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Posts published in “Connecticut Newspapers”

Follow Lamont’s bouncing budget

Gov. Ned Lamont’s budget is chock-full of contradictions and nonsensical fantasies, none more dramatic than his transportation agenda and his tolls proposal.

Lamont says the Special Transportation Fund (STF) is going broke. The STF, which finances all transportation projects and operations, has a balance of about $325 million right now. So what does Lamont do? He eliminates $1.2 billion of STF funding over the next five years. Then, he insists that we need tolls as “additional revenue.”

What exactly is Lamont’s plan for our schools?

Remember the Democrats’ plans to force the consolidation of school districts statewide? The plans were met with a firestorm of opposition in February.

Governor Lamont claims he’s heard the hue and cry, and has revised his consolidation proposal (Bill No. 874) to make it voluntary, proposing to use financial incentives, instead of force, to encourage towns to consolidate schools.

March 27, 2019

Hazards of hospital-tax reliance

Certain bank branches are robbed repeatedly, but none as regularly as Connecticut has been raiding its hospitals for enormous tax payments – ever since former Gov. Dannel P. Malloy began the practice in 2011.

There was supposed to be tax abatement this year, but, now, Gov. Ned Lamont proposes to continue the raids to close almost half of the $1.5 billion deficit for next fiscal year’s $20 billion budget.

You may wonder why the state is taxing hospitals.

Here’s why. The hospitals are actually collateral damage. The real target is the U.S. Treasury via the Medicaid program.

Got a Green New Deal revolution? ‘We’d all love to see the plan’

U.S. Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) is a genuine marvel. Everything the New York Democrat does becomes headline news, but nothing quite compares to her utopian Green New Deal, which has been endorsed by most of the Connecticut delegation of Democrats in Congress.

The GND aims to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions to zero by 2029 (we just snap our fingers, right?) while simultaneously creating economic nirvana where each and every American wants for nothing.

Overhanging the frenzy is the notion that she should be forgiven for her wild pronouncements — does she make any other kind? — because she is young, inexperienced, and passionate. Crimes of passion are to be forgiven, right?

But what’s the excuse for the old men – and women − who’ve signed onto her adventures, or misadventures, such as hounding Amazon out of New York City?

Veteran Senator Edward Markey, 72, of Massachusetts introduced the Senate version of AOC’s GND resolution. What’s his excuse?

And what’s the excuse of Connecticut’s congressional delegation? Apart from freshwoman Rep. Johanna Hayes (D-5th District), they are all multi-term veterans. Only Representative Jim Himes (D-4th District) has hung back from formal endorsement of the GND.

What’s wrong with the GND? It is unserious. It is utopian, vague, misleading, devoid of facts, impractical, blind to reality, etc., etc. etc.

Paid-leave scheme unaffordable, ill-timed

The tax-and-spend impulse is so deeply embedded in Connecticut Democrats, it should be considered a genetic trait.

Take Gov. Ned Lamont. At the beginning of his budget address Feb. 20, he warned of a $3.7 billion two-year deficit, saying, “The fiscal crisis before us is not just a short-term hole in the budget. We are digging that hole deeper by $400 to $500 million annually due to fixed costs, such as pensions.”

After that opening, he gave lip service to solving the fixed-costs problem, and, then proposed a paid family-and-medical-leave program, “funded via a payroll tax on employees of approximately 0.5 percent, which will raise an estimated $400 million annually” – in other words, a new program costing the equivalent of those fixed costs.

The tax-and-spend impulse is so deeply embedded in Connecticut Democrats, it should be considered a genetic trait.

Take Gov. Ned Lamont. At the beginning of his budget address Feb. 20, he warned of a $3.7 billion two-year deficit, saying, “The fiscal crisis before us is not just a short-term hole in the budget. We are digging that hole deeper by $400 to $500 million annually due to fixed costs, such as pensions.”

After that opening, he gave lip service to solving the fixed-costs problem, and, then proposed a paid family-and-medical-leave program, “funded via a payroll tax on employees of approximately 0.5 percent, which will raise an estimated $400 million annually” – in other words, a new program costing the equivalent of those fixed costs.

After that opening, he gave lip service to solving the fixed-costs problem, and, then proposed a paid family-and-medical-leave program, “funded via a payroll tax on employees of approximately 0.5 percent, which will raise an estimated $400 million annually” – in other words, a new program costing the equivalent of those fixed costs.

Fiscal danger lurks in state pension funds

In a Feb. 12 address to the Waterbury Regional Chamber, Connecticut Gov. Ned Lamont conceded the state’s huge pension and other, related debt is a larger problem than he anticipated. Really?

Countless people have used “unsustainable” and “unaffordable” to describe the state’s pension and health-care obligations under agreements with the State Employees Bargaining Agent Coalition (SEBAC). What did Lamont think those adjectives meant?

Legislators should be making more information available to public, not less

Beware politicians trying to limit transparency in government, especially when they want to maintain their own access to information but deny it to the public.

One such effort is underway in Hartford, where Proposed Bill 5507 would make voter registration data available only to “candidates, candidate committees, and political committees.”

Connecticut’s coming busing controversy

School busing, one of the most hated tools of social engineering, may be making a comeback in Connecticut, pursuant to legislation introduced by Senate President Pro Tempore Martin M. Looney, D-New Haven. Beginning in 2021 under Senate Bill 454 (“Looney’s Bill”), many children may be riding buses for long distances, killing a cherished American institution – the neighborhood school.

February 6, 2019

Looney’s Bill would create a commission to merge school districts of towns with populations of less than 40,000 into new or existing regional districts. Only 24 of the state’s 169 towns have populations above this benchmark. The bill provides an exception for regional districts that operate “in a manner similar to the (54) probate (court) districts.” Either way, Looney’s Bill would trigger massive consolidation, all under the guise of “creating a more efficient educational system,” the stated purpose of the bill.

February 10, 2019

Looney’s Bill is but one page long. It is barely a bill. It hasn’t been through any committees, public hearings or debate in the legislature, so why even pay attention to it?

Because of its authorship. Looney is a veteran Senate leader. Veteran legislative leaders do not introduce bills unlikely to pass. Moreover, Democrats hold supermajorities of 60 percent plus in both chambers of the legislature. So, some version of forced school consolidation is virtually certain to pass.

Malloy doth praise himself too much, methinks

Outgoing Gov. Dannel P. Malloy has been busy in his waning days. As ever, he has been polishing his record and boasting of his accomplishments — on an epic scale. His “Malloy-Wyman Record” is a massive 283-page document, providing a distorted and inaccurate account, certainly concerning the enormous expenditures devoted to the care and feeding of the state workforce.

Hotel California comes to Connecticut

Union bosses claim that members are remaining steadfastly loyal in the face of “anti-union attacks” and recent adverse Supreme Court decisions. Actually, much of that solidarity derives from devious schemes and disinformation campaigns that the bosses are employing to lock workers into membership and dues paying.

In Connecticut, AFSCME, Council 4 is sending members letters denying their requests to resign because they “missed the window.” Council 4 points to membership cards explaining in fine print that membership is irrevocable from year to year unless a member submits a written resignation request within a 30-day “window” each year. The window is not uniform. It is different for each member, depending upon when he or she joined the union. Naturally, it is easy to miss the window.