There’s a lot to be said for not being the first person into a burning building.
Connecticut politicians can thank their brethren around the country who are tackling some of the seemingly unsolvable problems of governance — things like massive budget deficits, unfunded pension liabilities, entitled public employee unions and mandated costs — ahead of the pols in Hartford.
It’s a double-edged sword. Sure, they take the heat if they screw it up. But they also get the glory if they do the job well. And they set a high bar for those who follow.
Two examples lie just to our west.
The ever-colorful New York Post tabloid newspaper headlined that state’s budget compromise thusly: “Pigs Fly!”
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat whose father once held the same job, is taking bows for closing a budget deficit of more than $10 billion on time and without a tax hike. The secret sauce is that Cuomo cut spending by 2 percent and resisted the pleas for special treatment from the traditional Democratic power brokers in the Empire State — the teachers.
Cuomo’s feat of magic in a deeply Blue state is similar to one pulled off by Chris Christie, a Republican, in New Jersey. It’s tempting to say Christie’s task was easier because there actually are Republican officeholders in New Jersey. But in reality, he made hard choices about the limits of the government’s ability to solve every problem in a troubled state.
Both Cuomo and Christie are being richly rewarded with national media attention and talk of upward trending presidential aspirations.
Gov. Dannel Malloy would surely like to be part of that scene. He made his mark recently on MSNBC’s nationally broadcast show “Morning Joe,” by boldly proclaiming Connecticut businesses are behind his budget proposal. There’s some question about the accuracy of that statement (take our poll on Page 3).
But while Malloy may be trailing the race for glory today, the finish line is still off in the distance. And he has the chance to benefit from the trailblazers.
Perhaps there are some things Connecticut’s governor can learn here.
Both used the power of the argument that the crisis is real, dire and immediate to sway opinion. Malloy certainly understands that.
But both Cuomo and Christie focused their efforts on working legislative levers to reach a deal in a tricky political environment. Malloy instead is embarked on a seemingly endless listening tour in which he’s hearing 17 choruses of the same song in public hearings and in plant tours. In the long-run, that personal touch may pay off. But if he can’t convince the vast majority of Democrats in the legislature to swallow his whole program, he may be left with quite a mess.
Both Cuomo and Christie studied the options and focused on what they could alter — state spending. Certainly some will argue that they shredded the safety net that Malloy so loudly promises to maintain. Others will argue cutting education spending, no matter how inefficient it may be, is an error. But the reality is these two governors reined in programs. Malloy has chosen to rest his plan on asking public employees to donate $2 billion to the cause. How’s that working? The few hints leaking out under a thick blackout curtain suggest not well.
And most importantly, Cuomo and Christie balanced their budgets without any tax increases, quite the opposite of Malloy’s $1.5 billion plan to enact the largest tax hike in the state’s history.
Early on, Malloy made an effective joke out of not having read the owner’s manual for his new job. Christie and Cuomo have given him a second chance to read up. Let’s hope he takes it before it’s too late.
