Connecticut’s Unionized Budget Breakdown
1st April 2016
This week, Connecticut lawmakers passed a bipartisan fix for this year’s $220 million deficit, but legislators in Hartford must now get to work fixing next year’s deficit—projected to be $900 million. And they have more work to do. Taken together, the state’s budgets for the next two years fall $4 billion short—even though, since 2011, Connecticut governor Dannel Malloy and the Democratic-controlled legislature have instituted two of the largest tax increases in state history.
The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.
Now Malloy and the legislators say they’re ready to try something different: Malloy is threatening to lay off at least 1,000 state workers. Up to now, the state’s public-sector unions have masterfully worked the political system for their benefit. State employees earn at least 25 percent more than private-sector workers in similar jobs. New union contracts don’t even require a vote from state legislators; if they aren’t rejected within 30 days, they automatically go into effect. And a state law says that any union contract that conflicts with or contradicts state law takes precedence. The result: state-employee benefit costs are growing at more than 5 percent a year, while revenue is growing at just 2 percent. Connecticut residents face a decline in services, even as they’ve been asked to pay higher taxes.
Look for … the Union label….