Five months and three and a half weeks after she pledged to balance the budget with no new tax increases, Gov. M. Jodi Rell acknowledged it can’t be done. Why did it take so long? What was the point of the exercise? All these months later it’s hard to discern the reasoning that went into the initial strategy.
In February, when she presented her budget proposal, the governor had two positions to choose from. She could be honest with everyone, explain that Connecticut was facing the most difficult fiscal crisis in state history, tell us that the only way to get back on track would be to cut spending and raise taxes, and then she could have presented a conservative plan that put a heavy emphasis on smart spending cuts and tax increases that were grounded in fairness.
The other path is the one she took. Facing a House and Senate controlled by Democrats, with veto-proof margins, and looking back at the criticism she faced from her own party when she proposed an income tax increase in 2007, she decided to take a politically popular but unrealistic stand against any tax increases at all. The political bet being that if she could hold to her no-tax-increase pledge, she would ultimately force Democrats to pass their own budget — including tax increases — over her veto. Her hands would be clean and she would be able to claim she fought for all of us on the side of no tax increases, but was unfortunately out numbered.
Immediately following her announcement that taxes would have to go up, some observers concluded she switched her position because of a recent Quinnipiac University poll showing most state residents favor higher taxes on the rich. Although Rell has demonstrated an affinity for maintaining high approval ratings, I doubt that had anything to do with it.
Most polling data on tax policy is useless. Of course most people favor taxing the rich, because most people don’t consider themselves rich. Tax smokers? Why not? I don’t smoke. If the choice is between spending cuts and tax increases, of course most people are going to favor spending cuts first.
Rell’s July move toward tax increases was rooted in the tactic behind her February budget proposal. In order to offer a balanced budget with no tax increases, she had to purposefully underestimate the size of the projected deficit. This outraged Democrats, who felt they were being set up on the tax issue. They were right, but it was hard to get anyone to listen to the argument that Jodi Rell was being dishonest. Too many people don’t see her that way.
Ultimately, it led to passage of a bill that required the legislature and the governor to come to a consensus on the size of the budget deficit and re-submit balanced budget plans based on that estimate. It is telling that the governor vetoed the bill and the legislature had to override her veto. She had to be forced, by law, to face the truth.
Although Rell still maintains some of the highest approval ratings of any governor in the country, the spectacle surrounding this year’s budget certainly does not reflect well on her. She took a position against tax increases that could never be sustained in face of the problem the state is facing. That position led to a seven-month stalemate during which almost no progress was made toward fundamentally changing the size of state government. The governor’s strategy failed to deliver a well-reasoned result and damaged her legacy.
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Dean Pagani is a former gubernatorial advisor. He is vice president of public affairs for Cashman and Katz Integrated Communications in Glastonbury.
