Connecticut ping!
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Posted on 02/07/2007 10:20:32 PM PST by nutmeg
Words like "historic" and "brilliant" flew around the state Capitol Wednesday as legislators struggled to absorb details of Gov. M. Jodi Rell's two-year, $35.8 billion budget plan, which includes proposals for record-setting increases in education spending.
The question was, were Democrats or members of her own party more taken aback?
"I have to take a pill," Sen. William Nickerson said to a Greenwich Republican colleague after the governor's speech.
Rell called Wednesday for education spending that would break the state-mandated spending cap and lead to a 10 percent increase in the state income tax. In doing so, she co-opted traditional Democratic issues such as education, but also increased her leverage in dealing with a potentially hostile legislature that has veto-proof majorities in both chambers.
Normally, a governor facing a General Assembly dominated by the opposing political party could be seen in a weakened position, but insiders said Rell helped herself Wednesday.
"Frankly, you could just put a Democratic head on her shoulders because it sounded more like a Democratic response to major issues in our state," said Rep. Christopher Caruso, a Bridgeport Democrat. "It was a brilliant political move. Here she is surrounded by 107 Democrats in the House, realizing that her veto is meaningless."
Throughout her 22-year public career as a legislator, lieutenant governor and governor, Rell has been known to many as a fiscal conservative. As such, Republicans were flabbergasted by her plans to raise taxes and to raise both education spending and the income tax over five years by $3.4 billion.
(Excerpt) Read more at courant.com ...
That's pretty much how I felt after hearing Jodi Rell's speech yesterday, Senator...
Connecticut ping!
Please Freepmail me if you want on or off my infrequent Connecticut ping list.
So let me get this straight. Why is it that Connecticut Republicans worked so hard to elect this woman? I thought the whole idea behind backing a social liberal was to get fiscal conservatism as a payoff. Now she's become a social liberal and a fiscal liberal -- she's basically Barney Frank in drag. How is she any better than John DeStefano would have been?
She's following the California model.
Is she an Arnold Republican?
At least Arnold veto some gay-marriage measure. I wonder if she did similar thing.
When are folks going to wake up and smell the horse manure ? There IS no such thing as a social liberal/fiscal Conservative, they are a contradiction in terms. Rell will ensure the GOP continues to become a larger and larger minority party (meaning fewer and fewer seats) and a rodent to succeed her. RINO politicians will always be a cancer on the party, eating it alive until it's dead.
Jodi Rell makes the Austrian look like Attila the Hun. She's so left she couldn't be elected as a Democrat in half the country -- yet she campaigned with the full support of conservatives. Go figure.
What else is she going to do against a veto proof majority? She could stall, but they might fight for even more.
Number one democrat lie: throwing money at problems solves problems.
I was told Walt Disney once said that when they are running you out of town, grab a baton and lead the parade.
Except in this case, the "democrat" is actually Connecticut's Republican Governor.
"I thought the whole idea behind backing a social liberal was to get fiscal conservatism as a payoff."
This is almost always the trade off. And it is ass-backwards. There are plenty of social CONSERVATIVES who are fiscally liberal because they believe very firmly in public education and social welfare. They oppose abortion. They don't like gay marriage. They are usually pro-military and nationalist. Many are called "Catholics". Indeed, Hispanics are properly described as being mostly socially conservative and mostly fiscally liberal.
Republican conservatives have always recognized that trying to get socially AND fiscally conservative folks elected in half the country is impossible, so they've made the tradeoff. The tradeoff has almost invariably been made in favor of MONEY and against morality - hence the willingness to elect social liberals so long as they are fiscal conservatives. This is the immoral position, showing an immoderate Republican love of money, over even morality, when it comes right down to it. By contrast, if the Republicans took the OTHER tack: we are WILLING to accept higher taxes and more robust social welfare, but we are NOT willing to accept abortion, gay marriage and bashing the USA, there is a much greater constituency for that.
But the ugly truth laying at the core of this is that the love of money supersedes the love of morality, and when given the choice between the two, the GOP as a group will accept social liberalism as long as they can keep their cash. The other way around, accepting fiscal liberalism and social welfare coupled with strong moral standards, would lead to a much more functional society (as in: the schools would teach moral standards and enforce them), and would have a lot more Hispanics and Catholics voting for the Republican party, giving them the power.
But honestly, most Republicans love their money more than they hate abortion and gay marriage, so they WON'T accept fiscal liberalism. But they'll accept social liberalism.
Of course, the knock on to all of that is that social/moral liberalism leads to the NEED FOR government programs to take care of all of the people psychologically broken by it, and that inevitably drives fiscal liberalism.
Voir Rell. And Schwarzenegger. And Nixon and Ford.
"There IS no such thing as a social liberal/fiscal Conservative, they are a contradiction in terms."
That is true, but the reverse is NOT true.
There ARE millions upon millions of SOCIAL conservatives who are FISCAL liberals. And on THAT basis, you can build a party and keep the country from going to hell.
Superbly stated and true!
I was about to say that of the example of social Conservatives/fiscal liberals. Frankly, what those are are pre-1968 urban Democrats. Obviously, that combo is preferable than liberal all around, but there will still be enormous consequences for reckless spending... somebody will have to pay the piper.
I think in the years to come we are going to have to take a lot of pills and grow stronger stomach's with what the Marxist plan for the Republic once they gain full control.
"I was about to say that of the example of social Conservatives/fiscal liberals. Frankly, what those are are pre-1968 urban Democrats. Obviously, that combo is preferable than liberal all around, but there will still be enormous consequences for reckless spending... somebody will have to pay the piper."
If the spending is reckless, yes.
But quite a bit of social spending isn't reckless at all. It's expensive, but relatively cheaper than the alternatives. For example: spending the money to redouble staffs and controls in inner city schools spends a lot more on teachers' salaries and staffs, no doubt about it. But it would save quite a few kids whose only exposure to anybody rational who cares are in the schools. If the kids are saved there, by the state being their nanny through the education process (which they have to get anyway), they will end up having a foundation and being usefully insertable in society. Currently, the schools do not bear nearly enough of the parenting burden in those areas where there are no family lives and the children's live in chaotic conditions with drug-addicted mothers, etc. Institutionally, a lot of these kids could be helped, but the supervision is expensive and has to be stepped up far, far more than it is. The result? More than half of the boys end up in prison. It costs more to house, clothe and feed a prisoner for the bulk of the rest of his adult life than it does to educate and protect a child, and that doesn't count the additional costs and trauma of crime, insurance premia, blighted neighborhoods, etc. Not doing anything, or not doing enough on the expensive education side does not, in the end, save money. It costs many multiples of the money that would have been spent on strong educational institutionals that effectively raise inner-city kids.
A comparable thing is the interstate highway system. It was budgeted as a "National defnese" project, but that was subterfuge for a massive public wiork. It's free. But it's paid itself many times over in increased economic strength.
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