🔒Malloy’s economic record mixed

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy surprised few people with his announcement April 13th that he won't run for a third term.

With an approval rating hovering around 29 percent, there is no clear path to victory for the Democratic governor, even though the election is still more than a year away.

As he heads into his final year-and-a-half in office, Malloy so far has established a mixed economic legacy.

He's tried to be a pro-business governor, aggressively working to keep companies in the state through tax breaks, grants and other incentives. He's also made long-term investments in bioscience, transportation and higher-ed that aim to build and accommodate Connecticut's economy of the future.

But he's presided over a painfully slow-growing Connecticut economy that has still failed to recover all the 119,000 jobs lost during the Great Recession. He also pioneered two of the largest tax hikes in Connecticut history, which have failed to put the state on a path toward fiscal stability or provide avenues for long-term job growth.

Our regulatory environment remains overly burdensome.

Grading Malloy's performance is no easy task. His critics, who are many now, point to the state's lackluster growth and continued fiscal crisis as evidence of failed leadership.

But we can't deny Malloy inherited a state in fiscal disrepair not of his own making. We also can't deny that Malloy has failed to deliver long-term fixes.

The truth is, there hasn't been and won't be a magic bullet to solving Connecticut's huge debt and unfunded liabilities that are the main instigators to our budget deficits. To his credit, Malloy has taken steps to shrink the size of state government and curb some spending, but he hasn't wrung enough short- and long-term savings out of state employee unions — which are likely to retain their political power and influence long after Malloy leaves office.

He still has time to redeem himself. As part of his current proposed two-year budget, which seeks to close a $3.6 billion deficit, Malloy is asking for $1.6 billion in union concessions over two years. It's a big number some predict is impossible to achieve, but Malloy has threatened to lay off up to 4,200 state employees if his demands aren't meant.

Malloy said he plans to expend any and all the political capital he has left with lawmakers before he leaves office. We have no doubt the hard-charging former mayor of Stamford will continue to push his agenda, and try to implement his recent prescription of fiscal austerity.

If his final two-year budget creates a more sustainable fiscal future, the epilogue to Malloy's biography could be much different than if it was written today.

He must, however, not give in to new or higher taxes, something influential state employee unions and some Democrats are demanding.

Malloy was never going to be a popular governor. Beyond his prickly personality, the state's structural fiscal crisis meant Malloy would have to make tough decisions that would anger constituents of all stripes. He's certainly done that, and while we disagree with some of his policy remedies, we do applaud his efforts to begin to truly address some of our budget maladies that other governors overlooked because it was politically unpopular. That includes taking steps to address our state's massive unfunded retiree pension and healthcare costs.

At his press conference announcing he wouldn't seek a third term, Malloy said his administration has always “tried to play the long-game for Connecticut, not doing what is politically expedient.” We agree with that in some respects, although he has included fiscal gimmicks and overly ambitious economic projections into some of his budgets causing them to fall out of balance nearly as soon as they were adopted.

Let's see if his last act as governor commits to better and more sustainable budget practices. His legacy depends on it.