusing spitting contest with New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, who is turning out to be much the better demagogue.

The Opaque Budget process

Transparency in government was the first casualty of what Democrats in the General Assembly call the “budget process.” Minority Republicans in the General Assembly were from the first cut out of the process, which should not have surprised Republican leaders in the legislature, and the budget was fashioned, per usual, behind closed doors.

There were reasons why the legislative closed shop should not have surprised Republican leaders in the General Assembly. Over a period of twenty years and more, Republicans had lost their primacy of place on the budget chessboard. Republican presence in the legislature is light. The Republican Party in Connecticut lost the last of its budget bargaining chips upon Mr. Malloy’s election to office, more than 20 years after the last Democratic governor, Bill O’Neill, had abandoned ship, leaving in his wake a deficit of about $1 billion, a modest deficit by today’s standards.

Mr. O’Neill was supplanted by maverick Independent Governor Lowell Weicker, the father of Connecticut’s income tax. Mr. Weicker was followed in office by Republican governor John Rowland, who spent a year in jail for having failed to provide “honest services” to the citizens of Connecticut. Mr. Rowland was succeeded by his politically bland Lieutenant Governor, Jodi Rell, a lady more sinned against than sinning regularly lampooned by both the Democratic opposition, the state’s left of center media and recently self described “turd in the Republican Party punchbowl” Mr. Weicker as an inoffensively pleasant do-nothing placeholder. Both Mr. Rowland and Mrs. Rell were moderate Republicans.

After Mrs. Rell came the Democratic deluge. While weary taxpayers gave the boot during the mid-term elections to Democratic big spenders in federal, state and gubernatorial office across the fruited plains, progressive Democrats in Connecticut hung in there. Republican gains in Connecticut’s General Assembly were modest. Before leaving his position as Republican Party Chairman, Chris Healy noted that Republicans had gained 15 seats in the House and 2 seats in the Senate. Republicans also held 100 of the top positions in the 169 towns in Connecticut but lost the governorship and all constitutional offices.

Upon Mr. Malloy ascension as governor, the state, so it was said, had lost its “firewalls,” Republican governors who presumably stood in the way of the Democratic General Assembly spending machine crying “Stop!” In fact, with the righteous wind of an income tax at their backs, spending in the General Assembly quickly accelerated, tripling within the tenure of three post-income tax governors. By the time Governor Dannel Malloy arrived at the fire, Connecticut was engulfed in spending flames. The state had accumulated a biennial budget deficit of more than $4 billion. Something had to be done.

Mr. Malloy’s solution to Connecticut’s debt problem did not differ markedly from that of Mr. Weicker or the two Republican governors who followed him. Mr. Rowland’s campaign pledge to repeal the income tax did not survive his first week in office. While governors in Connecticut’s neighboring states of New York and New Jersey held the line on taxes, Mr. Malloy, following a campaign in which he was hoisted into office by a slender margin of 6,500 votes and during which he seemed to spurn the imposition of more taxes as a first response to Connecticut’s red ink immediately increased a host of taxes by $2.6 billion and pledged to wrest about $2 billion in savings from state unionized workers.

There Will Be Time, For Visions And Revisions That Time Will Soon Erase

Very nearly all the decision makers in Connecticut – union leaders in SEBAC, the coalition of unions charged with contact negotiations, Mr. Malloy and his negotiating team, many liberal lawmakers in the General Assembly and Malloy administration well-wishers in Connecticut’s left of center media – were agreed that Plan A was favorable to unions.

Plan A assured $2.6 billion in tax increases, imposed a wage freeze on state workers for two years, after which the unionized workers were guaranteed wage increases of 3 percent for the following three years, and launched a medical benefit plan that cut costs and, so it seemed to some – one of the chief sticking points among union workers who gave a thumbs down to Plan A – reshaped benefits so that the new medical benefits package could in the future accommodate Connecticut’s Sustinet Plan, a state version of President Barack Obama’s universal health care plan.

Should Plan A be rejected in a final union vote, Mr. Malloy had at the ready an alternative Plan B that, said the same cheering section vigorously promoting Plan A, would be devastating to state workers. On the question of further tax increases, should state workers be so foolish as to vote down Plan A, Mr. Malloy had already crossed a Rubicon: He had pledged to all and sundry that he would not make up cost savings lost through a rejection of Plan A by further tax increases. Savings lost through a perverse refusal to adopt Plan A would be recovered through draconian layoffs and agency reorganizations.

As a lure to union members who might foolishly vote down Plan A, Mr. Malloy sweetened the pot by reducing the “shared sacrifice” of union workers by $400 million. Mr. Malloy’s number crunchers found an extra $400 million in budget receipts and used it to offset union contributions to the so called “shared sacrifice” the governor had demanded of both taxpayers and state workers. An artificial surplus of about $1 billion had been tucked into the budget, a portion of which Mr. Malloy used to finance an ambitious upgrade of the newly unionized UConn Health Center. Democrats did not propose to share their new found funds equally between tax payers and union members by splitting with taxpayers the $400 million Mulligan the Malloy administration had given outright to union members, possibly hoping the additional funds would induce members to vote in favor of Plan A.

The Democratic dominated General Assembly, Republicans dissenting, pre-approved the budget before the Malloy administration had secured union concessions because, some speculated, individual legislators did not wish to leave their fingerprints on a budget deal gone sour.

Were he alive and singing in these unhappy days, Robert Burns, author of the lines

The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men,
Gang aft agley, (Often go astray)
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promis'd joy!

might have felt vindicated as a philosopher and poet; for, sure enough, the incomprehensible happened, and state union members rejected Plan A, after which Mr. Malloy rolled out the guillotine.

Plan B, everyone agreed, was a horror. It enforced real cuts in spending but likely was never intended as more than a pistol held to the head of rank and file union members to induce them to vote for the much milder Plan A, which included two years of wage freezes followed by 3 years of 3 percent wage increases, a two year increase in the retirement age and a doubling of the pension penalty should workers decide to retire early. Plan A also included an insurance feature mandating doctor visits and screenings, in exchange for which the state offered a pledge not to lay off current workers, all mild adjustments by most people’s reckoning.

When a minority of union workers rejected Plan A, Mr. Malloy was more or less forced by the weight of his rhetoric to pull the trigger on the pistol.

Plan B, a veritable spook on a stick, was unveiled; the usual culprits remonstrated with benighted union workers. Senator Edith Prague, a longtime union enabler in the General Assembly, said she thought those who had rejected so mild a plan were mad. Papers that in the past stood idly by as the state budget doubled and then tripled, insisting that Connecticut had a revenue rather than a spending problem, began to shriek like so many righteous Robespierres for the heads of union members. The Speaker of the House, Rep. Chris Donovan, put a temporary hold on his run for the U.S. Senate in the 5th District and returned panting to the legislature, where he encouraged union leaders to prevail upon the rank and file to make whatever adjustment might be necessary to adopt the discarded Plan A. Mr. Malloy said he was hopeful something could be done. Flagging spirits began to revive. Slowly, Plan A rose from the ashes.

When the Kabuki curtain opened towards the end of July, painted smiles were on every face. Union leaders, with a wink in the direction of rank and file members they were supposed to be representing, changed the by-laws governing contract negotiations – “drastically,” according to Chris Keating of the Hartford Courant.

Under the old by-laws, “14 of the 15 unions – representing 80 percent of the membership – needed to approve any changes to ratify changes in health care and pension benefits.” That is why Plan A, although approved by 57 percent of those voting, was rejected under union by-laws. Under the new and revised by-laws, imposed upon the membership unilaterally by the very negotiators who had failed to induce a sufficient number of workers to vote in favor of Plan A, “only 8 of the 15 unions – representing 50 percent of the membership [would be] needed to approve any changes,” according to Mr. Keating.

And as if this staged re-vote on Plan A were not surety enough that Plan A finally would be accepted, some news reports indicated union leaders were prepared to allow only those votes of union members who had voted against Plan A to be tallied under the revised by-laws, these to be added to the 57 percent of members who had under the old dispensation voted for Plan A. Those who had voted down Plan A would be given a chance to change their votes to affirmative. Those who voted affirmatively under the now abandoned by-laws would not be given the opportunity to change their “yes” votes.

Having been stung once, union negotiators and Malloy officials were determined to leave nothing to chance. Plan A MUST pass.

Unsurprisingly, Mr. Malloy hit pay dirt when SEBAC leaders announced that a deal had been struck on July 23. The plan soon to be submitted to the union membership differed from Plan A only in incidental matters. An impenetrable secrecy shrouded talks between union leaders and the agents of the Malloy administration.

Following the announcement, the State Employees Bargaining Agent Coalition “posted a notice announcing it was taking strict control over its Facebook page, an indication the unions already were trying to take control of messaging once a new tentative agreement is announced,” according to a report in CTMirror.

Outside the closed shop discussions in the course of which SEBAC leaders assisted Malloy administration officials in pushing through the union rank and file a re-do vote that was almost certain to pass frustrations swirled.

The frustrations were understandable said Matt O’Connor, one of the SEBAC negotiators in a Wall Street Journal report. "There may be issues individual unions want to raise with their leaders, but all of the actions by leaders of coalition are all in accordance with our bylaws."

Those would be the by-laws that Mr. O'Connor’s associates at SEBAC unilaterally changed in order to produce an approving vote by the rank and file, who were now prevented by the censors at SEBAC from participating in facebook messaging.

Mr. O’Connor adamantly insisted, according to an Associated Press report in the Times Union, rather in the manner of a Lady Macbeth protesting too much, that neither Mr. Malloy nor his agents played any role in a by-law change without which a re-do vote on Plan A would not have been possible:

"'We didn't give the governor anything,’ O'Connor said. ‘This was a decision made by union leaders based on reviewing the entire ratification process, hearing from the 45,000 members of our unions, applying lessons learned from this experience and following some very basic principles of union democracy. It certainly wasn't about the governor.’"

Of course, the secrecy surrounding the discussions would make it nearly impossible for anyone to verify Mr. O’Connors somewhat implausible version of events. We are to suppose that SEBAC negotiators who dramatically violated every rule of union democracy to achieve a result desired by Mr. Malloy, virtually all pro-union Democratic legislators in the General Assemby and Connecticut’s left of center media “didn’t give the governor anything.”

Following the by-law changes, rank and file discontent boiled over in the pages of the Wall Street Journal:

“Some union members said they're planning to vote against any new deal out of principle. Meanwhile, members of at least two bargaining units are urging their colleagues to disband.

"’AFSCME is a national union and has a lot of power, so it would be nice to stay with them, but if they're not listening to us, then we're going to have to find another union,’ said Jeri Herskowitz, who works in the judicial system.

“She said members of her local have started a process to jump ship and join the United Public Service Employees Union out of Ronkonkoma, N.Y.

"’In the past week, numerous workers in Connecticut have contacted us to leave their union and join ours. We're going to have to move very quickly to make this happen,’ said UPSEU President Kevin Boyle.

“Correction officer John Boyle spent part of the day Tuesday near the Donald T. Bergin Correctional Institution in Storrs offering union members information about joining the National Correctional Employees Unions, which was formed out of Massachusetts. Mr. Boyle, who plans to retire in August, said he is also spearheading a class-action suit against union leaders. He hasn't filed any court papers.

"’Union leaders sold us out, they got caught, and now they're going to have to face us in court,’ Mr. Boyle said.”

No Exit

Such is life in the tax-me, sue-me, flee me state. Mr. Malloy has imposed on his state the highest tax increase in its history, larger even than the tax increase previously imposed by Mr. Weicker in the state’s first post-income tax budget. In the absence of Plan B, which contained real spending cuts too Draconian for the refined tastes of big spending eastern seaboard Democratic politicians, spending will go up. State revenues will spike owing to the tax increases. But over the long term, in the absence of dramatic spending cuts, revenues will continue to shrink, because businesses from which the state draws its revenue will continue to flee the state when they cannot bribe it for tax dispensations, moving jobs and taxpayers to less high tax and regulatory environments elsewhere.

The exodus has already begun. Two days before the union-Malloy deal was announced with much fervor on the front pages of Connecticut’s newspapers, many of which find their own resources shrinking, a report surfaced in a business journal indicating that job additions in Connecticut were anemic: Connecticut has added only 1,800 jobs since the start of 2011, compared with a gain of 14,100 for the same period last year.

And last year was not a banner year.

Office Of Fiscal Analysis To Malloy: Your Budget Doesn’t Compute

The guys and gals who work at the Office of Fiscal Analysis (OFA) are the “go to” people for legislators who do not carry an Encyclopedia Britannica around in their heads. Throw some number on the floor before them and they can tell you if the numbers are accurate or fictional. Even on a bad day, they can tell you how many angels fit on the head of a pin. And in our statistical age, when every “non-partisan” agency is connected at the hip to fiercely partisan politicians, the OFA is genuinely non-partisan -- in the way that math or water is non-partisan.

Having examined the estimated savings in the Governor Dannel Malloy-SEBAC budget, the OFA has found that 60% of the savings claims made therein are UNVERIFIABLE.

The bad news was brought to the attention of the general public by Keith Phaneuf of CTMirror:

“Nonpartisan legislative analysts say they can vouch for less than 40 percent of the $1.6 billion in labor savings figured into the next biennial budget, and are unable to assess the rest--more than $1 billion--because of unanswered questions or insufficient data, according to a memo submitted late Monday to the General Assembly.”

Not to worry, say the epigones of transparency in the Malloy administration and their Democratic chorus in the General Assembly, the savings are real. The Malloy administration paid a good chunk of cash to an actuarial consulting firm outside of state government – perhaps the first and last time the Malloy administration will outsource state business – to produce the figures they needed to show a balanced budget.

Then the massive budget documentation was dumped on the doorstep of the ladies and gents at the OFA for verification. No dice, said the OFA: “Please note that at this time we are unable to determine or verify the levels that are contained in these estimates in many cases," OFA Director Alan Calandro wrote in a memo to Republican House leader Larry Cafero.

No actuarial analysis had been offered to OFA to support a contention that $67 million would be saved by increasing penalties for senior employees who retire earlier than the normal age; OFA could not determine from the figures provided to them how much would be saved by a new hybrid retirement plan for higher education employees; the Malloy administration had not provided to OFA their assumptions in support of a claim that health care provision would save the state $245.9 million in two years; the OFA lacked documentation to support a claim made by the Malloy administration that a new Health Enhancement Program would reduce health care claims by 4 percent in the first year and 10 percent in the second; OFA intimated that the new health care plan, which relies on preventative services, might increase costs, figures not provided in the administration’s savings estimates. The OFA Memo to Cafero goes on and on, piling up doubtful “savings.”.

The OFA’s aspersions are regarded by Office of Policy and Management Secretary Benjamin Barnes as a “delaying tactic” to prevent speedy approval of the Malloy-Williams-Donovan-SEBAC budget. Mr. Barnes has acknowledged that some savings targets amounting to $345 million were of necessity poorly defined. The OFA could not affirm such savings because “information as to how savings were estimated has not been provided."

The OFA’s inability to verify the cost savings in the Malloy budget has not disturbed the  equanimity of Senior Malloy advisor Roy Occhiogrosso, who said, despite the OFA’s misgivings, that the Malloy administration and the unions were “confident in the numbers.” But then Mr. Occhiogrosso’s confidence is unbounded – even when he is told by Mr. Malloy’s OPM Director that $345 million of the reputed savings boosting his confidence is questionable.

The budget itself rests upon $1.6 billion in union givebacks that will not be given back until the budget has been passed by the union dependent Democratic Party cohort in the General Assembly, whose confidence matches that of Mr. Occhiogrosso.

This year’s $40 billion two year budget has a novel twist to it: The budget is pre-approved, which means the General Assembly will pass a bill that rests on unassured, assumed savings: Union have not yet approved contracts that include expected givebacks of $1.6 billion.

Following seven hours of debate, Republican Senator Andrew Roraback, a 17 year veteran of the General Assembly, offered an amendment requiring the Democratic dominated legislature to return in special session to vote on the SEBAC agreement. Addressing Lieutenant governor Nancy Wyman, Mr. Roraback said:

“It doesn't feel right, Madam President. If this bill passes, we will all drive blindly into the night, asking ourselves, 'What was it that we just did?'… I can't ever remember a time in the history of this body when we have pre-approved a contract change. ... Yet, we're ratifying something that is in the ether. ... I have never before seen anything that remotely resembles the process of this bill. ... It is customary for the horse to come first and then the cart.''

Mr. Roraback’s amendment was defeated, and confident majority Democrats in the legislature promptly voted in favor of putting the cart before the horse.