Bill Curry, who twice ran for office as governor, has written for the Hartford Courant an op-ed titled “Reinvented UConn Health Center Is A Plan To Build Our Future On.” The Curry effusion appeared in the paper’s Sunday edition just before the politically rumbustious long holiday weekend.
Because Mr. Curry's prose tends to be both dense and sprightly at the same time, it occurs to me that the student of his set pieces might profit by the equivalent of political Cliffsnotes, and I have supplied some here at the risk of turning Mr. Curry’s poetic performance into stiff analytical prose. Mr. Curry has not been quite as active on the political scene in Connecticut as, say, Mr. Malloy – who, only months into his gubernatorial reign, threatens to approach former Attorney General Richard (now Dick) Blumenthal in ubiquity -- and the notes may be necessary.
“As you may have heard,” Mr. Curry begins, “Gov. Dannel P. Malloy has big plans for the University of Connecticut Health Center [UCHC] in Farmington. He wants the state to ante up $254 million in new bond money, part of an $854 million public/private enterprise to renovate research facilities, construct a new patient tower and ambulatory care center and kick-start a program to incubate fledgling bioscience companies, among other things.”
The “As you may have heard” is a subtle touch. Mr. Malloy has not been in the habit of hiding his grand plans for the state under a bushel basket. But the UCHC announcement was an urgent surprise. In his 17 Town Hall visitations, Mr. Malloy had not mentioned his “bold” and expensive UCHC plan -- not once. The announcement clearly was a blow to Republican leader Larry Cafero’s solar plexis. Some conservative pests who constantly harry us about Connecticut’s alarming – so they say – debt obligation were astonished that the governor planned to “invest” nearly $1 billion in what appeared to many a failed enterprise. And when Mr. Curry wrote in his column, “Two things are instantly clear: It's a bold plan, and it's a lot of money,” a far off bell began to tinkle in more cautious minds.
The figures cited by Mr. Curry are soft and, as always, subject to change. Prior to the long Holiday weekend, Governor Malloy said he would find a way to fill a $400 million gap in his budget. Having vowed not to increase the tax load, many supposed Mr. Malloy would wring $400 million from cost reductions. Instead, Mr. Malloy reached into an artificial “surplus,” lifting $325 million from taxpayer’s wallets to backfill the gap. Although the “surplus” – Mr. Malloy now scrupulously avoids using the term – was supposed to have watered Connecticut depleted “rainy day fund.” We now know that a good chuck of it was stuffed into a union piggybank to relieve Mr. Malloy and leaders of the Democratic dominated General Assembly from the necessity of demanding real cost saving measures from the people most responsible for electing him governor.
It is politically shrewd of Mr. Malloy to avoid using the term “surplus,” because his $1 billion surplus is not the result of an exuberant economy. Connecticut’s economy has been weak, and growing weaker the more government expands, ever since Gov. Lowell Weicker of blessed memory saved state government – NOT the state – by instituting an income tax. New Hampshire, which has maintained its non-income tax status, is flourishing, as are other non-income tax low regulatory states. The Malloy surplus is a superfluity artificially produced through the efforts of incompetent or bought accountants working in tandem with an administration that needed a $1 billion surplus to reward unions and offer bread and circuses to a bewitched public. The UConn Health Center is the circus.
“On Thursday,” Mr. Curry continues, “legislators listened as university officials and the governor's emissaries pitched the project. Questions were polite and well reasoned, centering mostly on project costs, a seemingly breakneck approval process and the impact on other communities, most notably Hartford. The answers were persuasive, but were they persuasive enough? We'll soon know; Malloy wants his answer by the time the session ends on June 8.”
Mr. Curry’s note on the tenor of the questions – “polite and well reasoned” – is perhaps unnecessary, because his audience was made up of university officials who would benefit from Mr. Malloy’s “bold” and costly UCHC plan. And the “governor’s emissaries” are, after all, the governor’s emissaries. Attendant lords can hardly be expected to offer up critical commentary. The same holds true with the unionized construction workers who appeared on command at an earlier public gathering to applaud Mr. Malloy’s public works project.
A critical review of Mr. Malloy’s bold and expensive venture is unnecessary, according to Mr. Curry. And were it necessary, it would be impossible, because Mr. Malloy wants approval from the General Assembly by June 8. Just as the administration of President Barrack Obama is determined never to let a crisis go to waste, the Malloy administration seems equally determine not to let a potentially wasteful crisis pass critical examination.
Indeed, Mr. Curry invites everyone to “pray the General Assembly says yes” to Mr. Malloy, though a prayer in this instance would seem to be superfluous, since Mr. Malloy and the Democratic dominated General Assembly are sitting not only in the same church but in the same pew. When has the General Assembly said “No” to boondoggly public works projects?
Hardly ever, according to Mr. Curry. Indeed, Mr. Curry tells us, he has in the past often warned against wasteful spending.
“For years,” Mr. Curry laments, “I have fought attempts to dump tax dollars into bloated projects that fly the flag of economic development. Best were the ones that never got off the ground; the Kraft stadium, Bridgeport casino and New Haven mall cost millions, but less than if they'd actually been built.
“New London tore itself apart over development, only to be left at the altar by the intended beneficiary, the Pfizer Corp. Hartford thought it hit the jackpot 16 years ago when the state bestowed $1 billion on Adriaen's Landing. If it makes it to a 20th anniversary without even a dress shop or diner on Front Street, someone should apologize.”
The example of Pfizer may even be worse than Mr. Curry supposes. Pfizer accepted tax credits given by a generous Republican governor and Democratic General Assembly, used the tax savings to develop its business, and then, when the credits ran out, packed part of its business off to Massachusetts, formerly and derisively called “Taxachusetts.” Mr. Curry, however, is not prepared to argue from the example he provides that tax credits should not be used by the Malloy administration to lure into the state portable businesses that will migrate out when the political favors disappear.
Mr. Curry distains this “long march of folly” which “casts a shadow now on Malloy” and his grand plan. He adamantly denies that the Malloy venture has not been properly vetted; it may have been over-vetted. The Malloy proposal “is the product of decades of professional analysis, regulatory review and legislative debate.”
To be sure, the analysis, regulatory review and legislative debate did not result in the positive action Mr. Malloy now proposes, which would seem to mean either: a) the exhaustive review was not exhaustive enough, b) the conclusion both Mr. Curry and Mr. Malloy would have preferred became politically waterlogged, or c) the plan had been tried and found wanting too often to resurrect it yet again. Mr. Curry is a proponent of view b): “Most of this plan has been before this legislature many times, only to be drowned each time in a gumbo of Capitol politics.”
But God, or whoever it is Mr. Curry prays to, now has raised up a champion in Mr. Malloy, who will “foreshorten” the quite unnecessary deliberative process of the pettifogging General Assembly. Mr. Malloy has given the General Assembly only a little more than a week to answer Mr. Curry’s prayers.
Mr. Curry’s column ends on a very high note:
“What is ingenious in this plan is what's new in it. Unlike past plans, it doesn't just try to solve one institution's fiscal problems or even improve its quality. Malloy wants not just to redevelop the health center but to reorient and retool it. What he's trying to do in Farmington is a microcosm of what he knows he must do for an entire state: Help us to build from our known strengths, new strengths.
“This isn't just another casino, or ballpark or convention center. This could be a future.”
Or it could be the end of a future.
In either case, the matter ought to be fully deliberated in the light of such new circumstances as these: 1) Connecticut’s budget debt is about $4 billion and rising, because inflation is on the up tick. Bailouts from the national government seem improbable, because the national debt is $14 trillion, and rising. Connecticut is spending about $2 billion more a year than it should to regain solvency. Mr. Malloy’s funding plan for the heath center will be financed with $338 million in previously authorized bonds, $254 million in new bonding and $69 million from the health center. The outpatient center would be paid for with $203 in private financing. All these figures are soft, and Connecticut’s bond rating has been lowered because the rating agencies do not believe that the state has attacked its debt properly.
Finally, the most serious objection to Mr. Curry’s call for a hasty decision on nearly $1 billion in new spending was leveled by John Ray in his proverb collection of 1687:
“Haste makes waste, and waste makes want, and want makes strife between the good man and his wife."
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Saturday, May 28, 2011
Government Without Firewalls
Both Republican governors John Rowland and Jodi Rell used to refer to themselves as “firewalls,” usually after they had compromised with Democratic leaders in the General Assembly to pass budgets that present Governor Dannel Malloy has often characterized as bags of tricks and treats. Mr. Malloy has insisted that his budget, still being hammered out by his agents and representatives of unions, is, on the other hand, transparent and honest-- a good thing. No tricks or treats there. No smoke, no mirrors, the sort of budget one might expect from a governor wearing a white hat who is not the plaything of special interests.
The firewall disappeared altogether after Mr. Malloy became governor. The Rell-Rowland firewall was not fireproof. Had it been so, Connecticut’s bottom budget line could not have tripled within the space of three governors, and the state would not now rank first in the nation in per capita debt. It would not be losing jobs to New Jersey and New York and Massachusetts. And, of course, Mr. Malloy would not have been faced, coming into office, with a budget deficit larger than that accosting Maverick Governor Lowell Weicker in 1991, which deficit Mr. Weicker resolved by instituting his income tax.
During his campaign for governor, Mr. Weicker used a fiery metaphor to signal to voters that he would not institute an income tax should they elect him governor – because an income tax would be like pouring gas on a fire. And we all know what happens when gas is poured on a fire.
Poof! Allow Democrats in the General Assembly to run an income tax pipeline into the wallets of Connecticut’s long suffering taxpayers and, before you can cry fire in the crowded theatre, the roof of state government will be aflame with extravagant spending. Such was Mr. Weicker dire electioneering warning. And, as it turns out, he was right.
Then came the firewall governors who were not firewalls, the budget compromises between Republican governors and dominant Democrats in the General Assembly and, finally, Mr. Malloy, riding a white horse and calling for “shared sacrifice.”
In the age of YouTube, it has been possible for the Republican resistance in the General Assembly to post a string of embarrassing claims made by Mr. Malloy in the heat of a primary and general election campaign that rivals claims made by Mr. Weicker in that long ago campaign when budget deficits were about one third of what they are presently in the age of Connecticut’s new one party state.
Taxes in the Malloy budget have been raised $1.8 billion, so far. There were no negotiations between Mr. Malloy and taxpayers before Mr. Malloy demanded a “shared sacrifice” of them; though Mr. Malloy was kind enough to present to them his non-negotiable demands at no fewer than 17 Town Hall meetings. And now, Mr. Malloy, striving to tuck the budget to bed before the legislative clock runs out, but finding himself yet in negotiations with unions months after agents of Mr. Malloy first sat down at the table with union hard bargainers, has announced, on a holiday weekend, that $320 million of the nearly $1 billion surplus Mr. Malloy and Democratic leaders had smuggled into their budget, ostensibly to refill the state’s depleted rainy day fund, will be shared with -- unions, reducing the “shared sacrifice” of those who were largely responsible for his re-election.
Naturally, Republicans in the General Assembly, who played no part in Mr. Malloy non-negotiable Plan A, protested somewhat heatedly. Republican House leader Larry Cafero stormed, "The Friday night dump. Is that what it's called? This is the dump of all dumps. Friday night, holiday weekend. ... He [Mr. Malloy] drops the $400 million backfill plan… He uses $320 million of the surplus to make up $400 million in cuts -- $320 million! Classic Malloy. He says one thing, he does the other. Says one thing, does the other.”
And Republicans can be expected to crank out more YouTube clips that might possibly be of use in future campaigns against Democratic legislators – because the Republican Party, which was not permitted to invest in Mr. Malloy’s budget, is not, partly owing to role of agitator and chief Democratic Party scold played by outgoing party chairman Chris Healy, the sleepy, go-along-to-get-along party of yesteryear forced to make do with Democratic budgets winked at by Republican governors.
By any measure of sound economic health Democrats may point to, Connecticut, attached to a breathing tube, is lying stretched out on a gurney in the ER. State Democrats seems to be following the template set by President Barack Obama, Speaker of the U.S. House Nancy Pelosi and U.S. Senate President Harry Read at a time when Democrats enjoyed a veto proof majority in the congress: Never let a crisis go to waste without punishing your political enemies and rewarding your friends.
However, given the condition of the patient, state Democrats likely will have a heck of a time explaining to relatives of the stricken state why they are busying themselves passing budgets and laws that punish entrepreneurial capital, pander to unions, and pad with a surplus a state debt three times larger than the last $7.5 billion pre-income tax budget of former Democratic Governor William O’Neill.
While the state, now lacking any firewall, crumbles in flames, its inmates are forcing through the Democratic dominated legislature hastily written, defective bills abolishing the death penalty, facilitating transgenderism, larding with hidden taxes bills paid by energy consumers, arranging yet another muli-million dollar bail-out of the tax draining UConn Health Center, and collecting surplus money from hard pressed businesses and taxpayers to relieve unions of a good portion the “shared sacrifice” Mr. Malloy once sternly demanded of them, all of it making a queer sort of suicidal sense.
The great Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard once said that given the choice of immediate execution or of being slowly trampled to death by geese, he would prefer a quick finish. The people of Connecticut soon will be faced with the same choice.
The firewall disappeared altogether after Mr. Malloy became governor. The Rell-Rowland firewall was not fireproof. Had it been so, Connecticut’s bottom budget line could not have tripled within the space of three governors, and the state would not now rank first in the nation in per capita debt. It would not be losing jobs to New Jersey and New York and Massachusetts. And, of course, Mr. Malloy would not have been faced, coming into office, with a budget deficit larger than that accosting Maverick Governor Lowell Weicker in 1991, which deficit Mr. Weicker resolved by instituting his income tax.
During his campaign for governor, Mr. Weicker used a fiery metaphor to signal to voters that he would not institute an income tax should they elect him governor – because an income tax would be like pouring gas on a fire. And we all know what happens when gas is poured on a fire.
Poof! Allow Democrats in the General Assembly to run an income tax pipeline into the wallets of Connecticut’s long suffering taxpayers and, before you can cry fire in the crowded theatre, the roof of state government will be aflame with extravagant spending. Such was Mr. Weicker dire electioneering warning. And, as it turns out, he was right.
Then came the firewall governors who were not firewalls, the budget compromises between Republican governors and dominant Democrats in the General Assembly and, finally, Mr. Malloy, riding a white horse and calling for “shared sacrifice.”
In the age of YouTube, it has been possible for the Republican resistance in the General Assembly to post a string of embarrassing claims made by Mr. Malloy in the heat of a primary and general election campaign that rivals claims made by Mr. Weicker in that long ago campaign when budget deficits were about one third of what they are presently in the age of Connecticut’s new one party state.
Taxes in the Malloy budget have been raised $1.8 billion, so far. There were no negotiations between Mr. Malloy and taxpayers before Mr. Malloy demanded a “shared sacrifice” of them; though Mr. Malloy was kind enough to present to them his non-negotiable demands at no fewer than 17 Town Hall meetings. And now, Mr. Malloy, striving to tuck the budget to bed before the legislative clock runs out, but finding himself yet in negotiations with unions months after agents of Mr. Malloy first sat down at the table with union hard bargainers, has announced, on a holiday weekend, that $320 million of the nearly $1 billion surplus Mr. Malloy and Democratic leaders had smuggled into their budget, ostensibly to refill the state’s depleted rainy day fund, will be shared with -- unions, reducing the “shared sacrifice” of those who were largely responsible for his re-election.
Naturally, Republicans in the General Assembly, who played no part in Mr. Malloy non-negotiable Plan A, protested somewhat heatedly. Republican House leader Larry Cafero stormed, "The Friday night dump. Is that what it's called? This is the dump of all dumps. Friday night, holiday weekend. ... He [Mr. Malloy] drops the $400 million backfill plan… He uses $320 million of the surplus to make up $400 million in cuts -- $320 million! Classic Malloy. He says one thing, he does the other. Says one thing, does the other.”
And Republicans can be expected to crank out more YouTube clips that might possibly be of use in future campaigns against Democratic legislators – because the Republican Party, which was not permitted to invest in Mr. Malloy’s budget, is not, partly owing to role of agitator and chief Democratic Party scold played by outgoing party chairman Chris Healy, the sleepy, go-along-to-get-along party of yesteryear forced to make do with Democratic budgets winked at by Republican governors.
By any measure of sound economic health Democrats may point to, Connecticut, attached to a breathing tube, is lying stretched out on a gurney in the ER. State Democrats seems to be following the template set by President Barack Obama, Speaker of the U.S. House Nancy Pelosi and U.S. Senate President Harry Read at a time when Democrats enjoyed a veto proof majority in the congress: Never let a crisis go to waste without punishing your political enemies and rewarding your friends.
However, given the condition of the patient, state Democrats likely will have a heck of a time explaining to relatives of the stricken state why they are busying themselves passing budgets and laws that punish entrepreneurial capital, pander to unions, and pad with a surplus a state debt three times larger than the last $7.5 billion pre-income tax budget of former Democratic Governor William O’Neill.
While the state, now lacking any firewall, crumbles in flames, its inmates are forcing through the Democratic dominated legislature hastily written, defective bills abolishing the death penalty, facilitating transgenderism, larding with hidden taxes bills paid by energy consumers, arranging yet another muli-million dollar bail-out of the tax draining UConn Health Center, and collecting surplus money from hard pressed businesses and taxpayers to relieve unions of a good portion the “shared sacrifice” Mr. Malloy once sternly demanded of them, all of it making a queer sort of suicidal sense.
The great Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard once said that given the choice of immediate execution or of being slowly trampled to death by geese, he would prefer a quick finish. The people of Connecticut soon will be faced with the same choice.
Friday, May 27, 2011
Democratic Party Chair Nancy DiNardo says the next Republican chair’s name doesn’t matter
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While the General Assembly’s Republican leadership might be looking for a new state party chair that’s less of a “talking head,” Democratic Party Chair Nancy DiNardo said the next chair’s name doesn’t matter because the message is clear to almost everyone.
“What Larry Cafero and John McKinney fail to grasp is that it doesn’t matter who their new party chair happens to be,” said DiNardo. “The Republican Party is being dragged farther and farther to the right by their most extreme members and the Tea Party influence. Just look at some of the legislation that their caucuses introduced this year:
· The infamous “birther” bill, influenced by a fringe movement that, after three years, still can’t accept that Barack Obama is our president;
· That shameful amendment to defund Planned Parenthood, an organization responsible for the health of 65,000 men and women in Connecticut each year;
· A mandate requiring ultrasounds prior to the termination of any pregnancy – a blatant assault on a women’s rights and pandering to the far right without any regard for cost or a physician’s determination of medical need...
“Larry and John just don’t get it. While they’re trying to sell a particular brand of politics, their membership is (pushing) the right-wing national Republican Party agenda.”
While the General Assembly’s Republican leadership might be looking for a new state party chair that’s less of a “talking head,” Democratic Party Chair Nancy DiNardo said the next chair’s name doesn’t matter because the message is clear to almost everyone.
“What Larry Cafero and John McKinney fail to grasp is that it doesn’t matter who their new party chair happens to be,” said DiNardo. “The Republican Party is being dragged farther and farther to the right by their most extreme members and the Tea Party influence. Just look at some of the legislation that their caucuses introduced this year:
· The infamous “birther” bill, influenced by a fringe movement that, after three years, still can’t accept that Barack Obama is our president;
· That shameful amendment to defund Planned Parenthood, an organization responsible for the health of 65,000 men and women in Connecticut each year;
· A mandate requiring ultrasounds prior to the termination of any pregnancy – a blatant assault on a women’s rights and pandering to the far right without any regard for cost or a physician’s determination of medical need...
“Larry and John just don’t get it. While they’re trying to sell a particular brand of politics, their membership is (pushing) the right-wing national Republican Party agenda.”
Tuesday, May 24, 2011
Statement from Nancy DiNardo on Chris Healy’s Retirement
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“While Chris and I didn’t often agree on the issues, he was always respectful to me, and he worked hard for the Republican Party. We both shared a respect for the importance of political parties, and an understanding of the need for a public political dialogue. The Republican Party’s track record at the polls – especially in this past election cycle, which should have been a great Republican year –was poor, and I can imagine his frustration. I sincerely wish him the best as he moves forward with his life. He’s passionate about what he believes in, and he works hard. I respect both of those traits.
I want to say that what ails the Republican Party isn’t going to be fixed by the selection of a new Chairperson, no matter who it is. The Connecticut Republicans are becoming increasingly irrelevant because they’re being dragged farther and farther to the right by the fringe elements of their own party, and the Tea Party. The positions they hold on a host of issues are out of step with the average Connecticut resident, and they’re bereft of new ideas to help solve Connecticut’s problems. Too often the Republican Party has reduced itself to finding rich people to run in the hopes that somehow money can trump ideas. But as they found out in the last election cycle, democracy isn’t for sale in Connecticut.
The people of Connecticut want what Connecticut Democrats, led by Governor Malloy, are giving them: an honest budget that brings fiscal stability so that we can finally start creating the kinds of good-paying jobs with good benefits that will jumpstart this economy.”
“While Chris and I didn’t often agree on the issues, he was always respectful to me, and he worked hard for the Republican Party. We both shared a respect for the importance of political parties, and an understanding of the need for a public political dialogue. The Republican Party’s track record at the polls – especially in this past election cycle, which should have been a great Republican year –was poor, and I can imagine his frustration. I sincerely wish him the best as he moves forward with his life. He’s passionate about what he believes in, and he works hard. I respect both of those traits.
I want to say that what ails the Republican Party isn’t going to be fixed by the selection of a new Chairperson, no matter who it is. The Connecticut Republicans are becoming increasingly irrelevant because they’re being dragged farther and farther to the right by the fringe elements of their own party, and the Tea Party. The positions they hold on a host of issues are out of step with the average Connecticut resident, and they’re bereft of new ideas to help solve Connecticut’s problems. Too often the Republican Party has reduced itself to finding rich people to run in the hopes that somehow money can trump ideas. But as they found out in the last election cycle, democracy isn’t for sale in Connecticut.
The people of Connecticut want what Connecticut Democrats, led by Governor Malloy, are giving them: an honest budget that brings fiscal stability so that we can finally start creating the kinds of good-paying jobs with good benefits that will jumpstart this economy.”
The Dannel Malloy State Employees Bargaining Agent Coalition Complex
There is no termination date on the tax increase contract between taxpayers and the Malloy administration – because there is no written contract.
Some of the items in the contract to be signed by the State Employees Bargaining Agent Coalition (SEBAC), the state union coalition negotiating contracts with Governor Malloy, do have a termination date. For instance, the salaries of state union members, frozen for two years, will unfreeze thereafter and increase by 3% during the following three years.
In such precarious times, it must be liberating for state workers to know that the “shared sacrifice” of salary givebacks has a termination date affixed to it. Actuaries hired by the Malloy administration tell us that the temporary salary freeze will save the state $ 448,402,275, according to a budget fact sheet given out to the state’s media. Because the freeze terminates after two years, the savings to the state is itself temporary, while the salary increase of 9% over three years will be permanent. Other actuarial figures supplied by the Malloy administration may be soft because the times in which we live are a’ changing -- almost daily.
Not so with the tax increase portion of Mr. Malloy’s “shared sacrifice.” The $1.8 billion tax increase, the largest in Connecticut’s history, will permanently dredge dollars from taxpayer’s increasingly depleted resources. There is no such thing within the living memory of any member of the General Assembly, including the long memory of the 86 year old Sen. Edith Prague, as a temporary tax or a temporary tax increase, and it certainly is cold comfort to reflect that the federal income tax at its inception was a two percent levy on millionaires – real millionaires. The income tax now is paid by proletarian waitresses at the local diner.
And, of course, other taxes have gone up. Connecticut’s new budget reduces the threshold on estate and gift taxes; raises the income tax retroactively to January 1, 2011 on individuals with taxable income over $50,000 and joint filers whose income exceeds $100,000; slaps an Amazon tax on internet sales, increases the number of tax brackets from 3 to 6 and imposes a 20% surcharge on corporations for 2012 and 2013.
While Mr. Malloy has suggested that unions accept his budget and blame him for the sacrifices he is asking unions members to make, not all the members of unions presently negotiating contracts with the Malloy administration are sanguine, according to a recent Associated Press report:
“Despite the promise of no layoffs for four years, three years of wage increases following a two-year freeze and the continuation of coveted benefits such as pensions, retiree health care and longevity bonuses, there's skepticism and leeriness about the deal among many of the state's 45,000 unionized workers. Some want promises that big businesses and wealthy taxpayers will be asked to pay more if they agree to givebacks. Some simply want to see the details.”
An attempt by the Malloy administration to unveil the details of the Malloy-SEBAC deal to Connecticut’s media at Rentschler Field in East Hartford met with mixed success. Noting that the budget falls about $400 million short of projected expenditures, editorial departments of some newspapers wanted to see the actual rabbit drawn from the hat at the conclusion of union negotiations before they bestowed their blessing upon a tax increase even larger than that imposed in the 1991 Weicker budget, which featured Connecticut’s new state income tax.
Almost no one but committed leftists and boilerplate union demagogues are encouraging Mr. Malloy to conduct further raids on the profits of Connecticut businesses, some of which already have picked up stakes and moved all or part of their operations to more business friendly environments elsewhere. It turns out that “elsewhere” – at least in the case of Precision Camera And Video, Pfizer and Yardley Technical Products http://donpesci.blogspot.com/2011/05/dannel-in-wonderland.html is across the border into nearby states. As an additional bump out the door, Connecticut has slapped a corporation surcharge on homegrown businesses that have not yet explored alternative sites in, say, New Hampshire, a state that – lacking a Weicker or a Bill Cibes to jam an income tax proposal through its legislature – maintains its low tax, low regulatory status. Of the nine states without income taxes, all but one, Alaska, saw more people migrating in than out from 2000 to 2008. Connecticut has been losing population to other states ever since it adopted its income tax.
Any lesson that may be gleaned from such data is certain to be lost on a Democratic controlled General Assembly and governor poised to push through the legislature a bill fervently supported by the redundant Connecticut Working Party, little more than an annex of the Democratic Party,
that would require companies with more than 50 workers to provide up to five sick days a year for employees and new hires who had put in 520 hours on the job.
Nice work -- if you can get it.
Some of the items in the contract to be signed by the State Employees Bargaining Agent Coalition (SEBAC), the state union coalition negotiating contracts with Governor Malloy, do have a termination date. For instance, the salaries of state union members, frozen for two years, will unfreeze thereafter and increase by 3% during the following three years.
In such precarious times, it must be liberating for state workers to know that the “shared sacrifice” of salary givebacks has a termination date affixed to it. Actuaries hired by the Malloy administration tell us that the temporary salary freeze will save the state $ 448,402,275, according to a budget fact sheet given out to the state’s media. Because the freeze terminates after two years, the savings to the state is itself temporary, while the salary increase of 9% over three years will be permanent. Other actuarial figures supplied by the Malloy administration may be soft because the times in which we live are a’ changing -- almost daily.
Not so with the tax increase portion of Mr. Malloy’s “shared sacrifice.” The $1.8 billion tax increase, the largest in Connecticut’s history, will permanently dredge dollars from taxpayer’s increasingly depleted resources. There is no such thing within the living memory of any member of the General Assembly, including the long memory of the 86 year old Sen. Edith Prague, as a temporary tax or a temporary tax increase, and it certainly is cold comfort to reflect that the federal income tax at its inception was a two percent levy on millionaires – real millionaires. The income tax now is paid by proletarian waitresses at the local diner.
And, of course, other taxes have gone up. Connecticut’s new budget reduces the threshold on estate and gift taxes; raises the income tax retroactively to January 1, 2011 on individuals with taxable income over $50,000 and joint filers whose income exceeds $100,000; slaps an Amazon tax on internet sales, increases the number of tax brackets from 3 to 6 and imposes a 20% surcharge on corporations for 2012 and 2013.
While Mr. Malloy has suggested that unions accept his budget and blame him for the sacrifices he is asking unions members to make, not all the members of unions presently negotiating contracts with the Malloy administration are sanguine, according to a recent Associated Press report:
“Despite the promise of no layoffs for four years, three years of wage increases following a two-year freeze and the continuation of coveted benefits such as pensions, retiree health care and longevity bonuses, there's skepticism and leeriness about the deal among many of the state's 45,000 unionized workers. Some want promises that big businesses and wealthy taxpayers will be asked to pay more if they agree to givebacks. Some simply want to see the details.”
An attempt by the Malloy administration to unveil the details of the Malloy-SEBAC deal to Connecticut’s media at Rentschler Field in East Hartford met with mixed success. Noting that the budget falls about $400 million short of projected expenditures, editorial departments of some newspapers wanted to see the actual rabbit drawn from the hat at the conclusion of union negotiations before they bestowed their blessing upon a tax increase even larger than that imposed in the 1991 Weicker budget, which featured Connecticut’s new state income tax.
Almost no one but committed leftists and boilerplate union demagogues are encouraging Mr. Malloy to conduct further raids on the profits of Connecticut businesses, some of which already have picked up stakes and moved all or part of their operations to more business friendly environments elsewhere. It turns out that “elsewhere” – at least in the case of Precision Camera And Video, Pfizer and Yardley Technical Products http://donpesci.blogspot.com/2011/05/dannel-in-wonderland.html is across the border into nearby states. As an additional bump out the door, Connecticut has slapped a corporation surcharge on homegrown businesses that have not yet explored alternative sites in, say, New Hampshire, a state that – lacking a Weicker or a Bill Cibes to jam an income tax proposal through its legislature – maintains its low tax, low regulatory status. Of the nine states without income taxes, all but one, Alaska, saw more people migrating in than out from 2000 to 2008. Connecticut has been losing population to other states ever since it adopted its income tax.
Any lesson that may be gleaned from such data is certain to be lost on a Democratic controlled General Assembly and governor poised to push through the legislature a bill fervently supported by the redundant Connecticut Working Party, little more than an annex of the Democratic Party,
that would require companies with more than 50 workers to provide up to five sick days a year for employees and new hires who had put in 520 hours on the job.
Nice work -- if you can get it.
Sunday, May 15, 2011
The Real Budget Deal
Fresh from the Democratic Party’s web site, here is Democratic Party chieftain Nancy DiNardo’s reaction to the budget deal that Gov. Dannel Malloy wrested from union representatives:
Tucked into the present budget is a surplus of $1 billion that may be deposited in the state’s depleted “rainy day” fund or spent to finance a $900 million improvement of the state’s newest dollar-swallowing White Elephant, the University of Connecticut Health Center, or some other state financial “need” that will arise in the near future. Political columnist George Will defines a “need” as “a want that’s more than 24 hours old.” Needs of this kind have driven Connecticut to the brink of bankruptcy, and the state’s new one party infrastructure will not lessen its neediness.
Mr. Malloy intends to liquidate the greater part of Connecticut’s red ink, the largest per capita deficit in the nation, through a $ 1.4 billion tax increase that Mrs. DiNardo feels is “good for taxpayers.” The Democratic budget – no Republicans in the General Assembly were permitted to adjust it, or even breathe upon it – is the first entirely partisan budget that has seen the light of day in decades. This fiscal term, the Democrats control both the governor’s office and the General Assembly by a margin that renders collegiality among different Party members unnecessary.
Deferring to unions, the governor approved a four year “no lay off” clause that would be irrevocable even if, in future days, the red ink were to rise to cover Mrs. DiNardo’s ankles. The governor also extended the union agreement an additional five years. Unions leaders agreed to forgo raises for two years, after which salaries will increase at 3 percent for three years. Dreaded lay offs were removed from the bargaining table, and the governor considerably narrowed union give backs when, even before serious negotiations had begun, he steadfastly resolved to maintain the state’s obligations to municipalities, effectively removing the need for “shared sacrifice” at the town level -- all in all not a bad deal for the unions.
Before the doors were bolted shut on negotiations, Mr. Malloy suggested that union leaders and Democratic members of the General Assembly should quickly accept his proposal and lay on him the expected political blame arising from taxpayer and union dissatisfaction.
The Democratic budget raised taxes at a time when the governors of contiguous states had forwarded budgets that raised no taxes. Connecticut’s Democratic budget doubles the corporate surcharge during the nation’s deepest and most prolonged recession in many years, when many businesses – as opposed to the unsinkable CEOs of some of “too large to fail” businesses – are suffering rising costs and business slowdowns.
In Massachusetts, once derided in Connecticut as Taxachussetts, the Democratic legislature attacked collective bargaining, one of the more aggressive escalators of governmental costs. Republican leader John McKinney referred obliquely to the Massachusetts miracle in his senate response to the partisan Democratic budget when he said that Connecticut’s sister state had done things that “would be unthinkable” in the Democratic dominated General Assembly.
In a story in CTMirror, Mark Pazniokas was one of the few reporters in the state who noted that Mr. Malloy this year had an infrequent opportunity to drive down the costs of union contracts that would not occur again until 2017, “three years after the next gubernatorial election,’ when current union contracts on pension and health benefits expired.
Gubernatorial leverage in union negotiations, in other words, is limited by the date of expiration on union contracts, an arrangement that gives unions an inestimable edge in negotiations with elected representatives in the state that unions would doubtless prefer to maintain, for it prevents governors and legislators from pressuring unions to make deals that Mrs. DiNardo, the head of the Democratic Party, amusingly considers a boon to taxpayers. There is no movement afoot in Connecticut’s new one party state to redress this costly imbalance; neither will union reliant Democrats challenge binding arbitration
“Thank you to Governor Malloy, Lt. Governor Wyman, the state employees, and the Democratic leadership in the Assembly for this major accomplishment. This is a critical first step, and there is more work to do, but this is definitely a good day for Connecticut taxpayers. This is what shared sacrifice and real leadership looks like.” - Chairwoman Nancy DiNardoThough particulars of the deal were not revealed during the weeks of closed door negotiations, a broad outline of the Malloy administration-union deal, according to news reports, involved a union give back of $1.6 billion, $400 million short of Mr. Malloy’s earlier stated goal of $2 billion in the biennium budget. The savings shortfall is to be recovered from resources other than tax increases, according to the governor’s office.
Tucked into the present budget is a surplus of $1 billion that may be deposited in the state’s depleted “rainy day” fund or spent to finance a $900 million improvement of the state’s newest dollar-swallowing White Elephant, the University of Connecticut Health Center, or some other state financial “need” that will arise in the near future. Political columnist George Will defines a “need” as “a want that’s more than 24 hours old.” Needs of this kind have driven Connecticut to the brink of bankruptcy, and the state’s new one party infrastructure will not lessen its neediness.
Mr. Malloy intends to liquidate the greater part of Connecticut’s red ink, the largest per capita deficit in the nation, through a $ 1.4 billion tax increase that Mrs. DiNardo feels is “good for taxpayers.” The Democratic budget – no Republicans in the General Assembly were permitted to adjust it, or even breathe upon it – is the first entirely partisan budget that has seen the light of day in decades. This fiscal term, the Democrats control both the governor’s office and the General Assembly by a margin that renders collegiality among different Party members unnecessary.
Deferring to unions, the governor approved a four year “no lay off” clause that would be irrevocable even if, in future days, the red ink were to rise to cover Mrs. DiNardo’s ankles. The governor also extended the union agreement an additional five years. Unions leaders agreed to forgo raises for two years, after which salaries will increase at 3 percent for three years. Dreaded lay offs were removed from the bargaining table, and the governor considerably narrowed union give backs when, even before serious negotiations had begun, he steadfastly resolved to maintain the state’s obligations to municipalities, effectively removing the need for “shared sacrifice” at the town level -- all in all not a bad deal for the unions.
Before the doors were bolted shut on negotiations, Mr. Malloy suggested that union leaders and Democratic members of the General Assembly should quickly accept his proposal and lay on him the expected political blame arising from taxpayer and union dissatisfaction.
The Democratic budget raised taxes at a time when the governors of contiguous states had forwarded budgets that raised no taxes. Connecticut’s Democratic budget doubles the corporate surcharge during the nation’s deepest and most prolonged recession in many years, when many businesses – as opposed to the unsinkable CEOs of some of “too large to fail” businesses – are suffering rising costs and business slowdowns.
In Massachusetts, once derided in Connecticut as Taxachussetts, the Democratic legislature attacked collective bargaining, one of the more aggressive escalators of governmental costs. Republican leader John McKinney referred obliquely to the Massachusetts miracle in his senate response to the partisan Democratic budget when he said that Connecticut’s sister state had done things that “would be unthinkable” in the Democratic dominated General Assembly.
In a story in CTMirror, Mark Pazniokas was one of the few reporters in the state who noted that Mr. Malloy this year had an infrequent opportunity to drive down the costs of union contracts that would not occur again until 2017, “three years after the next gubernatorial election,’ when current union contracts on pension and health benefits expired.
Gubernatorial leverage in union negotiations, in other words, is limited by the date of expiration on union contracts, an arrangement that gives unions an inestimable edge in negotiations with elected representatives in the state that unions would doubtless prefer to maintain, for it prevents governors and legislators from pressuring unions to make deals that Mrs. DiNardo, the head of the Democratic Party, amusingly considers a boon to taxpayers. There is no movement afoot in Connecticut’s new one party state to redress this costly imbalance; neither will union reliant Democrats challenge binding arbitration
Friday, May 13, 2011
Bysiewicz Revididus
Former Secretary of State Susan Bysiewicz, now running for U.S. Senator Joe Lieberman’s soon to be vacated seat along side U.S. Rep Chris Murphy, may have had her front grill dented a bit in recent days, but it must be said the lady now is in fearsome forward motion.
Mrs. Bysiewicz has called for U.S. troops to leave Afghanistan as soon as practicable and, by so doing, got a jump on the laggard Mr. Murphy, who has been advertising himself in different venues as the progressive’s progressive.
The modern progressives, nearly all of them Democrats, not so long ago were bestirring themselves as anti-war zealots. Who can forget Cindy Sheehan’s often reported march on former President George Bush’s Crawford, Texas ranch?
During the Bush presidency, the air crackled with fervent calls by then presidential campaigner Barack Obama to shut down the Iraq war shortly after the Petraeus surge had been launched. The progressives were hot on closing down GITMO, still open for business. A not yet dead Sen. Edward Kennedy and several excitable congresspersons were besieged by leftists in the Democratic Party to start an investigation that might, God willing, lead to impeachment proceedings against the president and his dark star, former Vice President Dick Cheney. A bill of particulars, eerily resembling Mr. Obama’s venture into Libya, was drawn up by Ronnie Dugger and published in the Texas Observer:
All this rhetorical effluvia was launched before President Barack Obama began to morph into Mr. Bush, at least in matters of foreign policy. Domestic policy wise, the president still stands staunchly a bit to the right of Senator Karl Marx. But even here, disappointed progressive Democrats have noticed some unfortunate slippage.
Mrs. Bysiewicz’s bold and unambiguous call for a removal of troops from what has been called “the graveyard of empires” opens the door, unfortunately for Democrats, to a reconsideration of Mr. Obama’s “war of choice” in Afghanistan.
A few weeks ago, dark star Cheney characterized the assassination of Osama bin Laden as "a tremendous achievement for the military and intelligence professionals who carried out this important mission." And the ex-Vice President even went so far as to bestow a compliment on the Democratic president: “I also want to congratulate President Obama and the members of his national security team.” And then Mr. Cheney predictably went and spoiled it all, warning that the war on terror must continue. "Al Qaeda,” said Mr. Cheney “remains a dangerous enemy. Though bin Laden is dead, the war goes on."
Mrs. Bysiewicz and Mr. Murphy, both courting the progressive vote in bluer than blue Connecticut, beg to differ with Mr. Cheney and, perhaps more importantly, with each other.
On a return trip from Afghanistan, Mr. Murphy sent out to his progressive supporters an e-mail in which he said he supported a withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan but favored a “long standing presence” in the country.
He was vigorously attacked by Mrs. Bysiewicz, who said “"I strongly disagree with Congressman Murphy on this issue." Mrs. Bysiewitz also took a roundhouse swipe at retiring Sen. Lieberman: “Connecticut Democrats deserve a replacement to Senator Joe Lieberman who will consistently be progressive on removing US troops from Afghanistan."
Following the dust up, former chairman of the Democratic State Central Committee John Droney, long a Lieberman supporter and a political realist, archly observed that the most leftward liberal of the two would want to capture the affections of progressives in a primary race. Mrs. Bysiewicz’s linking of Mr. Murphy and Mr. Lieberman, reviled by progressives, therefore might be a politically astute move.
Mr. Murphy affected a fetching bewilderment. What ever could Mrs. Bysiewicz mean? Does she favor a withdrawl of troops, like, tomorrow?
Possibly not.
Neither of the two Democratic contenders for the U.S. Senate have been asked a question put to presidential spokesperson Jay Carney in a recent press gaggle. Asked on May 13 whether the Obama administration was prepared to ask Congress for approval to continue the participation in the no-fly zone in Libya, the president’s official spokesman, Jay Carney, responded,“I don’t have anything with regard to the 60-day issue, if that’s what you’re referring to.”
Unlike Mr. Obama, who sought authority from the United Nations rather than the U.S. Congress when he ordered the bombing of Libya, Mr. Bush was in compliance with the War Powers Act, which requires the president to seek authority from Congress 60 days after engaging in a war theatre.
The clock on the War Powers Act is ticking. Are the two Democratic contenders for Mr. Lieberman’s seat in the congress concerned?
Possibly not.
Mrs. Bysiewicz has called for U.S. troops to leave Afghanistan as soon as practicable and, by so doing, got a jump on the laggard Mr. Murphy, who has been advertising himself in different venues as the progressive’s progressive.
The modern progressives, nearly all of them Democrats, not so long ago were bestirring themselves as anti-war zealots. Who can forget Cindy Sheehan’s often reported march on former President George Bush’s Crawford, Texas ranch?
During the Bush presidency, the air crackled with fervent calls by then presidential campaigner Barack Obama to shut down the Iraq war shortly after the Petraeus surge had been launched. The progressives were hot on closing down GITMO, still open for business. A not yet dead Sen. Edward Kennedy and several excitable congresspersons were besieged by leftists in the Democratic Party to start an investigation that might, God willing, lead to impeachment proceedings against the president and his dark star, former Vice President Dick Cheney. A bill of particulars, eerily resembling Mr. Obama’s venture into Libya, was drawn up by Ronnie Dugger and published in the Texas Observer:
“Bush announced in 2002 his illegal presidential policy that the United States can and will attack other nations first, waging war on them, when he so decides. He is now waging, as if he were doing it in our names, a bloody war of aggression against Iraq, which on the face of it is a crime against humanity under the Nuremberg principles that we and our allies established and enforced with hangings after World War II.”These were heady times.
All this rhetorical effluvia was launched before President Barack Obama began to morph into Mr. Bush, at least in matters of foreign policy. Domestic policy wise, the president still stands staunchly a bit to the right of Senator Karl Marx. But even here, disappointed progressive Democrats have noticed some unfortunate slippage.
Mrs. Bysiewicz’s bold and unambiguous call for a removal of troops from what has been called “the graveyard of empires” opens the door, unfortunately for Democrats, to a reconsideration of Mr. Obama’s “war of choice” in Afghanistan.
A few weeks ago, dark star Cheney characterized the assassination of Osama bin Laden as "a tremendous achievement for the military and intelligence professionals who carried out this important mission." And the ex-Vice President even went so far as to bestow a compliment on the Democratic president: “I also want to congratulate President Obama and the members of his national security team.” And then Mr. Cheney predictably went and spoiled it all, warning that the war on terror must continue. "Al Qaeda,” said Mr. Cheney “remains a dangerous enemy. Though bin Laden is dead, the war goes on."
Mrs. Bysiewicz and Mr. Murphy, both courting the progressive vote in bluer than blue Connecticut, beg to differ with Mr. Cheney and, perhaps more importantly, with each other.
On a return trip from Afghanistan, Mr. Murphy sent out to his progressive supporters an e-mail in which he said he supported a withdrawal of troops from Afghanistan but favored a “long standing presence” in the country.
He was vigorously attacked by Mrs. Bysiewicz, who said “"I strongly disagree with Congressman Murphy on this issue." Mrs. Bysiewitz also took a roundhouse swipe at retiring Sen. Lieberman: “Connecticut Democrats deserve a replacement to Senator Joe Lieberman who will consistently be progressive on removing US troops from Afghanistan."
Following the dust up, former chairman of the Democratic State Central Committee John Droney, long a Lieberman supporter and a political realist, archly observed that the most leftward liberal of the two would want to capture the affections of progressives in a primary race. Mrs. Bysiewicz’s linking of Mr. Murphy and Mr. Lieberman, reviled by progressives, therefore might be a politically astute move.
Mr. Murphy affected a fetching bewilderment. What ever could Mrs. Bysiewicz mean? Does she favor a withdrawl of troops, like, tomorrow?
Possibly not.
Neither of the two Democratic contenders for the U.S. Senate have been asked a question put to presidential spokesperson Jay Carney in a recent press gaggle. Asked on May 13 whether the Obama administration was prepared to ask Congress for approval to continue the participation in the no-fly zone in Libya, the president’s official spokesman, Jay Carney, responded,“I don’t have anything with regard to the 60-day issue, if that’s what you’re referring to.”
Unlike Mr. Obama, who sought authority from the United Nations rather than the U.S. Congress when he ordered the bombing of Libya, Mr. Bush was in compliance with the War Powers Act, which requires the president to seek authority from Congress 60 days after engaging in a war theatre.
The clock on the War Powers Act is ticking. Are the two Democratic contenders for Mr. Lieberman’s seat in the congress concerned?
Possibly not.
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