The Moody-Bannon

With the departure of the Jodi Rell administration – all good things must end – Lisa Moody, a punching bag for people who did not want, for whatever reason, to punch Mrs. Rell, will also leave the stage, to be replaced by Tim Bannon, Gov. Elect-Dan Malloy’s Chief of Staff.

Mr. Bannon, among other accomplishments, is the very first gubernatorial chief of staff in Connecticut to have appeared as a character in a comic strip. T.F. Bannon, of the firm Torts, Tarts & Torque, an early character in Garry Trudeau’s “Doonesbury,” was patterned after Mr. Bannon, a school chum of Trudeau’s when the two were terrorizing Yale together, Mr Bannon as chairman and Mr. Trudeau as Editor in Chief of the Yale Record, America's oldest humor magazine.

The use of a major domo to deflect criticism from the chief is considerably older than the friendship between Mr. Bannon and Mr. Trudeau, who likely will not reinsert Mr. Bannon into his strip any time soon.

Though she was perfectly capable of thinking for herself, Queen Victoria had Disraeli to serve as a buffer protecting the Queen from the slings and arrows deployed against her administration from Fleet Street. George Bush’s straw man was Vice President Dick Cheney, said to be his brain mostly because the president, like Mr. Trudeau and Mr. Bannon a graduate of Yale, was thought to have none. That is how Mr. Bush, wandering through Mr. Trudeau’s panels as an empty-headed Roman warrior’s helmet, was depicted in Mr. Trudeau’s strip. One looks in vain to Mr. Trudeau’s for a similar comic treatment of President Barack Obama, whose vices do not include the bogeyman of Yale graduates -- stupidity.

It is obvious that Mr. Trudeau likes Mr. Bannon, whom he describes as “brilliant, competent and integrity itself.” Affection is a wet blanket that stifles the burning embers of comedy. Most political cartoonists are unapologetically fierce. What is the point of having absolute power if you are not willing to abuse it, a famous caricaturist once asked?

No, given Mr. Trudeau’s obvious tilt to the left, it will not do to poke fun at the Malloy regime, which promises to be, on the state level, a repeat in a minor key of the national script rolling out of Mr. Obama’s administration: Get the economy moving again with large-scale capital spending projects; turn the millionaires, hereafter defined as anyone making more than $250,000 per annum, upside down and shake the money from their pockets into the state treasury; spend more money on education -- there can never be too many failing urban public schools; phone Washington and beg for handouts; phone businesses elsewhere in the nation and try to sell them on a state that has a crushing debt, two fiscal years out, of upwards of $6 billion; and prepare to mount a sturdy defense of the Malloy administration by riffing on the theme – it was my predecessors fault; I’m just trying to administer the mess left me by Rell-Moody.

To some extent, Ms. Moody played the same straw man part for Mrs. Rell, a governor who, as a creature of the legislature, was for that reason too willing to arrange collapsing compromises with Democratic leaders fixated on spending tax money lavishly and swelling the ranks of their union supporters.

The lamb that has survived the slaughter is bound to have a cousinly regard for the lamb led to the slaughter. "I think he's one of the smartest people I've ever met,'' Moody said of Bannon.” He's a man of uncommon intellect. He has very high integrity, is very much a hard worker, and he will thrive as chief of staff. He's going to learn to become a juggler, a confidant, a task-master on occasion, a buffer, and a constant multi-tasker.''

At this point, the skies are empty and blue. But major unaddressed problems do not disappear when administrations change. If Mr. Malloy is serious about cutting spending, as his campaign rhetoric indicated, his struggle in office will be similar to that of Rell-Moody, and there is every reason to believe that Mr. Malloy, whose cranial matter appears to be in good order, will sometimes stumble, possibly over the feet of Speaker of the House Chris Dovovan.

No administration is entirely transparent or fault free. When the pratfalls occur, Mr. Bannon, taskmaster and buffer, will be on hand to upright his boss and even, should the occasion warrant, take a media bullet for him. It will be very interesting to see at that point whether Connecticut's left of center media will applaud him for his self sacrificial bravery.

Tobacco Prevention Program in Connecticut Broken

In its annual report on states' funding of tobacco prevention programs titled "A Broken Promise to Our Children,” the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, the American Heart Association, the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, the American Lung Association and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation report that Connecticut ranks 45th in the nation in funding programs to prevent kids from smoking and help smokers quit. Key findings in the report show:

• In the past year, Connecticut has virtually eliminated funding for tobacco prevention, cutting funding from $6.1 million to $400,000.

• Connecticut this year will collect $529 million from the 1998 tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes, but will spend just 0.1 percent of it on tobacco prevention programs.

• The tobacco companies spend $123 million a year to market their products in Connecticut. This is 307 times what the state spends on tobacco prevention.

•In the past year, Connecticut has virtually eliminated funding for tobacco prevention, cutting funding from $6.1 million to $400,000.

• Connecticut this year will collect $529 million from the 1998 tobacco settlement and tobacco taxes, but will spend just 0.1 percent of it on tobacco prevention programs.

• The tobacco companies spend $123 million a year to market their products in Connecticut. This is 307 times what the state spends on tobacco prevention.

The assault on Big Tobacco, Attorney General Richard Blumenthal’s signature suit, played an important part in his recent successful election to the U.S. Senate.

While the fines collected from Big Tobacco by Mr. Blumenthal and other attorneys general may have helped the Connecticut General Assembly to pad its budget with the windfall furnished by the attorneys general, the money collected, as shown by the report, has had virtually no practical effect in keeping the broken promise to our children.

Sorry For Lack Of Posts From A Different Perspective

I am fighting some serious health problems. Hope to be back in the arena in 3-4 weeks.

Mayor DeStefano Meets The The Vox Populi

From the New Haven Independent, a placid impromptu meeting between Mayor of New Haven John DeStefano and his constituents.

Donovan, Williams, Malloy And The Coming Crisis

Don Williams is the President Pro Tem of the state senate and one of the whip wielders of Connecticut’s Democratic caucus in the General Assembly. The other caucus leader in the state legislature is Speaker of the House Chris Donovan, once a union steward, whose affections and personal history bind him to union interests. The adamantine bonds between legislators who arrive in the General Assembly on the wings of unionism and union affiliated organizations that bring home votes to them -- especially in cities like Bridgeport and New Haven, both of which were directly responsible for Governor-elect Dan Malloy’s victory in Connecticut’s recent gubernatorial campaign – are like those between ministers of the word and their flocks. Once a union steward, always a union steward.

Unions have been good to the Democratic leadership in the General Assembly, and the leadership has been good to unions. It will continue to be so – now with a vengeance, since the Republican Party, which has a lingering affection towards businesses, has lost its negotiating posture with the General Assembly leadership. For the first time in 20 years, A Democratic governor will be the helm of state, steering our faltering ship to safe harbor. Governor Jodi Rell, it must be confessed, was never much of a “firewall” preventing the Democratic dominated legislature from raising taxes and spending. She was, at best, a pause in the rush to establish the one party state now upon us.

When Mrs. Rell leaves office, she will be taking with her the “balance” she believes is so important to good governance. For all practical purposes, the state of Connecticut has now become Hartford, Bridgeport and New Haven, all one party cities. Those cities have been in disarray for as long as they have been one party operations, largely because single party entities are responsive to sectarian rather than broad state interests.

Never-the-less, Mr. Williams is optimistic, according to an Associated Press report.

True, the Tax Foundation presents a bleak picture of Connecticut’s future: Our state and municipal tax burden is the third highest in the nation; Connecticut’s 2010 Business Tax Climate Ranks 48th in the country; the state’s property tax collections per capita is the second highest nationally, behind only New Jersey; Connecticut's gasoline tax stands at 41.9 cents per gallon, the 4th highest nationally; Connecticut’s return on every dollar sent to Washington is 69 cents, the third lowest nationally; tax freedom day, that point on the calendar during which the state’s taxes obligations are satisfied, arrives yearly on April 27, the latest in the nation; and, as if all this were not disheartening enough, Connecticut’s unfunded liability, at nearly $15.9 billion, is the second-highest unfunded pension liability per capita in the country.

"Make no mistake,” Mr. Williams said, “we face significant challenges as we dig out from the economic avalanche of the national recession. But to be working with a Democratic governor, to be sharing the same basic principles and ideas, will be an experience that none of us have had in 20 years."

Republicans, noticing some of the pledges made by Mr. Malloy during his campaign, also are looking on the bright side of things, for different reasons. Senate Minority Leader John McKinney believes “there is a workable majority in this legislature, of Republicans and Democrats, who believe that we need to reduce our spending, reform our big, bloated government and get jobs back in the state of Connecticut.”

Standing between Mr. Malloy and a possible coalition government of Republicans, Independents and traditional Democrats is what might be called the permanent government: state workers determined to maintain at all cost their status and political pull; hopeful media adepts who intend through editorials and commentaries to direct the new governor’s path towards fiscal responsibility and prudent spending; progressives hopeful that Malloy will at long last relieve the tax burden on middle class workers through measures that force the rich to bear their “fair share” of state “investments” – the usual motley crew.

Overarching all this are the gathering national storm clouds. The federal government is hobbling forward, under a crushing debt burden, towards a future in which it is likely -- for the first time in our nation’s history -- that our children’s prospects will be less promising than our own. We have eaten drunk and made merry, passing to them a multi-trillion dollar bill. Having pulled all the rabbits out of its hat during our lingering recession, a spendthrift federal government now has decided to clip the horns of a prospective deflation by inflating the currency. The classic definition of inflation is: too many dollars chasing too few goods. Inflation, during which printed money is pumped into the currency stream, lowers the purchasing price of the dollar. It is a hidden tax -- poison mainlined into the nation’s bloodstream.

Whether Mr. Malloy has the courage and good sense to find a way through this inescapable briar patch and plot a successful course for Connecticut that will secure its prosperity and well being relative to other competing states is very much an open question.

Time is short, the eternity of debt long.

A Republican Default Position

Republicans, occasionally in recent Connecticut history the loyal opposition, have now lost their coveted gubernatorial post. With the exception of a few seats won by state Republicans, 14 in the House and 1 in the Senate, Democrats in the recently concluded elections carried the entire field – this against a National Republican headwind that gave a majority in the U.S. House to Republicans and chipped away at Senate rule by Democrats. The Republican insurgency also reversed Democratic control of some state legislatures and gubernatorial offices, allowing Republicans to redistrict important states during the upcoming census.

Although Democrats nationally are licking their wounds, Connecticut Democrats are popping champagne corks, fatally imagining that serious change in state governance is unnecessary.

Governor-elect Dan Malloy, the first Democratic governor elected in the state since former Gov. William O’Neill threw in the towel 20 years ago, will not be the “firewall” that, some suppose, the two last Republican governor were. The Democratic dominated General Assembly has successfully pressed its own progressive agenda ever since former Independent Governor Lowell Weicker, waving a white flag of his own in the direction of Democrats, yielded to opposition leaders in the legislature and with their help managed to pass his income tax over the hearty objections of the Republican Party he often used as a foil for self promotion. Outgoing Gov. Jodi Rell was unable in her last few years in office to marshal enough support to sustain a veto when Democrats during the last term made Connecticut’s income tax more progressive.

The trend line over the last three decades has been in the direction of higher taxes and increased spending. Connecticut cannot maintain a competitive posture with other states until that trend line is bent in the opposite direction. So called “firewall” Republican governors have not had sufficient support, either in the General Assembly or among Connecticut’s left of center media, to stem the movement towards increased spending that now, after a bone crushing recession, has left Connecticut facing a no-excuse executioner wielding an axe above the state’s bowed head.

Every political commentator in the state, even the most unremitting progressives among them, knows perfectly well that spending must be cut. The budget deficit in Connecticut, per capita, is greater than that of California or New Jersey. Though New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie was able – by the grace of God, who loves underdog Republicans – to manfully address his state’s deficit WITHOUT RAISING TAXES, one cannot expect a similar effort from Mr. Malloy, who is no Chris Christie.

Moreover, Mr. Malloy owes his election to progressive political operations in the state’s larger cities – especially Bridgeport and New Haven – a media operating on the questionable supposition that a Democratic governor will be able successfully to negotiate reductions in spending with a tax addicted, union propelled Democratic leadership in the General Assembly, and a politically detached citizenry that snoozed through a national Republican insurgency.

Faced with a Democratic governor who very well may become the plaything of powerful leaders in the General Assembly, as were the two Republican governors who preceded him, a politically detached citizenry, and a left of center media that for years has rested comfortably in the delusion that Connecticut had a revenue rather than a spending problem, what strategy, it may be asked, should the loyal but diminishing opposition adopt to stem the tide and ferry the ship of state into more placid waters?

Any responsible Republican position must necessarily be a default position – because Republicans lost; and when a party loses an election, it loses its ability to affect the future. Piloted by leading Democrats in the General Assembly, state taxes will go up; in the face of threats by rating agencies to lower bond ratings, bonding may increase; spending cuts will be temporary; the income tax will be made more progressive; tax increases will be permanent. Here and there, mostly as a sop to convince easily deluded opinion makers, Democrats will dole out tax credits to favored industries and constituencies, a credit being a temporary cut revocable at the will of Democratic leaders in the General Assembly and the Democratic governor.

The Republican resistance to tax increases will be overridden by Connecticut’s new one party state. Republicans, Independents and what is left of a rational state media should bend their efforts towards reversing the permanent trend line. And while they undoubtedly will be forced to bow grudgingly to a superior political force majeure, their default rallying point should be – permanent spending cuts, temporary self lapsing tax increases, a political pitch that very well could be sold even in bluer than blue Connecticut. There may be no other way of reversing a course of political action that will make our state a beggar among beggars, dependent on the whimsy of improvident politicians.

Stolen Valor

On this Veteran’s Day, it will be well to remind ourselves that there are those among us who steal valor and suck the honor from the marrow of the nation’s heroic bones. A few months ago, the Australian Broadcasting System (ABC) put together a documentary called “Stolen Valor.” Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, who lied numerous times about his service in Vietnam, is among the dark characters in the film.