Two bits of recent political theater are shining examples of what’s going wrong here in the Land of Steady Habits.
Legislators were faced with two sticky topics — the state’s budget was about to exceed the constitutional spending cap and efforts to include power generated by water in Quebec in an effort to meet the state’s commitment to renewable energy had environmentalists and the solar industry stirred up.
In both cases, key stakeholders — taxpayers, ratepayers, voters — had no real voice. And therein lies the problem: Too many legislators are focused on lavishing dollars on special interests, not on serving the interests of those they’re elected to represent.
When a couple of senators with some respect for the rule of law objected to changing the constitutional spending limit, the majority just pushed around them so that there would be no slowing of the state’s spending juggernaut. They redefined federal Medicaid reimbursements out of the spending equation. Changing the rules to suit your immediate needs is bad policy and disregards the taxpayers’ interests.
The state has already set itself on a course to similar trouble by legislating that 20 percent of its power would come from renewable sources by 2020. While it’s a great way to create green credentials, it’s not realistic and it sets up a choice between changing the rules later or sending already high utility rates into the stratosphere.
Legislators seemed surprised to learn there isn’t much renewable energy being produced in Connecticut. So cooler heads suggested counting imported hydro.
Is that a retreat from solar? Maybe. But it’s a bow toward today’s reality. The fact is that solar isn’t competitive today and, without another scientific breakthrough or adverse global event, likely won’t be competitive by 2020.
How much are Connecticut ratepayers — residential and business — willing to pay to subsidize solar? Nobody knows because nobody asked them.
Bipartisan has become one of those in vogue, buzz words. Like motherhood and apple pie, everybody is in favor of bipartisan solutions. We just have a little trouble defining what that looks like.
Take Connecticut U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy announcing a new task force charged with figuring out what federal help this state needs to overcome its appalling lack of job growth. In Murphy’s world, all solutions involve federal largesse. So he has invoked the bipartisan word to lure both management — in the form of CBIA and some manufacturer trade groups — and labor into a room to rehash the obvious and figure out what to request from Uncle Sam.
Over at the Capitol, representatives of the governor and legislative Democrats huddle in secret to broker a budget deal that, earlier in the session, was to be a bipartisan document. Apparently in this context bipartisan is defined as “spenders” and “big spenders.”
Our system of governance was devised on the principles of open debate and compromise. In a closed environment where new ideas are tested for ideological purity first, good government is not the normal byproduct. It’s true in deeply red states as well as deeply blue ones.
It’s a shame we have to keep learning the lesson the hard way.
