[GoHuskies]

Originally Posted by mlassoff

Do you want an answer, or do you just want to do your "blame it on the liberals" routine. I know when Bush was president he appointed loyal conservatives... Did you complain then?

Yawn.

By the way... Manufacturing is leaving the country, not just Connecticut.

Just a hunch but I bet the answer is kill the unions and cut off all state welfare. Lower taxes on upper income earners and business.

Problem solved right

[mlassoff]

Originally Posted by GoHuskies

Just a hunch but I bet the answer is kill the unions and cut off all state welfare. Lower taxes on upper income earners and business.

Problem solved right

Indeed. And one needs to only look as far as Kansas to see how well this works...

[snowtired14]

Originally Posted by mlassoff

Do you want an answer, or do you just want to do your "blame it on the liberals" routine. I know when Bush was president he appointed loyal conservatives... Did you complain then?

Yawn.

By the way... Manufacturing is leaving the country, not just Connecticut.

If I wasn't open to answers, I would not have asked the questions. Seems funny that the minute a label is uttered, it immediately turns the conversation towards political attack. Where did I attack Malloy politically? Malloy is considered a liberal governor, and the legislature is tasked with governing the economics and management of the state, that's a fact. Correct me if I'm wrong, but didn't Malloy run a campaign on fiscal conservancy against Foley? Then why are we facing a $900M deficit? That's why I have a problem with his performance.

As for jobs and manufacturing leaving Connecticut and the country, if we adhere to your assertion, then it's a hopeless situation, right? Companies are leaving and jobs are going south or overseas, there's nothing we can do? Seems like other states are looking at business incubation, leveraging their university partnerships, supporting bio tech and IT growth industries and attracting foreign investment in local manufacturing. maybe we're doing the same things already? Then why is Connecticut lagging? This isn't political, I really want to know.

[wtby4000]

Tom Foley knows a lot about outsourcing; maybe he could have done a better job than Malloy?

Tom Foley Closed U.S. Manufacturing Plant, Consolidated Jobs in Mexico - Connecticut Politics - October 2014

[7express]

I think we could have a governor that does literally nothing but sleep until 4:30 PM and play XBox all day, but unless he was breaking rules, like pulling a Ganim or Rowland and exchanging political favors for free stuff, then we are stuck with him. No matter how awful he may be, or how awful his approval rating is, he's not breaking any rules, so we are stuck for another 2 years.

[mlassoff]

Originally Posted by snowtired14

As for jobs and manufacturing leaving Connecticut and the country, if we adhere to your assertion, then it's a hopeless situation, right? Companies are leaving and jobs are going south or overseas, there's nothing we can do? Seems like other states are looking at business incubation, leveraging their university partnerships, supporting bio tech and IT growth industries and attracting foreign investment in local manufacturing. maybe we're doing the same things already? Then why is Connecticut lagging? This isn't political, I really want to know.

Connecticut is doing much of the same thing: https://www.cga.ct.gov/asp/CGABillSt...l&bill_num=SB1

Note that's Senate Bill 1-- as in the first one-- The highest priority for the State Senate.

This augments current programs being run under the auspices of Connecticut Innovations. (All proposed and run by the Malloy administration).

What Malloy can't do is give us a city over 500,000 people, which is really the density necessary to create a tech center. I am actually of two minds on SB1-- There is some great stuff in there, but I doubt Connecticut has yet developed enough of an entrepreneurial ecosystem to take advantage of it.

As far as biotech in CT there is a long history-- that includes efforts by the Malloy administration that have yielded results.

Nothing is anywhere near where anybody wants but changing an economy is a long process.

It's much easier to discuss this if you don't start the "liberal this/liberal that" crap...

[snowtired14]

Originally Posted by mlassoff

Connecticut is doing much of the same thing: https://www.cga.ct.gov/asp/CGABillSt...l&bill_num=SB1

Note that's Senate Bill 1-- as in the first one-- The highest priority for the State Senate.

This augments current programs being run under the auspices of Connecticut Innovations. (All proposed and run by the Malloy administration).

What Malloy can't do is give us a city over 500,000 people, which is really the density necessary to create a tech center. I am actually of two minds on SB1-- There is some great stuff in there, but I doubt Connecticut has yet developed enough of an entrepreneurial ecosystem to take advantage of it.

As far as biotech in CT there is a long history-- that includes efforts by the Malloy administration that have yielded results.

Nothing is anywhere near where anybody wants but changing an economy is a long process.

It's much easier to discuss this if you don't start the "liberal this/liberal that" crap...

Why does that label bother you so much? Whether we like it or not liberalism is associated with a political far left association and conservatism a far right. In my opinion Malloy has focused on social issues far more than fiscal issues, we're coming out of the greatest economic upset since the 1929 depression, he and the legislature of this state has allowed us lag behind in the new world economy.

[mlassoff]

Originally Posted by snowtired14

Why does that label bother you so much? Whether we like it or not liberalism is associated with a political far left association and conservatism a far right. In my opinion Malloy has focused on social issues far more than fiscal issues, we're coming out of the greatest economic upset since the 1929 depression, he and the legislature of this state has allowed us lag behind in the new world economy.

So that's that you got out of my post? Did you read about the legislation? Did you seek any information about Connecticut Innovations and it's programs? No reaction to the fact that Connecticut is doing exactly what you suggest-- and thought wasn't happening here?

I'm fine with being a liberal... I have a problem with you intimating that there is some type of cronyism that is unique to the liberal side of the aisle when it's endemic in all politics.

[snowtired14]

Originally Posted by mlassoff

So that's that you got out of my post? Did you read about the legislation? Did you seek any information about Connecticut Innovations and it's programs? No reaction to the fact that Connecticut is doing exactly what you suggest-- and thought wasn't happening here?

I'm fine with being a liberal... I have a problem with you intimating that there is some type of cronyism that is unique to the liberal side of the aisle when it's endemic in all politics.

So if we're doing so much to improve the economic climate here, where are the results?

[dazzleman]

Though I am not a fan of Malloy generally, there are no legitimate grounds to impeach him. Unpopularity is not sufficient reason for impeachment. If it were, we would have tremendous political instability, because virtually every political office holder will be unpopular at some point in his term.

Having said that, I think Malloy has waited too long to address the state's fiscal problems. The problems did not begin with him, and the decisive turn for the worse probably came when Rowland agreed to more generous benefits with state employee unions in 1997, when the state was flush and the economy was booming, in order to neutralize them in his coming re-election campaign. Nobody paid attention to it at the time, or realized the significance of it, but that approach is something many governors did in order to gain short term political benefit while kicking the costs down the road for somebody else to deal with.

Malloy is now in his 6th year as governor, so it's a bit late to discover this long standing problem. Still, better late than never, and at least he has belatedly recognized, unlike his colleagues in the state assembly, that they can't just keep raising taxes ad infinitum, as the unions and their supplicants in the Democratic leadership in the assembly wish to do.

The real answer of course is not layoffs of workers that are not all that well paid to begin with, but a major restructuring that will take out a lot of the dead wood that presumably exists at the upper levels, drawing high salaries. Of course, this is impossible with union seniority rules. I really don't believe in the concept of unions for public employees; I think there's a fundamental conflict of interest when you have the unions heavily engaged in politics and therefore picking their bosses, while the public interest is kicked to the back of the line, to be considered last if at all. A public union is fundamentally different than a private one.