News item: Pratt & Whitney decides to close facilities in Cheshire and East Hartford, sending 1,000 jobs to Georgia and overseas.
News item: Forbes.com ranks Connecticut 35th in how friendly it is toward business, putting it near the bottom in four of six major categories.
The frustrating thing about these news items, which of course are closely related, is that there is no good reason either.
We know Connecticut is an expensive place to live or operate a business.
In itself, that fact is understandable. The state offers a tremendous quality of life, great cultural opportunities, outstanding public schools and a highly educated work force.
That all comes with a price.
The frustration comes from the fact that our elected leaders don’t seem to realize that the state is risking its standing as a premier place to live and work by failing to address the question of how to keep jobs in Connecticut while maintaining a high quality of life.
Every time a company ships jobs to another state or out of the country, Connecticut slips a spot.
Each time a small business closes, Connecticut suffers.
For every young family that decides the state is just too expensive to live in, Connecticut becomes a poorer place to live.
Here’s what John Hoeven, the governor of North Dakota, said about his state’s economic strategy, which earned it high marks from Forbes.com:
“Our No. 1 focus has been and continues to be economic development. When we came into office at the end of 2000, we started right then with a very aggressive economic development plan. We not only did a strategic plan where we brought people into the process from around the state, including higher education, the economic development community, obviously the private sector — we did a very comprehensive plan with goals and benchmarks.
We targeted five industries for growth, industries where we have natural advantages in North Dakota: value-added agriculture, advanced manufacturing, technology-based businesses, energy and tourism. “
Now, Connecticut is not North Dakota. And many of Hoeven’s priorities would not be Connecticut’s priorities.
But the point is that he had a plan from the first moment he took office and that he brought to the table a number of constituents who would typically be considered competitors for public funding.
Connecticut, by contrast, just released its first strategic economic plan earlier this month.
Connecticut’s political leaders, from Gov. M. Jodi Rell to the Democratic leadership to the Republican leadership, just don’t think the way Hoeven does.
They are busy placating their respective special interests.
In this state, being a legislative Democrat seems to mean that all you are concerned about is increasing taxes on high earners and providing enough funding for social service agencies or education.
Being a Republican seems to mean all you are concerned about is opposing Democratic spending plans that are inevitably going to pass.
Connecticut’s leaders can make economic growth a priority without sacrificing their core political beliefs.
Maybe the next junket state lawmakers take ought to be to North Dakota instead of Las Vegas.
