The Fourth of July

It took the modern world two days to catch up to President John Adams’ enthusiasm for a national celebration. On July 3, 1776, Adams wrote, “The Second Day of July 1776, will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America. It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more."

Three of the country’s first five presidents died on the Fourth of July. Ideological rivals during their politically formative years and after, owing largely to an election that is still considered one of the most disreputable in the nation’s history, Adams, the second president of the United States, and Jefferson, drew close together after both had put aside active politics. Adams died at 90, Jefferson at 83, hours apart on July 4, 1826. Before he breathed his last, Adams whispered – almost a prayer -- “Jefferson still lives.”

Five years after the deaths of Adam and Jefferson, the fifth President of the United States, James Monroe, died on July Fourth. The much underrated Calvin Coolidge was born on the Fourth of July, 1872.    

The Fourth of July marked a turning point in the Civil War after Confederate General John Pemberton surrendered to Union forces at Vicksburg, Mississippi on July 4, 1863. Two years later, Robert E. Lee surrendered to Ulysses S. Grant after the Battle of Appomattox Court House.  Following General Pemberton’s surrender at Vicksburg --  which severed the trans-Mississippi states of Louisiana, Texas and Arkansas from the rest of the Confederacy, thus depriving its army of much of the food, supplies and thousands of men that those states had provided -- the town declined to participate in Fourth of July celebrations for the next 78 years.

Vicksburg has since relented, according to an announcement published in June of this year that promises: “The City of Vicksburg presents a Fireworks Extravaganza ‘Red White and Blues’ featuring Mr. Sipp ‘The Mississippi Blues Child’. The event starts at 7:00 pm. Fireworks show starts at 9:00 pm. There will be a special tribute to Willie Dixon (July 1, 1915- January 29, 1992).”

Next year in New York, if Mayor Michael Bloomberg has his way, the Four of July will be less memorable, solemn and celebratory than Adams initially had hoped.  The mayor, who is coming to resemble former Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal in his instinctive aversion to all things joyous, has called upon New York Governor Andrew Cuomo to veto a bill that would legalize SPARKLERS outside the precincts of New York City. Presently, sparklers and all other fireworks are banned in the city; Bloomberg’s ban would extend the city’s ban to the rest of the state. Following Bloomberg’s ban on “Big Gulps,” the sparkler ban is likely to prove incendiary. Already, the mayor has been called a “dope” by Fourth of July patriots.

The mayor’s spokesperson alleges that the state-wide ban is necessary to protect the city from terrorists “such as failed Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad, who bought a package of legal M-88 from out of state to help ignite his dud bomb in 2010.” Mr. Bloomberg’s critics point out sparklers contain no gunpowder -- you numbskull.

Congress made the Fourth of July a national holiday about 100 years after John Hancock boldly signed the Declaration of Independence in a large and imposing script, so that the King of England could not fail to see it; this at a time when the King’s forces were violently suppressing an insurrection in Boston.

Samuel Adams’ doom upon those of his fellow citizens who hung back in the shadows and did nothing while the king’s agents were harrying Boston citizens was as scorching as a Fourth of July firework: “If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude better than the animating contest of freedom — go from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or your arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.”

It is the much neglected Samuel Adams, rabble rouser and pamphleteer, who is the great herald and apostle of American liberty.

Just listen to him: “It is the greatest absurdity to suppose it in the power of one, or any number of men, at the entering into society, to renounce their essential natural rights, or the means of preserving those rights; when the grand end of civil government, from the very nature of its institution, is for the support, protection, and defense of those very rights; the principal of which, as is before observed, are Life, Liberty, and Property. If men, through fear, fraud, or mistake, should in terms renounce or give up any essential natural right, the eternal law of reason and the grand end of society would absolutely vacate such renunciation. The right to freedom being the gift of God Almighty, it is not in the power of man to alienate this gift and voluntarily become a slave.”

The right of the people to exult in their God given rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness – this is the fire than ran hot in the blood of our political prophets. Let it erupt this Fourth of July in displays of patriotism that would gratify the founders who gave us our deposit of liberty in trust.

“We have given you a Republic,” said Ben Franklin to a woman outside Liberty Hall in Pennsylvania after the adoption of the U.S. Constitution, “if you can keep it.”

The Dick And Chris Show

Governor Dannel Malloy at first allowed that legislators who were to create bills assuring Connecticut citizens would not be exposed to another mass murder incident such as had occurred in Sandy Hook should take their time and craft a bill that would suit the purpose. Then he jumped ahead of his own gubernatorial commission and publically announced his own prophylactic measures, for which he received some mild criticism: How was the legislature to write an effective bill in the absence of hard data furnished by three investigatory bodies, the most important of which was the criminal investigation? Apparently, Mr. Malloy took this objection to heart, because he then issued strong signals that the various commissions should be allowed to complete their assignments so that a proper bill might be written.

After all, Mr. Malloy and members of Connecticut’s all Democratic U.S. Congressional delegation – most prominently Senators Dick Blumenthal and Chris Murphy – had visited Sandy Hook, met with family members of children slain by mass murderer Adam Lanza, and assured them that effective remedies were in the offing, Mr. Blumenthal insisting that national legislation was exceedingly important because state borders are porous and illegal weapons might easily pass through the semi-permeable membrane of state laws. Connecticut already has on its books some of the most restrictive gun laws in the nation. Mr. Murphy has been running tight end around the National Rifle Association (NRA), pummeling it defensively whenever he can and at the same time hoping to receive a pass from the anti-weapon team that he might carry to a touchdown.

Several difficulties have intervened. In New York, Governor Andrew Cuomo quickly rammed through the legislature a ban on certain weapons but neglected to exempt New York policemen from the ban, a major boo-boo. The governor and legislature also launched a ban on magazines that contained more than 7 rounds, only to realize when the applause had died down that there is no company in the United States that produces such a magazine; so the solons in New York prohibited more than 7 rounds in any magazine holding more than 7 rounds, which raises the embarrassing question: How is the law to be enforced in the absence of X-Ray vision glasses that would allow the rearmed New York police to count the number of bullets in an opaque magazine? Mr. Cuomo and the anti-gun nuts in the New York legislature are still struggling with that one.

The moral to these goof-up is: Not only does haste make waste; sometimes, it makes you look incredibly stupid. And state office holders do not want to appear to be imbeciles. Idiot voters in the Unites States, it is generally supposed, are still in the minority.

The Dick and Chris show alighted in Connecticut days after Harry Reid, the Democratic Majority Leader in the U.S. Senate, had buried ardent hopes for a federal ban on assault weapons. Connecticut, much more progressive on this point than most states, already has such a ban. A federal ban is the Holy Grail of senators Blumenthal and Murphy.

Why? Because, as Mr. Blumenthal has been telling us, gun runners, the sort of disreputable folk who sell guns to criminals not legally authorized to use them, easily run around porous state laws; but a federal law… well sir, that’s the ticket!

Now then, it is important to understand that the proposed anti-assault weapon ban that was to have been presented in the U.S. Congress – the Holy Grail of Mr. Blumenthal and Mr. Murphy -- was not shot to death by itchy-fingered members of the NRA. The measure was not put up for a vote in the chamber where Mr. Blumenthal and Mr. Murphy do business -- when they are not hustling Connecticut legislators in their home state to hastily pass a bill in the absence of determining data -- because it was withdrawn by Mr. Reid, whose specialty lies in counting votes. The Democratic votes in a chamber owned by Democrats weren’t there.

Here is the breathless Blumenthal hustle: “Connecticut’s failure to act in the next two weeks will be a detriment when we go to the floor. On the other hand, if Connecticut can act within the next two weeks it will provide a very powerful momentum. It will speak volumes about determination and dedication here to making sure our nation is safer.”

Connecticut legislators, who wish to avoid the trapdoors through which idiot New York politicians have fallen, are pausing to consider hard data soon to be released in affidavits that have been carefully hidden from public view. As Attorney General in Connecticut for more than 20 years before his elevation to the U.S. Senate, Mr. Blumenthal should understand the importance of affidavits in prosecution and bill writing.

Mr. Blumenthal and Mr. Murphy need to get back to work in the Beltway rounding up votes for the Holy Grail in THEIR Democratic dominated Senate.

They should make haste: Time wasted is time lost.

Democratic Demagoguery in Connecticut

The first shots of the 2014 gubernatorial campaign were fired by Malloyalist pit bull Roy Occhiogrosso and state Democratic Party Chairwoman Nancy DiNardo shortly after former Ambassador to Ireland Tom Foley announced at the end of November his availability for the Republican nomination for governor.

Asked by a reporter to comment on Mr. Foley’s early entrance into the gubernatorial arena, Mr. Occhiogrosso sniffed, “We don’t comment on Tom Foley’s political ambitions. He lost one race. He’s more than welcome to lose another.”

Ms. DiNardo, coloring within the lines of Mr. Occhiogrosso’s curt dismissal, said in a media release, “Tom Foley just doesn’t get it. Like Mitt Romney, he doesn’t understand the challenges that average hardworking people face. He is just another out-of-touch vulture capitalist who sees the average resident as something less. It’s a toxic world view that the voters of this country rejected just a few weeks ago. And if ambassador Foley runs again, he’ll find out exactly what the voters of Connecticut think of his economic philosophy.”

Mr. Foley lost the governor’s race to Mr. Malloy in 2010, owing to the additional votes Mr. Malloy was able to garner while appearing on the “Working Families Party” line. In a recent suit decided by Connecticut’s Supreme Court, the court awarded the Republican Party the top line on the ballot in the recently concluded elections because Mr. Foley had received more votes on the Republican Party line than did Mr. Malloy on the Democratic Party line. The race was exceedingly close. Charges during the race that Mr. Foley was a “vulture capitalist,” as Mrs. DiNardo toxically puts it, did not appear to do much damage to Mr. Foley’s prospects, who lost to Mr. Malloy by a slender 6,400 vote margin. Democrats in Connecticut outnumber Republicans roughly by a ratio of two to one.

Other Republicans who have shown interest in running against Democratic Governor Dannel Malloy are perhaps, to Mrs. DiNardo’s way of thinking, less “out of touch’ in the toxic world of Connecticut politicking.

Both the Republican House and Senate leaders in the General Assembly, Senator John McKinney and House leader Larry Cafero, as well as Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton, have signaled their interests in running for governor, and all have considerably more direct experience in issues affecting the state than Ms. DiNardo and Mr. Occhiogrosso might wish.

The knock on Linda McMahon, when she ran twice for the U.S. Senate, was that she had little direct experience in politics, was redundantly wealthy, and made her millions in a way that caused some in the media to wrinkle their noses with displeasure. True, soon to be Senior Senator from Connecticut Dick Blumenthal and U.S. House fixture Rosa DeLauro are also millionaires, Mr. Blumenthal having been fortunate enough to marry a woman whose father owns the Empire State Building in New York and some few other valuable properties, and Mrs. DeLauro having had the luck to marry pollster to the Democratic stars Stan Greenberg.

Of the six richest U.S. Senators, only one is a Republican. John Kerry of Massachusetts, reported to be under consideration for departing Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s position, is number one, weighing in with a net worth of $238,812,296; Mr. Blumenthal is number six, with assets amounting to $94,870,116.

Great wealth is not necessarily a bar to politicians who, ideally, serve all the people all the time. Franklin Roosevelt, after all, did not sell apples for pennies on a street corner, and George Washington, father of the early Republic, a capitalist enterprise, is still the richest man to have held presidential office. But even Mrs. DiNardo, if one could catch her in an honest non-political mood, might be forced to admit that the life styles of both Mr. McKinney and Mr. Cafero are more representative of the middle class than that of Mr. Blumenthal, who lives in a million dollar estate in toney Greenwich, as does Mrs. McMahon.

We see the future through a glass darkly, but none of it looks promising. Like California, Connecticut is broke and teetering on the edge of bankruptcy. Both Mr. Malloy and Mr. Obama continue in their crony capitalist ways – transferring huge gobs of tax money not to the poor but to bribable large corporations – and demagoguery will only get you so far.

Mr. Foley is supposed to be out of touch with the usual Democratic constituency because he used the expression “little people” to condemn the seeming indifference of the party of the little people to the common man.

In an attempt to balance a chronically unbalanced budget,Mr. Foley told a TV news reporter, the governor was pulling the plug on needed services: “Now they're hurting the little people in the state: Alzheimer’s funding, the children's fund, the disabled, vets. They're stepping on the brake and hitting the accelerator at the same time.”

Here is an Obama voter, a 57-year-old African-American salesman in Calera, Ala., formerly a Republican, accounting for his switch: “Democrats stand for little people, regular people, common people like myself. My daddy was a Republican because Abraham Lincoln was a Republican, but the Republican Party changed and started being for people who had money.” And here is Democratic Party hero Andrew Cuomo, mayor of the Big Apple, hoisting his flag for the little people: "We're going to do all the hard things. We're going to bite the bullet. And we're going to do the courageous thing without punishing little people or exploiting the rich people."

Even within Democratic Party ranks, the expression “little people” is a synonym for “common people.” In rhetorical demonology, the expression’s antonym is – guess what? – “the rich.” One would think the head of the Democratic Party in Connecticut and Mr. Malloy’s chief flack catcher and demonologist-in chief would know all this; but then purposeful ignorance in pursuit of election victories is no vice for such as Ms. DiNardo and Mr. Occhiogrosso . 

Malloy’s Way

Democratic governors, Jim O'Sullivan of National Journal writes, “argue that their approach is easier for their constituents, as both taxpayers and consumers of government services, to stomach,” largely because they are simpatico with unions. “In most cases, with cozier relationships with unions, they’ve approached the labor contract legislation as a collective-bargaining exercise, bringing union leaders into the process.”

Governor Malloy figures prominently in the National Journal story. Mr. Malloy, “repulsed” by budget cutting tactics in Wisconsin and New Jersey, has charged other governors with “scorched-earth, unilateral governing,” according to the National Journal. The news story does not mention Democratic Governor Mario Cuomo as one of the scorchers, and one assumes Mr. Malloy has not identified him as such, although the New York governor managed to put his budget to bed without raising taxes, for reasons of Democratic comity.

“Malloy took office,” Mr. O’Sullivan writes, “with a roughly $3.5 billion deficit, the largest per-capita shortfall in the country. ‘We cut, we sought concessions, and we raised taxes. That’s what we did,’ he [Mr. Malloy] said. After his initial benefit-trimming package—including a two-year wage freeze and increased contributions for health care and pension plans—was voted down by unions, labor leaders lowered the threshold for approval. Those deliberations are still pending; Malloy expects to learn the results by August 18. The plan, he said, would save $1.6 billion over two years, and $21.5 billion over 20 years. If labor rejects the deal, additional layoffs and $700 million more in cuts will take effect, he said.

“’When in doubt, collaborate,’ Malloy said. ‘Or always be in doubt and collaborate.’”

One hardly knows where to begin. Mr. Malloy’s collaboration, it should be obvious by now, was not with Republican leaders in Connecticut’s General Assembly. From the very beginning of budget deliberations, Republican legislators were deliberately frozen out, rather as if  Mr. Malloy had been intent on pursuing a scorched earth policy against his political opponents. Mr. Malloy won election over Republican candidate Tom Foley by a narrow margin in cities where unions routinely turned out votes for Democrats, and the governor’s budget collaboration was with the leaders of SEBAC, a union coalition authorized to bargain collectively on health  care and pensions– not Republicans.

It is generally agreed in Connecticut that Mr. Malloy’s first budget, Plan A, was a boon to unions when compared with Mr. Malloy’s alternative budget Plan B. Initially, Mr. Malloy sought to wrest $2 billion from state union workers as a part of his “shared sacrifice" agenda. Even within the union universe, Mr. Malloy’s sacrifice was not shared among union members in the state’s municipalities. Mr. Malloy’s shared sacrifice was limited only to state union workers, and the burdens placed on SEBAC were much lighter than those imposed on a wider swath of unionized workers under Plan B.

Plan A came to grief when rank and file members of SEBAC, pointedly rebuffing union leaders, rejected the package. Upon the rejection of Plan A, SEBAC negotiators began collaborating with the Malloy administration to overturn the disappointing vote. Mr. Malloy had at the ready Plan B, which was to contract negotiations what a howitzer is to diplomacy by other means. While the Malloy administration sent out Plan B layoff notices to union workers, union negotiators – the same crew that failed to sell Plan A to rank and file members of SEBAC – pumped out propaganda sheets warning any members who might consider rejecting a slightly altered Plan A2 of the perils that would most certainly would befall them should they not relent and vote in favor of the more mild plan. So, far Mr. Malloy has sent out 3,000 pink slips, almost all of which will be withdrawn after Plan A2 is approved. None of the $1.6 billion in tax increases will be rescinded.

After the Democratic dominated General Assembly voted to accept the Plan A budget -- which was approximately $2 billion out of balance and relied on as yet unrealized savings – Mr. Malloy asked the General Assembly to increase his rescission authority from 5 to 10 percent, so that he might unilaterally cut budget expenditures that legislators had supposed were in balance months earlier.

Some legislators in the General Assembly are loathed to share their constitutionally authorized legislative powers with the governor.

"I know it's uncomfortable to deal with the Legislative Branch, that it's inconvenient," said Toni Harp, the Democratic co-chairwoman of the Appropriations Committee. "But that's our system of government.”

In New York, New Jersey and Wisconsin budget messes such as this already have been settled – to the satisfaction of taxpayers. Budgets there have been put to bed. In Connecticut, the budget yet has miles to go before it sleeps. SEBAC, Connecticut’s fourth branch of government, is due to conclude its vote on the budget on August 18.

Malloy Budget Passes Senate

Alleging that the budget that passed through the Connecticut state senate would lead to job creation, the ultimate goal of Democrats in the General Assembly, Gov. Dannel Malloy, seemingly pleased that his budget sailed through the senate without serious revision, thanked Senate President Don Williams, Majority Leader Marty Looney, Appropriations Chairman Toni Harp and Finance Chairman Eileen Daily in particular. “They took the budget I proposed, they made it better, and they passed it,” said Mr. Malloy in the following press release:

“The Senators who voted for this budget early this morning should be commended for making the tough decisions necessary to begin the process of getting Connecticut’s fiscal house in order. That was a tough vote to make, but it was the right vote to make. It was a vote for an honest budget, one that’s balanced with no gimmicks, and one that will stabilize the state’s finances and lead to our ultimate goal: job creation. I’d like to thank Senate President Don Williams, Majority Leader Marty Looney, Appropriations Chairman Toni Harp and Finance Chairman Eileen Daily in particular. They took the budget I proposed, they made it better, and they passed it.”

The budget, which includes the largest tax increase in state history, passed the senate by a narrow margin of 19 to 17, three Democrats -- senators Joan Hartley of Waterbury, Gayle Slossberg of Milford, and Edward Meyer of Guilford -- voting against the measure. The marathon debate on the budget ended at 3:00 in the morning. The $40.2 billion two year budget increases spending by 2.14 percent in the first year and 2.32 percent in the second year.

Republicans, who had no hand in shaping the budget hammered out by Democrats behind closed doors, said the tax increases were too high and would produce a surplus of $1 billion in the span of two years. Democrats answered that the surplus is needed to pay off debt and replenish the “rainy day fund" depleted by former Governor Jodi Rell and the Democrats, who have habitually voted for a tax increases they knew were too high. Ever since the income tax had been written into law, Connecticut’s Democratic dominated legislature and its three previous governors have used frequent billion dollar surpluses to boost an ever increasing level of spending.

One need only imagine a drunken sailor in a bar staring with steely determination at a pretty woman to have perfect picture of the effect surpluses generally have on high spenders in and outside the state legislature.

Mr. Malloy was roundly denounced by Republican leaders for having cut them out of the budget decision making process.

Noting that Mr. Malloy had dangled before them a promise of bi-partisan cooperation on the budget, Republican leader Larry Cafero concluded that the governor was “unwilling to compromise, unwilling to listen, headstrong, and not willing to be flexible. It's his way or the highway.”

Sen. Steward McKinney asked pointedly during debate on the budget, “How can you be open for business when you have a 100 percent increase on the corporate surcharge? You cannot preach and talk and scream and say we're open for business and increase the corporate surcharge. At some point, the talk is hollow and meaningless.''

Mr. Malloy’s aversion to dealing with minority Republicans in the General Assembly is reminiscent of the strategy employed by President Barack Obama in pushing through a veto proof congress contested measures that much of the country disapproved of. In a subsequent election, many of the congresspersons who hanged together with Mr. Obama later were hanged separately in the mid-term elections.

Prior to the passage of his budget in the senate, Mr. Malloy, seeking to distinguish himself from his Republican contemporary in New Jersey, Governor Chris Christie, presented his tax increases as fair and equitable. Amid measures designed to attack spending, Mr. Malloy had deployed “a new way.” Mr. Christie and, surprisingly, Democratic Governor of New York Mario Cuomo both had submitted budgets that contained no tax increases. Mr. Malloy’s budget has a massive doughnut hole in it. Although the Democratic dominated senate passed Mr. Malloy’s plan, the budget was not in balance at passage because state unions, called upon by Mr. Malloy to give back $2 billion in order to balance the budget, are still negotiating the give backs with the governor’s office.

Over in Massachusetts, once derided by nutmeggers as Taxachussetts and now called Wisconsin East, the Democratic denominated House overwhelmingly pushed through a measure that considerably reduces the political heft of unions by eliminating collective bargaining.

“It’s pretty stunning,” the president of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO said. “These are the same Democrats that all these labor unions elected.”

The most accurate way to describe Mr. Malloy’s budget is – not stunning: It raises taxes, does not touch the wellsprings of public debt, provides the usual billion dollar surplus and is has not produced fevered objections from the free spending left, with the possible exception of uber-liberal Jonathan Pelto.

Foley On Malloy’s Current Services Budget Chicanery

After Tom Foley lost the gubernatorial race to then former Mayor of Stamford Dan Malloy, he did not slink away into that good night in which many losing politicians find their ultimate repose.

Mr. Foley, a former ambassador and business owner, started a research organization that develops public policy proposals, and a recent op-ed piece Mr. Foley wrote for a Hartford paper represents part of the fruit of his post campaign labors.

Mr. Foley’s column vigorously attacks “current services budgets” as a means used by shiftily, non-transparent politicians to fool some of the people all of the time, in Abraham Lincoln’s piercing phrase.

The method of reckoning getting and spending in Connecticut’s current services budget is little more than a partially successful sleight of hand used by professional politicians to “pitch their causes and confuse their constituents to suit their purposes,” according to Mr. Foley.

Governor Malloy’s current services budget first implausibly assumes that tax policy and state services will not change in the new budget year and then uses this dubious assumption to project future revenues. In planning expenses for the new budget, Mr. Foley writes, current services budget writers factor in “anticipated wage and benefit increases for the same number of state workers and inflationary increases in the cost of things the government buys.”

Under the states current services budget in the fiscal year ending in June 2012, spending will increase 9.8 percent, $1.75 billion higher than spending for this year, a figure Mr. Foley characterizes as “ridiculous.”

Using the current services budget as the base year, Mr. Malloy claims in his budget proposal to have cut spending by $1.76 billion. His proposal shows personal income taxes increasing by $879.8 million, while total taxes increase by $1,840 million. The anticipated give backs Mr. Malloy hopes to recover from unions appear in his proposal as Labor Management Savings and are presented as an expense reduction.

Most people suppose that current year budgets serve as the baseline for future budget projections. But using the current year budget as a staring point, spending in the new fiscal year will increase rather than decrease by $263 million; personal income taxes will increase by $1,443 million; and total taxes will increase by$2,466 million.

And spending for the benefit of state workers will according to Mr. Foley remain “approximately even with this year, i.e., no givebacks… On this basis, the budget deficit is being funded entirely with new taxes and no spending reductions. That is a very different story from the shared sacrifice story being used to sell the budget.”

“Sell” is the operative word. To sell his proposed budget both to the general public and union workers from whom Mr. Malloy hopes to realize a “shared sacrifice,” it helps to peddle the notion that union givebacks – i.e. spending reductions -- are a fait accompli in the new budget; they are not. And anyone who believes that real time spending in the new budget has been slashed or that personal income taxes have been increased $879.8 million rather than by $1,443 million or that inflation will not drive up the costs of various state agencies in the new fiscal year has been successfully deluded by number crunches who rely on current services budget persiflage.

“Using the current services budget,” Mr. Foley asserts, “degrades the clarity and quality of debate on the budget. It enables bureaucrats to pad budgets and move the goal line in the hope of achieving ever higher funding. It enables politicians to obscure bad news and fabricate good news. It enables advocates of government spending to demagogue anyone who questions the ever-increasing funding for their causes. It confuses the concerned citizen who is trying to understand what is going on.”

Early in his campaign with Mr. Foley, Mr. Malloy announced that he would move the state towards a new budget accounting process, Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), so as to assure transparency and forestall the budget gimmickry that had allowed prior governors and legislatures to present a false picture of budgets though the manipulation and abuse of sound accounting procedures. According to Office of Policy Management Secretary Ben Barnes, GAAP should be operational by July 1 2013 and begin in fiscal year 2014.

Current service budgeting does for political campaigning what dishonest budget accounting does for politicians who survive budget red ink by fooling some of the people all of the time. Democratic governor of New York Mario Cuomo has honestly addressed budget issues by using immediate prior budgets rather than current service budget chicanery in measuring the progress he has made in stemming the flow of red ink.

With a gentle poke in Mr. Malloy’s easily bruised ribs, Mr. Foley asserts that Mr. Malloy’s dark angel in New York got it right and suggests, “It isn't too late for our leaders in Hartford to follow Gov. Cuomo's lead and begin making things clearer for us as they debate next year's very important budget.”

Is Malloy Serious?

Speaking before the Bridgeport Regional Business Council at a lunchtime program attended by 325 people, Governor Dannel Malloy, according to a story in the Connecticut Post, claimed “to be more fiscally conservative than the last ‘two or three governors,’ Republicans John Rowland and M. Jodi Rell, as well as Lowell P. Weicker Jr., an independent.”

It is not reported that any of the business people present guffawed.

If one judges by deeds rather than words, which is how one should measure the acts of governors, none of the governors preceding Mr. Malloy were fiscal conservatives.

The growth in state spending since Mr. Weicker – here described as an “independent,” though during his career in politics Mr. Weicker preferred the term Republican “Maverick,” the self aggrandizing, boastful title of his autobiography – suggests that the three governors preceding Mr. Malloy were liberal spenders, though some of them seemed to talk a good conservative game.

It is true that one of them, former Governor John Rowland, described himself as a “firewall” that prevented spending from increasing at a more rapid rate. The term “firewall” was a metaphor that referred back to Mr. Weicker’s quaint notion that an income tax levied during his administration would have the same effect on Connecticut’s economy as gas thrown on a fire. It did. During his first election as governor, Mr. Rowland vowed to repeal Mr. Weicker’s income tax. He didn’t.

The last Democratic budget under former Governor William O’Neill was about $7.5 billion. The present budget under Mr. Malloy is about $20 billion. In other words, within the time frame of three governors, two of whom were Republicans and one an anti-Republican Maverick, the budget nearly tripled in size. During this period of putative “fiscal conservative” governors, an income tax was levied, pension funds were raided, the income tax later was made more progressive, budget deficits were paid through bonding, and the dominant Democratic General Assembly mucked though a period of accelerating indebtedness by entertaining itself with the notion that Connecticut had a revenue rather than a spending problem. These are not the identifying marks of fiscal conservativism.

Perhaps what Mr. Malloy wanted to convey to the business men and women before him in Bridgeport and elsewhere in the state was that, unlike his predecessors, his budget message was a serious one.

Mr. Malloy’s message is that taxes will be increased by $1.8 billion and spending will be cut by $2 billion. But what is the objective measure of a serious proposal? Surely it is the conformity of words and deeds. We know a man is serious in what he says if he does what he says. It is fairly easy for a Democratic governor working cheek by jowl with a Democratic legislature to raise taxes; indeed, it has been easy for Mr. Malloy’s predecessors, none of whom were Democrats, to raise taxes with the concurrence of a dominant Democratic legislature – which is how the pre-income tax budget rose to its present unsustainable level so quickly. Those who believed that Connecticut had been suffering from a revenue rather than a spending problem were always willing – eager even – to alleviate the state’s agony through tax increases.

But spending cuts? Now, there’s a problem. Mr. Malloy’s spending cut proposal went down the throats state employee union leaders like a porcupine with its quills extended. Some union leaders, reaching for the last jar of peanut butter in an empty pantry, hope to settle the state’s budget deficit by making the state’s progressive income tax more progressive for so called “millionaires” who earn more than $200,000 per year. Most liberals would be satisfied with an arrangement in which spending cuts are short term and temporary while tax increases are permanent. The Brights who write commentary for Connecticut’s left of center media are convinced that the spending cuts proposed by Mr. Malloy cannot be wrung from state workers, Mr. Malloy insisting there is no third way: Connecticut must be both compassionate and competitive.

And so the battle for the future – never has it appeared more bleak – is now joined at a time when a 70 percent majority in Connecticut, according to the first Quinnipiac University Poll taken in the new administration, are “dissatisfied with the way things are going in the state, and no elected official in [the] survey has an approval rating above 50 percent."

The same poll shows voters supporting a wage freeze for state employees (68 percent) and layoffs (50 percent) in the absence of concessions by union leaders who, if past practice is a guide to the future, almost certainly will spurn permanent spending cuts. Of those polled, 48 percent say the Malloy plan increases taxes on the wealthy too little. But Mr. Malloy is unwilling to build tax bridges connecting Connecticut and contiguous states over which entrepreneurial capital may travel into the outstretched hands of Republican Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey and Democratic Governor of New York Andrew Cuomo, as well as job poachers in states in which spending spirals will be less destructive to businesses.

The unfolding battle will be won by the party that is most resolute, and the answer to the question “Is Mr. Malloy serious?” will not be long in coming.

Governor Malloy’s Budget Intentions

Governor Dannel Malloy announced in a meeting with his commissioners of state agencies that he would cut $2 billion from the projected annual costs of state services. Mr. Malloy proposes to eliminate 55% of the state’s deficit with spending cuts and 45% with tax increases.

Three points ought to be considered. First, the state debt Mr. Malloy hopes to discharge with his particular distribution of spending cuts to tax increases is a projected deficit. In the past, such projections have not been accurate. The final figures for the next few fiscal years may be higher.

Second, just as a man is no island unto himself but each is a part of the whole, so no state is an island unto itself. Mr. Malloy has said or implied repeatedly, both before and after his election, that his approach to budget matters will make Connecticut competitive with other states or, at the very least, will not tilt the economic playing field in favor of competing states, so that the flow of business, entrepreneurial and human capital -- most especially young people who have been fleeing the state for greener pastures elsewhere – might be reversed in Connecticut’s favor.

In this regard, it may be important to point out that the newly installed Democratic Governor of New York, Mario Cuomo, has vowed to attack his state’s budget deficit without recourse to new taxes. The Cuomo plan involves closing a $10 billion budget gap by freezing wages and taxes, limiting spending growth to the rate of inflation and consolidating departments, while Mr. Malloy proposes to raise nearly $1.7 billion in new revenue. Mr. Cuomo has also proposed a cap on property taxes, setting up a fight to the death struggle between the governor and a tax thirsty state legislature.

Third, Mr. Malloy must get his budget project approved by a Democratic caucus that in the past has not been in favor of cuts adversely affecting unions credited with Mr. Malloy’s election as governor. Effective cuts of this kind would be permanent, reaching far into the future; they also would represent disinvestments in areas where the state’s growth in spending has in the past been resistant to reductions. An end to binding arbitration, for instance, would allow municipalities to control their own destinies. One supposes that measures of this kind – precisely because they would be effective in controlling future costs – would be vigorously resisted by Speaker of the House Chris Donovan, who in the past has shown himself to be unusually attentive to union interests.

Both co-chairwomen of the budget-writing Appropriations Committee, Sen. Toni Harp and Rep. Toni Walker, cautiously greeted Mr. Malloy’s announced intentions. Ms. Walker said she looked forward “to seeing where exactly those reductions will come from. We have nothing concrete yet." It is the Democratic dominated legislature that first adjusts and then sets in concrete Mr. Malloy’s budget plan.

In the meeting with his agency heads, Mr. Malloy unfurled four principles guiding his budget decisions: He would refuse to borrow money through bonding to pay down current expenses, “absolutely fund our pension obligations next year - and all years,” not rely on early retirements to cut expenses, and force state government to live within its means by changing the state “in a profound way.”

Mr. Malloy’s intentions will become clearer after he presents his budget to the Democratic dominated General Assembly. Connecticut’s red ink arises from a disproportion between revenue and spending. Debit in Connecticut has not been caused because legislators and previous governors have been uninventive in creating “tax investments” that increase revenues. The state is up to its knees in red ink because the rate of spending has increased precipitously over the last two decades following the institution of an income tax that made it possible to boost revenues and add surpluses to the general fund. Consequently, the ravenous beast that was fed got fatter – and considerably more demanding. It is now eating up the state’s seed corn.

It took the state of Connecticut about ten years to recover jobs lost during the milder recession that followed the institution of the Lowell P. Weicker Jr. Income Tax, which turned out to be a license to spend. Any solution to the disparity between getting and spending that does not PERMANENTLY reduce spending by about 25%, while holding the line on taxes during what promises to be for Connecticut a far more protracted recession, will not succeed in properly positioning the state relative to contiguous states so that, when the recession gives way to a rising tide, Connecticut’s ship of state can speed forward on the crest of the tide, rather than being stranded on a sand bar of its own making.