Towards A TR Conservative Republican Party

Many people may be surprised to hear that President Teddy Roosevelt, the Bull Moose megaphone and the first serious presidential progressive, was a Republican.

It is Teddy that prevents the term “Republican activist” from becoming an oxymoron. There is no question that TR –- some call him the good Roosevelt -- was what we should call “an activist.”

In the post-Ronald Reagan period -- the present era of a boisterous modern progressive party led nationally by President Barack Obama and here in Connecticut by the ubiquitous Governor Dannel Malloy -- some Republicans are beginning to ask dangerous questions: For instance, what would the policies of an activist Republican look like? Is it possible to imagine an activist conservative government that would carry us far from the modern progressive and destructive bonfire?

One of the most enticing features of modern progressivism is that it gives politicians something to do. Of course, they always go overboard, carrying most of us with them. A government that sets a minimum wage is an over-reaching government that has stopped governing. And the problem with over-reaching is simply this: If a U.S. Senator were to fancy himself a sort of populist consumer protection agent determined to guard his constituents from the ravages of sugary breakfast cereals, that senator would not have sufficient time or inclination to devote himself to the proper responsibilities of his office – say, developing a strategy to prevent Russian President Vladimir Putin from swallowing large parts of Eastern Europe and re-assembling the Soviet Union. This is what modern progressivism does: It burns down your house and then forces rug makers to sell you a carpet at a reduced price.

The conservative who chastises U.S. Senator Busybody for neglecting his constitutional responsibilities ought not to be shouted down as someone who hates government, when in fact he may be someone who appreciates much better than Senator Busybody the necessary and indispensable responsibilities of a responsible senator. But, more often than not, he is shouted down – as someone who believes cities should be allowed to rot while he twiddles his thumbs and repeats conservative nostrums concerning the dangers of an immodest omni-incompetent government.

Suppose a conservative TR, a Jack Kemp sort of guy, should come along in Connecticut and propose an “extreme” solution that would lead cities out of their jobless doldrums by means of a proposal to place business tax reduction zones in large poverty infested urban areas. If you’re a business in Hartford or New Haven or Bridgeport, for instance, you might be able to take advantage of a reverse progressive business tax that diminishes in proportion to a diminishing jobless rate in the targeted cities. Suppose reverse progressive tax reductions were applied to married couples in poverty stricken cities, individual tax reductions being greater in mom and pop households. Such a scheme might well reverse the plague of fatherless households in major urban centers. Would this not be a noble effort in reducing poverty in cities where fatherhood has become a distant memory?

One wonders how a modern TR would sell such ideas in Connecticut. He almost certainly would be instantly confronted by a governmental apparatus allied with powerful interest groups and a left of center media more intent on expanding transfer payments than lifting the poor from poverty. For every dollar Connecticut taxpayers send to Washington – a laundromat for dollars that otherwise would be invested in job production at home – Connecticut receives back about sixty-eight cents in services and rhetorical baloney. The percentage is probably similar in the case of tax money collected by the state and distributed by the General Assembly: For every dollar appropriated to alleviate poverty, a large bite is consumed by the state’s caritas apparatus. And since the advent of Mr. Malloy as governor, a portion of tax money collected is delivered, more or less as a pay-off, to multi-million dollar companies that have threatened to leave the state for greener pastures elsewhere; such tax consuming companies will be generous to the Democratic machine come election day.

Very likely any effective effort to ameliorate the condition of the poor in cities by making them independent of government succor would be a battle to the death. But then, if we could summon TR from the dust that is the final condition of all men and women – there are no rich or poor corpses – he would find a way. And that way would be shouted from bully pulpits in Hartford, Bridgeport and New Haven, whose recently elected mayor, Toni Harp, has just imposed more taxes on Mike Stratton, a New Haven alderman allied with a breakaway group of city lawmakers known as the People’s Caucus.

Mr. Stratton, a heretical Democrat in New Haven’s one-party town, was on the verge of proposing spending cuts and operational cut backs.

When Mr. Stratton rose in opposition to the tax increase levied by the wife of New Haven’s most notorious tax scofflaw, lately deceased, he was told – politely, to be sure – shut up and go away.

Revolutions begin this way.

Toni Harp And The Dannel Malloy School Of Governing

More than four months ago, Toni Harp -- whose husband, now deceased, was the biggest tax scofflaw in New Haven – was elected mayor. Governor Dannel Malloy, author of the largest tax increase in Connecticut’s history, was present at her elbow encouraging a friendly crowd of union supporters to work hard for Mrs. Harp’s election.

He was accosted by a woman, apparently a New Haven taxpayer, who demanded to know why the governor was throwing his support to the wife of the city’s most irresponsible taxpayer. The woman, a mere fly speck, was hastily brushed off. Other notables in the Democratic Party, including the state’s two Democratic U.S. Senators, Dick Blumenthal and Chris Murphy, dutifully made appearances in New Haven to support the wife of the city’s biggest tax scofflaw.

Mrs. Harp explained, both during her campaign and after her election, that a Berlin Wall had been erected between herself and her husband in the matter of tax payments. Neither the husband nor his wife had been a responsible tax payer, the husband because he didn’t pay the taxes he owed, and the wife because she did not know her husband didn’t pay his taxes, even though Mrs. Harp had been a State Senator for 20 years, serving for five terms as the leader of the budget-writing Appropriations Committee. As Alderwoman for the Second Ward in New Haven, Mrs. Harp has for five years served as Chairwoman of the Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee. In both positions, Mrs. Harp would have acquired more than a nodding acquaintance with tax receipts and computations.

New Haven being a one party town, Mrs. Harp was easily elected mayor. Following the election, her husband’s name disappeared from the tax scofflaw list. No one knows exactly why. Had the Harp tax debt been paid? Certainly that was one possibility. Reporters were unable to confirm a tax payment. Had the debt been forgiven?  Occasionally the state will write off uncollectable debts. No answer was forthcoming from the deceased Mr. Harp, his son – who had inherited the assets and debts of the Harp family – Mayor Harp, Governor Malloy or Senators Blumenthal and Murphy.

It was a mystery, a deep, dark, inscrutable mystery.

As is the case with other large cities in Connecticut, New Haven finds itself under a damoclean sword of debt. Bridgeport, according to a recent report, now has the distinction of being the highest taxed city in the nation. Most large debt infested cities in Connecticut have been run from time immemorial by Democrats, and it is not too far a stretch to say that these cities are mired in Democratic debt.

There are two ways of confronting debt: You may pay off your debt through your assets or you may ignore the debt, as did Mr. Harp and his inattentive wife. But ignorance is not bliss; eventually the tax man will be knocking at your door.

Mayors of large cities, however, cannot afford such reckless indifference; when debt looms, they must either cut spending, if they are conservative in their habits, or increase revenue to pay the debt, if they are progressive in their orientation.

Mrs. Harp – no Tea Party Patriot she – is a progressive. And so, when she was asked at a media availability recently whether she might resort to selling tax liens to discharge part of “cash strapped” New Haven’s debt, Mrs. Harp strongly hinted that she would rather raise taxes: “Before selling tax liens, I would look at raising taxes,” she said. “I know that is something people don’t want to do. I don’t want to do it.”

Mrs. Harp pointed out that selling tax liens would be problematic and perhaps even pointless because, according to a New Haven Independent report, “The city’s tax collection rate for the fiscal year ending July 1, 2012 was 97.84, according to the city. So there’s a lot less money for a private company, even the most aggressive, to make off of New Haven tax debt than there was two decades ago.

“’It really is not something I would consider,’ Harp finally said in reference to the lien recommendation.”

There is no indication in the news account whether reporters present had asked the mayor if the Harp debt was among the tax collections she cited, nor is there any indication that the new mayor’s contemplated tax increase will be “fair shared” by equal reductions in spending.

A graduate of the Dannel P. Malloy School of governing, Mrs. Harp answered the obvious question – Will she in her March 1^st budget increase taxes to discharge New Haven’s prospective debt and pay for her ambitious contemplated reforms? – by putting off the answer to another day: “I’m not going to say now. But you might be hearing soon.”

Mrs. Harp hastened to point out that mill rates are higher in comparable cities. Those cities, evidently, are paying their “fair share” in taxes.

Malloy’s Non-Campaign, The Dog Lobby And The Coming Auto-De-Fé

At a press conference on Access Health CT (Obamacare), Governor Dannel Malloy was asked for the hundredth time whether he intends to run for governor.

Weary of having to handle the question gingerly, Mr. Malloy told the gaggle of reporters assembled for the event something like this:  If I answer “Yes” to your question, the campaign will begin at that moment. And once a campaign begins in earnest, I will lose control of the sub campaign, which is the event you are attending right now. On this occasion, I can say what I like without having to wend my way through a briar patch of questions you and the Republicans might consider more important than the possibility of a soda tax -- which, by the way, I do not favor.

“On a proposed 2 percent tax on sugary beverages, put forward by New Haven Mayor Toni Harp,” the Register reported, “Malloy said: ‘I wouldn’t hold my breath. I am not proposing a sugar tax, I can assure you of that... At some point, there is a degree of personal choice to be made.’”

In the post-Obamacare epoch now upon us, people will be less able to make their own decisions concerning the kinds of coverage they need, those crucial decisions already having been made by  Obamacare technicians in Washington D.C. Perfectly healthy young people, quite able to make their own personal choices,  who used to be able to defer purchasing health insurance they did not need, will no longer be able to do so, thanks to a Supreme Court decision packed with linguistic fudge that permits the chief executive of the United States to impose a tax -- but not a fee -- on non-compliant college students whose futures are even now mortgaged to unreasonably high student loans.

The court’s green light opened a new era in governing: For the first time in U.S. history, a government will be able to prescind product choices and force people, on pain of punishing fees – oops, sorry there; the court says they are taxes, not fees – to purchase a product shaped in large part by Beltway technicians. Issues such as these tend to flop into the background in the absence of a political campaign that Mr. Malloy wishes to put off as long as possible.

There is no need to guess why Mr. Malloy wishes to put off his campaign announcement; he told the Register why at his faux campaign event:

“’I want to get as late into the year without having made a decision and being able to avoid talking about politics,’ Malloy said of daily questions he gets on the gubernatorial race where as many as five Republicans could be heading toward a primary fight.

“’Those folks (Republican opponents), they have a job to do. They got to beat each other up. At some point, they are going to do that. I have a job to do, I got to be governor and I want to do that job as long as I can,’ Malloy said.

“Tongue in cheek, he added: ‘If I suddenly was to decide today about being a candidate, I’m fearful you wouldn’t show up at these things.’” 

At some point the press availability drifted towards the plastic bag crisis:

“Malloy said they will look at a bill state Sen. Edward Meyer, D-Guilford, proposed on banning plastic bags. The governor said part of the calculation is understanding what is burnable as far as plants that convert trash to energy.”

The press/campaign availability over, everyone went about his business. The gaggle of reporters was given to understand that the governor, who will run for re-election (wink, wink), did not wish to be bothered by questions that might well be put to him had he announced he was running for governor. Reporters likely returned to their desks to find on their computer terminals the next announcement of Mr. Malloy’s next campaign event.

It really is a pity no paper in Connecticut could hire Mort Sahl, now pushing 90, as a news editor.

Editor Sahl to Reporter:  “Now, listen here, at Mr. Malloy’s next non-campaign campaign event, I want you to hone in on a question. The proposal to eliminate plastic bags will be strenuously resisted by dog owners in Connecticut; that is – responsible dog owners who pick up after their dogs with plastic bags they bring home from grocery shopping. Find out how many dog owners there are in Connecticut. Ask them whether they plan to use paper grocery bags for the same purpose. They can’t, you know. Get usable quotes. Don’t shake your head at me, boy. Have you ever tried to pick up dog poop with a paper grocery bag?  I can see your life has not been a raw one. I can tell from your silken hands. Now then, I want to ask the governor: If plastic grocery bags are rendered illegal by the General Assembly, will the governor ask Brendan Sharkey or Don Williams to be on call when one of their constituents’ dogs feels the pull of nature? What we need in this state is an auto-de-fé for idiot law makers. Get going now, and don’t let’em take a detour around the question.”

The Harp Brigade

No seasoned political watcher in New Haven will be much surprised by the gaggle of 14 karat Democrats who showed up at St. Luke’s Parish Hall to lend their support to state Senator Toni Harp in her bid to replace John DeStefano as the Elm City’s mayor.

Everyone who is anyone in Democratic Party politics showed up to row the Harp boat successfully ashore, although former Mayor of New Haven John DeStefano, notably absent, did not on this occasion join the chorus of prominent Democrats pledging their support to Mrs. Harp.

A New Haven paper reported: “Harp, a Democrat, employed a VIP lineup of top politicians in her party to pump up a room of over 120 supporters at St. Luke’s Parish Hall at 111 Whalley Ave. Among those who appeared on her behalf: U.S. Sens. Dick Blumenthal and Chris Murphy, U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, state Sens. Martin Looney and Don Williams, and state Reps. Pat Dillon, Gary Holder-Winfield, and Roland Lemar.”

Encomiums sweetened the air. The ubiquitous Governor Dannel Malloy was on hand. Noting the array of fellow Democrats prepared to support Mrs. Harp, Mr. Malloy said the presence of so many twinkling stars “tells you how important in our minds New Haven is.” City votes were crucial in launching Mr. Malloy into the governor’s office, and for many years Democrats have “owned” most of the larger cities in Connecticut. It is commonly acknowledged that whoever wins a Democratic primary in New Haven will carry the election.

U.S. Senator Chis Murphy -- on his way to Europe in an attempt to salvage the sagging reputation of the star spangled administration of President Barrack Obama following disclosures that American spooks had tapped the cell phone of Chancellor of Germany Angela Merkel – called Mrs. Harp a champion of the disenfranchised at the state Capitol and encouraged the crowd to “work your butts off” on election day for the wife of the recently departed Wendell Harp.

According to several news reports, the late Mr. Harp was one of the city’s most egregious tax scofflaws.

Upon his demise, Mr. Harp’s business, Renaissance Management, was taken over by Mrs. Harp’s son, who now faces a $1.1 million sales tax liability resulting from a long standing dispute with the state Department of Revenue Services settled in the department’s favor through a 2003 ruling by the state Supreme Court. Mr. Harp’s settlement payments were laconic and sporadic. Accrued interest over the years has “pushed Renaissance Management to the number one slot on a list of 100 delinquent businesses,” according to one news account.

Mr. Blumenthal has come a long way baby since as a crusading Attorney General the quick to sue Blumenthal hounded in-state businesses that for one reason or another had strayed from the path of righteousness.  As a U.S. Senator Mr. Blumenthal now not only winks at tax scofflaws in his own state; he unblushingly campaigns for them on their behalf.

But Mr. Blumenthal is not alone. When Mrs. Harp was elected the first woman mayor of New Haven – “New Haven needs a woman Mayor,” said Mr. Malloy on the primary campaign stump -- the lights of the Democratic Party in Connecticut were greatly responsible for hoisting her petard. When all the votes had been counted in New Haven’s 30 wards, Mrs. Harp had overcome a challenge by Justin Elicker by a fairly narrow margin, considering the political circumstances: Having lost to Mrs. Harp in a Democratic primary, Mr. Elicker mounted a challenge as a petitioning candidate. Petitioning candidates running against political party insiders generally do not do as well.

The Republican Party in Connecticut, which has little or no presence in the state’s larger cities, would have been delighted with Mr. Elicker’s figures: The final tally was 11,353 votes for Mrs. Harp and 9,416 votes for Mr. Elicker -- 54.66 percent to 45.34 percent, not a bad showing for a politician campaigning outside the political party box.

But no cigar.

Malloy’s Carrot And Cattle Prod

Politically, Governor Dannel Malloy could not afford yet another union “No” vote on his revised budget plan and, accordingly, the leaders of state unions have been more or less laying down the law to rank and file union members.

Some pro-union Democrats, Jonathan Pelto among them thought the governor had been wielding his big stick a bit too exuberantly. Mr. Malloy’s Plan A, rejected by the union rank and file, was generally regarded as being soft on sacrifice, a point emphasized by union leaders in a memo to rank and file workers sent out prior to the vote affirming Plan A2.

Mr. Malloy’s “clarified” plan following the disappointing union vote is, according to the memo, an agreement that guarantees union members security:

“We would receive four years of job security, an extension of our health care and pension plans to 2022, an irrevocable trust fund to insure there will always be retiree health care, three years of wage increases, a reaffirmation of the independence of the state employee health plan, and contract protection lasting through 2016. Additionally, all of the layoffs, anti-union legislation, and faculty/office closures would be reversed.”

Not a bad deal there, considering the sacrifices unions in other states have been forced to make in the interests of balanced budgets. Additionally, the union memo warned rank and file members, “there is legislation pending on the House calendar that would limit collective bargaining, with the goal ultimately of taking away our ability to bargain over health care and pensions.”

If Mr. Malloy’s initial plan had been long on carrot, the propaganda effort launched by union leaders in concert with Mr. Malloy to persuade their rank and file members to accept a slightly revised Plan A was, many political commentators might agree, equally long on stick. Even dyed in the wool union collaborators in the General Assembly considered Plan A beneficial to union interests, as witness Senator Edith Prague’s astonished gasp upon its rejection. Mrs. Prague -- and other ardent union defenders in the General Assembly, among them Speaker of the House Chris Donovan and President of the Senate Don Williams -- is to union interests what General George Patton was to the Third Army during the Second World War.

Union leaders, working hand in glove with Mr. Malloy, were determined to steer Plan A2 past rank and file union naysayers, and for this reason both union leaders and Mr. Malloy belabored labor with a big stick. Union by-laws were changed to accommodate a “Yes” vote. And though “the world has changed since even a few weeks ago,” as the union memo proclaimed, the leaders of some union units had decided they would not allow rank and file members who previously voted Yes on Plan A to change their votes. The Malloy administration, using the union communications pipeline, announced prior to the vote that negligent union members who vote No on Plan A2 would be subject to sanctions: their jobs will not be secure. Job security could only be achieved by voting “Yes” on the revised plan.

Legislative leaders had also pulled mightily on the oars. Over the muted protestations of reliable union supporters in the General Assembly such as House Speaker Chris Donovan, Mr. Malloy had asked the General Assembly for extraordinary rescission authority that would give him the power to lay off workers to meet his budget goals. That rescission authority could be applied to balance the books – even after Mr. Malloy’s Plan A2 had sailed past whipped union rank and file members.

The possibility alarmed pro union legislators such as Senator Toni Harp, for five terms a leader of the budget-writing Appropriations Committee, who had suddenly discovered the doctrine of the separation of powers months after the Democratic dominated General Assembly had approve a budget that was, prior to the union vote, billions of dollars out of balance.

Although Mr. Malloy’s slightly revised Plan A was this time overwhelmingly affirmed by rank and file state union members by a vote of 25,713 to 9,291 – Given the electric cattle prods used by Mr. Malloy as inducements to change votes, how could the plan fail to pass? – there are some loose ends to be tidied up. A claim before the State Labor Department filed by Lisa Herskowitz, a senior assistant state's attorney in Manchester, that the SEBAC state labor union leadership had no legal authority to negotiate wage concessions for the 15 state labor unions and no authority to change the bylaws when the deal was rejected may prove to be a thorny problem.

Should Ms. Herskowitz’s suit reach the courts, pity the judge who must decide it. Mr. Malloy’s cattle prod is fully charged and he is on speaking terms with newly reappointed Chief State’s Attorney Kevin Kane.

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.