This column is not about Rob Simmons. If you are going to have a state business advocate, it might as well be Rob.
The simple fact is we do not need a business advocate because that role should be filled by existing people and institutions within state government.
State government as a whole should be a business advocate. Instead, the General Assembly seems committed to finding ways to make it more difficult to do business in Connecticut every year.
From an executive branch perspective, the governor should be the state’s chief business advocate. She controls the Department of Economic and Community Development, the Connecticut Development Authority, Connecticut Innovations and a whole group of small agencies and programs that are supposed to help grow business.
One former congressman, making $75,000 a year can do very little to make a difference.
As is the case with the creation of many special government offices and task forces, the position of business advocate seems to have been born out of a sense of frustration with the current system. Despite the millions the state pours into various agencies created to make Connecticut a great place to do business, it doesn’t seem to be working. Job growth is not what we expect or want it to be.
Growth Happens
Rob Simmons is supposed to come in and help make things happen. Tell us what’s wrong, tell us what we need to do, tell us how government can build a stronger economy. The solution will almost certainly include more government.
For starters, at some point Rob will need more money for staff and studies. His office will grow. His staff and his studies will then discover the need to pump more money into other economic development agencies and programs. There will be a slight uptick in business for consultants and an almost imperceptible bump in the number of government employees. Most of his proposals will be rejected by the legislature because they will be viewed as corporate welfare.
There is potential personal downside for Rob Simmons, too. The business community will almost certainly look to him as the guy who can “make a deal” on behalf of the state. He will lobby for lower taxes for us. He will find a way to smooth things out with the regulatory agencies. He will cut corners. He will propose programs the business community loves and the Democrat-controlled legislature hates.
It won’t take long for him to be accused of making sweetheart deals or being in the pocket of the business community. It may not be long before he gets a letter from the attorney general or the governor complaining about his “egregious disregard for consumers and the taxpayers.” They will demand an explanation from him. The editorial pages will say he is overzealous. He won’t be able to help any businesses in the second congressional district, because they may have once contributed to his campaigns for congress.
Get Smaller
The new office of business advocate is not one we need or should want as taxpayers.
Instead of growing the economic development bureaucracy of the state by adding new agencies with duplicative missions, we should be trimming the agencies we have, redefining their missions and asking the legislature and the governor to throw out failed policies and come up with new ones.
The economic development buck should stop with the governor and legislators. They are the policy makers we have elected to do the job. We did not elect them to pass the buck to an appointed advocate they can blame for their failed policies.n
Dean Pagani is a former gubernatorial advisor. He is V.P. of Public Affairs for Cashman and Katz Integrated Communications in Glastonbury.
