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Circling Sharks
6 March 2007I feel like a sailor whose ship has gone down with the sharks circling in increasingly tight circles.
The sharks would be Gov Rell and the Democrat Houses and there is no lifeboat in sight.
Rell on one side wants to spend massive amounts of additional dollars, billions on education, Amann on the other side wants to spend massive amounts of additional dollars on universal health care. Now both are “for the children” and who can complain about that? What happens to the children if the parents are so burdened with taxes that their quality of life is decreased?
The USS Connecticut has been sunk after being hit with high taxes, excessive spending, high electric rates, high debt and massive unfunded liabilities and just all around plain bad management of the ship of state.
The Journal Inquirer is the paper the Hartford Courant should be. I grew up reading the JI, it is the local paper with local flavor including local sports scores but with common sense that just hinted of scandalous contents inside. At least the headlines teased you to open the paper and read. And the JI kept/keeps an eye on the local politics. Not so with the Hartford Courant, little bad it has to say on matters that are “progressive”.
This recent article in the JI shows just how bad the Hartford Courant has become.
HARTFORD - It’s shaping up as a showdown of huge proportions.
In one corner is Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell and her plan to expand education spending by $3.4 billion over the next five years.In the other, Democratic legislative leaders have chosen the equally Herculean task of trying to eliminate Connecticut’s growing pool of uninsured children and adults.
And in the middle are rank-and-file Democratic lawmakers who campaigned on a health care platform last fall but have had visions of huge education grants dancing in their heads for the past month.
Amann: ‘Stick to our game plan’
Some would argue state government lacks the resources to tackle either problem on the grand scale that’s been proposed.
Both sides agree there’s no chance to do both at that scale.
And at this point, neither side seems interested in compromising.
Rell has brilliantly split the Democrats down the middle, dangling vast amounts of new money for education which is merely upping the state’s share of funding to 50%. How the money is to be spent once it hits the cities is not talked about. Oh, if any of you in the towns think you are getting any of this, dream on taxboy. The Yankee Institute has a great study on the winners and losers and if you live in a town you are a loser, big time.
This money is causing the rank and file to consider breaking ranks with Amann and going for the money. Increased spending on universal health care will not show up as direct spendable dollars in the home districts. Taking the money and running will prove hard to resist.
This is how craven and shallow the politics of money in Connecticut has gotten. Blatant grabs at taxpayer money. Little regard to the consequences. Just why Gov Rell has choosen to do battle in this manner is anyone’s guess, she knew Amann was looking to up the spending on health care and that it would be his number one focus. What is unfortunate is that this power play is on our backs. They are fighting over roadkill.
Amann hasn’t tried to hide his frustration since the Rell budget was unveiled Feb. 7.
He ripped Rell in a news conference two weeks ago and began a meeting with the House chairmen of the appropriations and finance committees by tossing the governor’s budget in a trash can.
The battle lines are drawn. No matter how much is pledged it is not enough. More is always needed to meet our “pressing needs”. Just how other states manage to meet their “pressing needs” with considerably less money should be studied. Quite frankly at this point I think NY and MA are better managed than Connecticut is.
Rell’s plan bursts through the cap by $520 million next fiscal year. Democrats concede their health care plans would drive their budget even further beyond the limit.
But to exceed the cap legally, three things are required - and one of them has nothing to do with the Democrats’ huge majorities.
Exceeding the spending cap requires not only a 60 percent vote in both the House and the Senate, but also a special, written declaration of fiscal emergency from the governor.
And Rell made clear last month that while she is ready to exceed the cap for education, she isn’t sold on shattering the limit for other undertakings.
How could there be a fiscal emergency? We are #3 in education spending, if you discount the District of Columbia we are #2, and we are not that far out of first place.
Seems the emergency is where ever they choose it to be, if Rell blows by the spending cap it’s effectiveness will be diminished and violated more easily in the future. Once breached further breaches will be common.
“We will still put together our own budget and our own tax package,” Williams said. “It’s not fair for the governor to say she’ll go through the spending cap, but only for her priorities. The spending cap has become a joke at this point, and that has to change.”
It’s not fair, she gets to, why can’t we? Where are the voices of reason? Where are the voices saying, “wait a minute, can we afford this?”. I am not hearing any, only the conservative bloggers and talk show hosts speak of restraint.
When Rell spoke with Ray Dunaway on the WTIC morning program she talked of investment in the future of Connecticut and how this increased funding would pay dividends to Connecticut’s businesses and that accountability will be held! Let’s talk about accountability, why can’t the Governor get accountability now? It’s her money if she doesn’t get accountability, don’t give them the money. And anyhow, isn’t NCLB supposed to give us accountability?
Let’s talk about accountability, in her follow up article in the Hartford Courant after her budget address she talked about the sunset industries of Connecticut, insurance, banking, manufacturing. etc….. the list would make you sick. And she talked of how the future growth industries such as stem cell research would power our future.
Well here’s the story Sparky, the mis-management of the business environment that drove our sunset industries away still exists and will limit the growth of any new businesses / industries. Stem cell research and the other industries need the same things the businesses that left needed. And unless I missed something I didn’t see the change.
And here is the most galling point, while she is wishing new industries in to Connecticut and that is all it is just wishing, none of the debate at the Capital is on the business environment. NONE. Review the “Major Issues” in the Capital, NONE are to make Connecticut business friendly, and where dear readers are the taxpayers going to work? Such a set of screwed up priorities I have never seen.
Where are all these great graduates we are guaranteed going to work?
“The cap must always be the foundation of our fiscal policies, and I will protect its integrity and oppose efforts to open up its definitions in order to turn the spigot on to well-intentioned but unaffordable spending increases,” the governor said. She added that her education initiative is “a targeted expansion” of the cap, and “not an open-ended redefinition that will allow spending in other areas to explode.”
If this wasn’t going to hurt so bad this would be funny, in a sick way. “well-intentioned but unaffordable spending increases”, excuse me! We were there a long long time ago. Once the gate is breached it will be breached over and over again. By demeaning the cap she is inviting wholesale and exploding spending. That was the purpose of the cap and it has served us somewhat well, we do have the highest taxes in the country, but hey it was better than nothing.
The last blow up of spending was ushered in by another replacement Governor, O’Neil. Seems to me that we shouldn’t have Lt Governors, if we lose a Governor just appoint the General of the Governor’s Foot Guard to be acting figurehead he looks good in a uniform with no new bills allowed and hold a new election.
At least the cleanup crew will have something honest to clean up.
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