Lee Elci: All righty, ladies and gentlemen, sitting in that seat of honor is our very good pal, Red Jahncke. You can find Red on his website, the-red-line.com. What are you waiting for? Subscribe to all the things that he offers up. It’s always good stuff. Red, good morning. How are you today?
Red Jahncke: Good, Lee. How are you?
Lee Elci: We’re doing well. I was pumping some gas the other day, and a giant of a man came up to me. He was nearly seven feet tall. He listens to me every day. He works for the D.O.T. [State Dept. of Transportation], and he’s not very happy with you, Red—about your goal to have their work rates frozen.
Red Jahncke: It’s hard to argue with someone seven feet tall, Lee.
Lee Elci: No, I’m six feet.
Red Jahncke: All right. Well, I’m sure you were very diplomatic.
Lee Elci: No, he’s a good guy. He’s actually an old friend of mine. But they listen to the segment.
Red Jahncke: Well, listen, in answer indirectly to your seven-foot buddy, the math is crystal clear. They’ve gotten a 33% wage increase over six years under Ned Lamont. And if he hasn’t, he should go to his union representative immediately and demand his money.
Lee Elci: All right. What are you focusing on again today?
Red Jahncke: Well, I think it’s noteworthy that last week, the news media—not the commentary segment, such as yours and mine, right?—the news media asked Ned Lamont about unfair wage increases for state employees. So we have punched through. We are in the news cycle. Ned can no longer ignore this issue, which has always been his preferred approach.
Lee Elci: So, and he’s hiding away right now. He’s MIA.
Red Jahncke: Isn’t he? Yes, he is. He’s M.I.A. We are not. Down here in lower Fairfield County, I understand the Greenwich RTC discussed this very issue in its meeting last night. I was invited to Kent, Connecticut, over the weekend to speak about it to the Kent RTC at their Lincoln Dinner. You had Ben Proto on Monday. Ben tells me he discussed it with you. We’re beginning to raise the consciousness of the public, and it’s remarkable. The public is ignorant about this—not through their fault, because it’s basically a backroom deal that pops up one day in the General Assembly in the form of a new contract, goes immediately to the Appropriations Committee, with no real discussion in committee, comes back on the floor, is voted on. It’s a ship that passes through the night that no one sees or takes note of.
Lee Elci: What’s the next move? I know they’re in session. So does this have any play with that? Is this a factor in all of this?
Red Jahncke: Well, this is $360 million in the current budget proposal. It’s right there in what’s called the “reserve for salary adjustment,” which is a euphemism for state employee pay raises. Mind you, this is not a small issue. State employee wage and benefit costs are by far the largest item in the budget—$10 billion and rising. If we have even a small percentage impact on that, it has an enormous impact. So all Ned has to do is freeze state employee wage increases, and he saves $360 million. He would not have had to break the fiscal guardrails to the tune of $300 million. So Ned is busting the guardrails for his own political purposes. He wants to pay off the unions so he gets their support in the next election. It’s pretty clear.
Lee Elci: So, 50,000 union members. But their families, their kids, and their extended family—you know, you’re talking about a block of 150,000 voters by the time it’s all said and done. Can the message get out to the rest of Connecticut voters, politically speaking, enough so that they might not sign off on a deal like this? Because if Lamont’s running again and he thinks he can pull the wool over the regular voters’ eyes, he’s just going to give these folks another pay raise, isn’t he?
Red Jahncke: I’m glad you went to the political dimension of this. First thing to say is the 150,000 are not voting for Republicans. You’re not going to get union votes. You’re not going to get votes from union families. Those are votes going to the Democrats. Secondly, it’s 150,000 people—the state population is 3.5 million. The other thing for Republicans is this is a perfect issue of contrast. Every Democrat in the General Assembly will vote for the contract. It will pass because they know they will be politically assassinated by the unions if they don’t. They have to vote for it. Every Republican will vote against it. Come the next gubernatorial election, the Republican candidate points to Ned Lamont or his heir apparent and says, “They are burying you in state employee compensation costs. We are not.” And it’s a perfect divide.
This is not like Democrats having their solution to the problem of high electricity costs and Republicans having their solution to high energy costs, where the public has difficulty divining whose solution is better. This is crystal clear. Republicans need to stand up now. This is not an issue that we are going to win in this session of the General Assembly. This contract is going to pass with whatever wage increase Ned has put in it. We need to shine a light on him as selling the state out to the unions to get reelected. This is all about the next election. This is not about the current session.
Lee Elci: I would agree with that, actually. Red Jahncke is with us— the-red-line.com. Red, before we run out of time, if you don’t mind, I just have three other quick topics I want to broach with you. First, a letter from a listener. But since we’re on salaries and wage increases, the Hartford Courant had an interesting piece. The City Council would give nonunion employees a 3% raise, and many of those nonunion employees already make over $100,000. Just any quick thoughts on the nonunion folks getting a substantial raise in the Hartford area?
Red Jahncke: Yeah, this is the city that went bankrupt, that state taxpayers had to bail out. You can recall the figure—was it half a billion dollars?
Lee Elci: It was a lot of money. All right. Question two comes from a listener. Dan writes in. He wants you to comment on the fact that the country spent $500 billion on illegal immigrants, but here in the state of Connecticut, we spent about $1.3 billion, according to the Yankee Institute. He just wanted you to comment on how devastating that kind of outflow of resources is to the state of Connecticut.
Red Jahncke: Well, the sheer numbers alone—$1.3 billion is not petty cash. 1.3 for this state, anyone who doubts it should just go online and google for what new york city has doled out since the good governor of texas has been sending a good selection of illegals to the city. right. and eric adams has said it’s bankrupting us. it’s the end of this city as we know it.
So this myth that illegal immigration is net additive to the economy is just not true. It is an economic drain. And let me offer a contrast. The two nations on Earth with the largest legal immigration programs, which are totally noncontroversial, are Canada and Australia. They run what are called point systems. Immigrants are rated in terms of key variables, the most important of which is age. A 20-something. Clocks in at the highest rate because, at 20, They have been educated. There’s no impact on the on the country’s education system, either in cost or in terms of disruption.
Second dimension of age is they’re going to work their entire working lives for the government benefits that they will get in retirement. So they will pay in what they get out. And you can go on from there. They rate their immigrants right? They take the best and deny the worst. You cannot emigrate to Australia past the age of 50. They just won’t accept you unless you have a large bundle of cash. That’s the only offset that they will accept.
Lee Elci: Interesting. i didn’t know that about those two places. okay. that’s, something that maybe we should think about. last question. it’s right in your sweet spot. this four team hockey tournament, your guy, conor mcgregor gets the game winning goal.
Red Jahncke: The last game the championship game was amazing. team usa it bottled up connor mcdavid in the round robin game completely. they bottled him up completely in regulation. and then he he scored the overtime winner. there was not a usa team player anywhere near him. at the top of the left face-off circle had all the time in the world to take a shot point blank on our goalie. and of course he didn’t take all the time in the world. one of the ways you score a hockey goal is quick release. got the puck, released it immediately. upper right hand corner. game over. but no one was near him.
Lee Elci: Right right right. got a lot of buzz for sure.
Red Jahncke: Yeah. the players created the buzz?
Lee Elci: Yeah.
Red Jahncke: The players were passionate.
Lee Elci: Yeah.
Red Jahncke: The players were playing for national pride. it was wonderful to see.
Lee Elci: Right. well good stuff today red. go online the-red-line.com. you can read what red has to write. i’ll actually post it up on our social medias as well. red until next week my friend. thank you as always, i appreciate it and you can also watch, the video of this encounter between me and red up on his website.
Red Jahncke: Not quite as exciting as the, the four nations.
Lee Elci: No. not quite. almost, almost.
Red Jahncke: Well, working on.
Lee Elci: All right, buddy, have a good one, i gotta run. thank you.
Red Jahncke is a nationally recognized columnist, who writes about politics and policy. His columns appear in numerous national publications, such as The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, USA Today, The Hill, Issues & Insights and National Review as well as many Connecticut newspapers.