For months now, Tea Party members and conservatives of a less strident tone have been working the theme that government isn’t listening.
There’s a lot of evidence to support that position but Connecticut election results do not fall in that category. Here, voters spoke loudly but incoherently. Again.
Consider:
• We’re angry at Congress but we’re sending our entire delegation back, defusing predictions of gains by the Republicans.
• Faced with a gubernatorial choice between two guys who threw mud by the bucket, we left it to the SEIU’s get-out-the-vote effort to decide a winner.
• In contrast, voters faced with two civil, qualified guys who offered a clear choice in State Senate District 4, also split 50-50.
So what are we to take from this?
First, as a state, we’re badly divided on how to move forward. Tom Foley’s no-tax message resonated late. But Dan Malloy’s union support — the kind that inhibits efforts to cut state spending — carried the day. We don’t like nasty campaigns or robocalls but we’re at a loss on how to reduce either. Pollsters got it mostly right but in an age of increasing mobile phone use, their days may be numbered.
On one hand, Connecticut Democrats have carte blanche to enact their policies without any effective check, despite the fact the “mandate” is but a few thousand votes. On the other, Washington now has a very effective blockade preventing any movement.
None of that is good for any of us.
If there is a silver lining here it comes in the form of some level of certainty for the business community. Certainty in the commercial environment is always seen as a good thing by business. And this kind of certainty likely will test that axiom.
It seems certain that when the legislature returns it will be no more friendly to business. It will be in a tax-writing mood and both business and high-earning individuals are inviting targets. (Read: sitting ducks.) Taxing Internet sales will likely pop up again. Paid sick leave legislation seems a certainty. So does some effort to collapse/comingle some of the state’s myriad economic development organizations.
If anyone is truly happy with the results, beyond the immediate families of the winners and their staffs, it’s got to be the alternative energy industry, which stands to benefit from renewed efforts to legislate lower energy costs, and state employee unions, who now face a shave rather than a decapitation.
On the national level, gridlock seems certain. Expect no more bailouts for school districts and municipal governments, meaning more of a burden falls back on the ill-equipped state.
Look for some municipal bankruptcies to result across the land. Expect such an epic showdown over raising the nation’s debt ceiling that a short government shutdown is not out of the question.
Some Bush-era tax cuts will survive, perhaps even the inheritance tax break. Even as alternative energy gets a boost at the state level, meaningful climate reform is dead on the bigger stage. The much discussed repeal of “ObamaCare” will be run up the flagpole but won’t pass. Look for limited and ongoing tweaks instead so that each side can save face on this hot-button issue
And we can all come back and try again in 2012.
