Connecticut’s Persistent Problems, the Cynic’s View

I: You’ve said there is no political problem that does not lend itself to a political solution, and yet problems associated with improvident spending that are everywhere politically caused – such as inflation, excessive spending and state debt, and seemingly endless political campaigning – are rarely addressed. Why?

C: It does not benefit an incumbent party in power committed to ever-increasing spending to settle such problems. In Connecticut especially, but throughout the nation as well, automatic spending increases, so called “fixed costs”, strip legislatures of their constitutional obligations. Constitutionally, legislatures are tasked with getting and spending. That means that every dollar drawn into the treasury through taxation and every dollar disbursed by the legislature should be voted up or down by small “r” republican legislators. Fixed costs loosen such constitutional obligations. If fixed costs are not unconstitutional, they most certainly are imprudent.

I: So, what do we do about fixed costs?

C: You put that very question to Chris Powell, for many years the Managing Editor and the Editorial Page Editor of the Journal Inquirer. What was his answer?

I: “Unfix them.”

C: There you go – a political solution to a political problem.

I: That solution, some would say is … ah … difficult.

C: In a one-party state, anything that reduces the undemocratic power of the ruling single party will be difficult. Referring to the unbearable fast changing New England weather, Mark Twain said, “Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody ever does anything about it.” The joke hangs on the certitude that human intervention cannot change weather patterns. But that is not true of problems caused by political intervention. Fixed costs are problems that involve imprudent spending by states and the federal government, the solution to the problem -- cut spending -- while difficult, is not impossible. And since excessive spending and inflation are causally related, a marriage made in Hell, reductions in spending will also beneficially reduce inflation, a hidden tax that reduces the purchasing power of the dollar.

It is disgraceful that big spending neo-progressives have remained unaccountable for their deficit spending and dollar depreciations.

About seven months ago, Marc Fitch wrote in Inside Investigator, “Between this fiscal year [January 2026] and 2030, Connecticut’s fixed costs – which include pensions, retiree healthcare, Medicaid, and debt payments – will grow by $2.1 billion, with most of the increase coming from a $1.2 billion increase in the cost of Medicaid, driving fixed costs to consume nearly 54 percent of the budget [emphasis mine].” The 54 percent of Connecticut expenditures that has been placed beyond the reach of budget makers ain’t peanuts.

I: Give my readers one more example, before I let you go, of a serious problem that the majority Democrat Party in Connecticut does not wish to solve.

C: Sure – government by caucus. Since the advent of President Barack Obama’s administration, Democrats have managed to seize very nearly every position of political power in Connecticut: the governorship, both houses of the General Assembly, the whole membership of the U.S. Congressional Delegation, all the constitutional offices in the state, and the state’s judicial system. To be sure, Democrats in Connecticut hold a voting majority.

According to 2026 voter registration data, Democrats make up about 35.05% of Connecticut’s registered voters, Republicans account for 21.06%, while Independents make up 43.89%.

But in the General Assembly, managed by neo-progressives, the political power structure is 100 percent Democrat. This totalitarian power system moves representative government from a two-party power sharing operation to what cynics like myself call single-party caucus government. Two gatekeeping Democrats – Senate President Pro Tempore Martin M. Looney and Majority Leader Bob Duff – manage by caucus the whole political business of the State Senate. Independents that make up the majority of Connecticut voters have no representation in the General Assembly. Bills proffered by Republicans die aborning, neither heard by committees, also controlled by Democrats, or voted upon by the whole legislature. Legislation that shapes the future of the state is caucus-endorsed and passed through the General Assembly by political chicanery. Whatever else this is, it is not representative small “d” democratic government.

I: How do you solve that one?

C: If you don’t like your representative government, change your representatives. If the status quo is undemocratic, change it.

I: Easier said than done.

C: Where have I heard that one before?