Posts tagged as “Column of the Day”

Public-employee unionism is a pernicious force in Connecticut government. Strong unions are good for the Democratic lawmakers they serve so well— providing campaign money and manpower in election years— and good for union members and leaders, but not so good for business people, retirees, and nonunion working men and women.

Without cost-inflating union contracts, state and municipal governments could deliver lower taxes, and more and better services to their constituents. It’s really that simple. It remains to be seen whether Connecticut’s Republican Party, or some other political entity, can carry that ball to electoral success and bring home that message.

● Read on CT Insider

● Read on The Red Line

Discussion among Connecticut seniors like me invariably drifts towards our children and grandchildren with a common theme – everyone must experience inconvenient travel for family reunions because our children have left the state.

Why?

Because the Democrats have destroyed our once job-creating economy with high taxes to finance the public sector with high wages, huge pensions and Cadillac health care coverage.

● Read on Substack

● Read here on The Red Line

Holiday lights have dimmed and the festivities are over; in Connecticut, however, the season of giving is endless, particularly when it comes to the state’s union contracts.  

But all too often, government unions get all the presents, and taxpayers find themselves left with the fiscal equivalent of a mountain of torn and discarded wrapping paper: escalating labor costs, directly impacting their wallets through higher taxes and reduced affordability—courtesy of the state’s opaque union negotiations. It's time for some common sense reform. 

Last fiscal year, Governor Ned Lamont inked a deal with the State Employees Bargaining Agent Coalition (SEBAC) for a 4.5% wage increase (including annual “step” increases, aka “annual increments,” that average 2%) for this fiscal year (FY2025).

The new deal was not originally part of the 2022 contract (SEBAC 2022), despite that it falls in the fourth year of SEBAC 2022.  Rather, it was a result of a strategic maneuver known as a “wage reopener” — a term that stipulates that wages can be renegotiated in the final year of a labor contracts.

This most recent wage reopener was a deliberate tactic that either exposes the governor’s negotiators as outmatched or, worse, complicit in sacrificing fiscal responsibility for political support.

● Read in CT Examiner

● Read here on The Red Line

I was reminded recently of the old MasterCard commercials—the ones that conclude, “There are some things in this world money can’t buy. For everything else there’s MasterCard.” One of my favorites features a dad and his son going to a baseball game. The voiceover says, “2 tickets: $28. 2 hot dogs, 2 popcorns, 2 sodas: $18. One autographed baseball: $45. Real conversation with eleven-year-old son: priceless.”

Those commercials were fantastic. They spoke to something true. There really are some things that money can’t buy, and the commercials always suggested it’s those things that make life worthwhile. Money at its best serves the priceless thing, makes it possible, but money isn’t the thing itself.

It’s a valuable lesson, one which Jesus tries to get across to his disciples in Mark 10:17-27—a passage famous for the zinger, “It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God” (Mark 10:23). The story begins with Jesus meeting a rich man...

● Listen to the Full Sermon (read the transcript) here on The Red Line

The U.S. is headed for "the most predictable economic crisis in history," as Eskine Bowles, Bill Clinton's former White House chief of staff, once put it.

Why? Because of the mountain of federal debt that we keep making bigger.

For the first time since the late 1940s, U.S. debt is roughly equal to U.S. GDP.

We already spend more on interest on the debt than we do on Medicaid and defense.

● Read in Reason Magazine

● Read here on The Red Line

What Netanyahu seems not to grasp, however, is that there are many opportunities Israel can seize in order to right the ship in the wake of the myriad challenges that have cropped up in the nearly 300 days since Hamas’ devastating assault. Tragically, he is missing them all.

● Read at Israel Policy Forum

● Read here on The Red Line

Democrats [have been] clinging to a fleeting strategy of getting their befuddled shell of a candidate/incumbent president across the Nov. 5 deadline. Now, they are left only with a new, unknown candidate and their worn-out narrative that our Democracy is under attack.

Meanwhile, it is the Democrats who took a wrecking ball to Democracy. After concealing President Joe Biden’s mental capacity... they gutted the primary process... by switching South Carolina’s primary to the head of the schedule, knowing it was the safe haven that saved Biden in 2020.

But if Joe Biden is not fit to run as a candidate for U.S. president as many people now believe, how is he fit to serve as president until Jan. 20, 2025?

The American public will expect details on who knew about Joe Biden’s declining capacity and when, and Connecticut residents will want to know how elected Democrats here feel about supporting candidates associated with an obvious coverup that threatens democracy.

Arab nations have begun to swing behind the idea of a multinational peacekeeping force for Gaza and the occupied West Bank, as they try to develop a viable postwar plan for the region.

The draft proposals are among multiple options being debated as Arab and western states, desperate to see an end to the conflict, struggle to lay out a path towards regional stability and the establishment of a Palestinian state.

● Read in FT

● Read here on The Red Line