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Posts tagged as “Column of the Day”

Report Card: A Local Leader’s Self-Assessment

Preface by The Red Line: In a smart and forthright manner, Greenwich First Selectman Fred Camillo has written an op-ed in the fashion of a report card on progress in his town during his first year in office.

December 28, 2020

In essence an open letter, Camillo's op-ed shows due respect to the citizenry, by whom he was elected to manage the town's affairs. Other local leaders should follow his lead and his manner.

Read Camillo's Op-Ed in Greenwich Patch


Read, and comment on, Camillo's Op-Ed here on The Red Line

Just Say No to Regional Gas Tax

The residents of this state are tapped out. Adding another tax on top of all the other taxes we pay will do more harm than good. The TCI tax will take over $100 million per year out of Connecticut drivers’ pockets to appease a group of climate activists. The truth is that this initiative will do nothing to actually change the climate of the Earth and to think it will is foolish.

Read in CT Hearst newspapers


Read and comment here on The Red Line

CT House GOP calls on Lamont to suspend the latest state employee pay raise as well as the newest new tax

The new year will bring another round of wage increases for state employees and a new payroll tax for everyone else, and House Republicans are calling on Gov. Ned Lamont to suspend both in light of the pandemic.

Read on Yankee Institute

Read and comment here on The Red Line

CT Family Leave Plan Invites Graft, Government Dependence

Q;"Can I take time off if it's a friend and not a family member who is sick?"

A: "We do have a very expansive definition of family, meaning it could be people who are close to you but might not be related. What most people are concerned about is this definition of close affinity, and we are working hard to narrow that definition while still leaving it flexible enough to allow people to care for people who are close to them."

If you earn $40,000/year you'll pay $200 into the system and for that modest sum you get 12 weeks of paid time off at 95% of salary [$9,230],

Read in The Day

Read and comment here on The Red Line

The Science of Polls — Isn’t

In our time and place, nothing lends more authority to a field than calling it a science. Polling has particularly benefited from the rigor implied by its association with the true science of statistics, and its jargon of sample sizes, margins of error and the like. But faulty data defies the most stringent analysis, and that fact has undermined opinion surveys.

Read in CT Mirror

Read and comment here on The Red Line

CT’s fiscal health in peril

These data point to a distinct threat to Connecticut’s economic health. Personnel costs have to be part of the solution. July 1 will mark the expiration of the 10-year no-layoff guarantee for unionized state employees. The governor can use the mere threat of layoffs to secure meaningful concessions. What Gov. Lamont and legislators do to confront these problems will tell whether they are true leaders or mere servants of their benefactors in Big Public Labor.

Read in Republican American

Read and comment here on The Red Line

CT’s Big Problem Isn’t Higher But Lower Ed

Student loan debt is huge, estimated at $1.6 trillion, and five Connecticut colleges were cited last week by the U.S. Education Department for leaving the parents of their students with especially high debt. Many are the horror stories about borrowers who won't be able to repay.

Relief for certain debtors may be in order, but then what of the students who sacrificed along with their parents to pay their own way through college?

Student loan debt relief should not be resolved without investigation.

One can get a high school diploma in Connecticut without having learned anything since kindergarten and can earn a degree from a public college without having learned much more, public college being to a great extent just remedial high school.

Read in Journal Inquirer

Read and comment here on The Red Line

How to Stop the Paris Climate Accord

Joe Biden has promised to rejoin the Paris Climate Accord, which President Obama signed in 2015 by executive action, which wasn't legally binding. Nevertheless, some green group may find a friendly federal court to produce that result, as occurred with the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals immigration program. To prevent the Paris Climate Accord from taking on such undue power, Mr. Trump should submit it to the Senate, and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell should schedule a quick vote. It would certainly be rejected—ratification requires a two-thirds vote—and it is unlikely any court could subsequently resurrect a legislatively tossed treaty.

Read in The Wall Street Journal

Read and comment here on The Red Line

Biden’s only distinction: he’s not Trump.

Under Paris, China doesn’t even have to start reducing emissions until 2030. Meanwhile, under the original Obama-era agreement, America is required to slash emissions by 26 to 28 percent in the next five years. But Biden has promised to go further, entirely eliminating carbon emissions from the electric sector by 2035 and imposing strict gas-mileage standards to reach zero emissions by 2050.


Read in New York Post


Read and comment here on The Red Line

Serious cases, not positive tests, should measure CT’s C-19 epidemic

While people admire the Governor Lamont's calm and conscientious manner, they may lose patience as his plan for returning Connecticut to normal starts reversing. His reversal amid fears that the epidemic is surging again should prompt reconsideration of the measures being used to set policy.

Read in Journal Inquirer

Read and comment here on The Red Line