Politics & Government
Logan declares voters feel crushed by soaring inflation
Likely Fifth District Republican congressional nominee emphasizes need to reduce federal budget deficit
George Logan Jahana Hayes Joe Biden Dominic Rapini
Kenny Curran Chris Lancia Jonathan Wharton Chris Murphy
By Scott Benjamin
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WATERBURY – Republican challenger George Logan says the most discussed topic among voters in the Fifth Congressional District is rising prices for bread, prunes and a tank of gas – a spiral that he insists can be largely attributed to the $1.9 trillion stimulus package that was approved last year.
“They throw as much money at this problem as possible,” he said of incumbent two-term Democrat Jahana Hayes of Wolcott and the other Democrats that supported the package after Republican former President Donald Trump had signed a $900 billion plan just months earlier.
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The January 7.5 percent inflation rate is the highest in 40 years and nearly four times the size of the Federal Reserve Board’s target of two percent.
Logan said that he “would never close the door” on the Federal Reserve Board increasing interest rates if it would reduce inflation.
“The Federal Reserve certainly plays a part in that,” he explained. He said that Democratic President Joe Biden also should talk to the major manufacturers as some previous presidents have done during stretches of high inflation.
“Inflation is crushing families and small businesses,” Logan remarked in an interview with Patch.com
Last June the U.S. Senate approved by a 68 to 32 vote $250 billion in the United States Innovation and Competition Act to boost semiconductor production as America competes with China.
The legislation has not yet been considered in the U.S. House.
Logan said he is willing to consider “any legislation that will help the overarching supply chain issue.”
However, he added, “Why are not enough semiconductors being built in the United States now. It is too expensive to build them in the United States,” because of costs and regulations.
The national unemployment rate is at 4.0 percent, lower than it ever was under former presidents Ronald Reagan or Barack Obama. The Wall Street Journal has reported that there was record job growth in 2021. Politico has stated that, “The economy grew at a blistering 5.5 percent rate in 2021.”
“It is not improving at the rate that it should,” Logan said regarding Biden’s economic policies.
Logan indicated that the labor statistics are not including the considerable number of people who are no longer seeking work.
Nick Timiraos, the Wall Street Journal’s chief economics correspondent, recently wrote that the federal debt increased by $5 trillion between February 2020 and June 2021. New York Times columnist Bret Stephens has stated that the federal debt has grown from $20 trillion in 2017 to $30 trillion now.
Logan - a former two-term state senator who lives in Ansonia, just outside the Fifth District - called for deficit reduction.
“You start with balanced budgets,” he declared. “Even if you don’t achieve that, you have to work towards that.”
The last balanced federal budget was submitted by Democratic former President Bill Clinton on October 1, 2020 – nearly 22 years ago.
With record deficits, how do you balance the budget?
“Curbing some programs,” said Logan. “Eliminating some programs and maybe increasing some programs. Where are we spending the money that we already have? If we eliminate waste then taxes will be reduced.”
He said that he is “adamantly opposed” to increasing taxes.
Logan added that he is “proud” to have been part of the 2017 Connecticut state bipartisan budget agreement that imposed spending and volatility caps. He said that package has set the state “on a path toward fiscal stability.”
As for the district’s economic growth, recently-elected state Rep. Bill Pizzuto (R-71) of Middlebury told Patch.com that he believes that in Waterbury – the district’s largest city and the fifth biggest in the state – the hospitals, the municipal government and the banks will continue to be major sources for employment.
Logan said he agreed, and added, “I’d like to bring more manufacturing into the area, particularly an area like Waterbury that has the infrastructure for it.”
“We cannot attract companies to come,” he said, pointing to excessive regulations and high state taxes.
On foreign policy, Logan said Biden should have “imposed sanctions earlier” on Russia as it moved toward invading the Ukraine.
“It certainly looks like he wants to destabilize Ukraine,” he said in reference to Russian leader Vladimir Putin. “You have a foreign leader who is making a mockery of agreements. That’s problematic.”
Regarding the campaign across the large array of municipalities that stretch from northern Fairfield County to the Massachusetts border, Logan has been endorsed by 17 Republican Town committees and is considered the prohibitive favorite to capture the Republican nomination at the convention on May 5. The only other GOP candidate is Michelle Botelho of Danbury.
The Hartford Courant reported recently that national Republicans had just targeted Hayes in an attack ad. Logan also has announced that his campaign has been recognized as a Young Gun by the National Republican Congressional Committee, which underscores that the Fifth District race is on its radar.
Connecticut has not elected a Republican congressman since 2006 when Chris Shays of Bridgeport captured his final term in the Fourth District.
“The Republican national groups are looking at a district in Connecticut. That is interesting,” said Southern Connecticut State University Political Science Professor Jonathan Wharton, a former New Haven Republican Town Committee chairman, in a phone interview with Patch.com.
“Part of the reason the national Republicans are interested is because of George Logan,” said GOP operative Chris Lancia of Milford, who managed Margaret Streicker’s 2020 campaign in the Third Congressional District.
“He is a fierce campaigner,” Lancia remarked in a phone interview with Patch.com. “He brings a lot to the table.”
Logan said it is not just that Hayes has voted in step with the progressive Democrats in what he describes as a “moderate to conservative” congressional district.
He declared that she is “rarely” at events in the district. “She is not an active member of the community.”
Waterbury Democratic Town Committee Chairman Kenny Curran disagreed.
“She’s one of the fastest studies I’ve seen in politics,’ he said in a phone interview with Patch.com.
Hayes, the 2016 national Teacher of the Year, had never run before for office when she entered the campaign in 2018 just weeks before the convention. Former U.S. Rep. Elizabeth Esty (D-5) of Cheshire had announced less than a month earlier that she would not seek a fourth term.
Said Curran, “One of the things that separates Jahana from other politicians is that she has a true interest in learning from the people she represents as to what is important to them. Her work in helping our small farmers in the district has been critical.”
Robert Marconi of Brookfield, a state assistant attorney general and the Democratic convention nominee in the Fifth District in 2004, said Hayes has “excellent people skills.”
“When you speak with her she is looking right at you, she isn’t looking at the person standing behind you,” Marconi related in a phone interview with Patch.com. “She makes you feel important.”
Since the 1972 election the voters in the Fifth District have elected nine congressmen – five Democrats and four Republicans. The Democrats have controlled the district for the last 16 years – the longest consecutive stretch for either party over that span.
The Sabato Crystal ball rates the Fifth District as “Likely Democratic” for 2022.
Has the district become more Democratic since it underwent a major reconfiguration starting with the 2002 election when Connecticut lost a congressional seat and parts of the former Fifth and Sixth districts were merged?
Curran, who managed U.S. Sen. Chris Murphy’s (D-Hartford) races in the Fifth District in 2008 and 2010, commented, “It is hard to say. There are a lot of Republican elected officials in the Fifth District. I think what has happened is that the Democrats have sent candidates to Congress who have appealed to voters throughout the district.”
However, Dominic Rapini of Branford, who is seeking the Republican nomination for Secretary of the State, recently told Patch.com that with 20 towns flipping from Democrat to Republican in the 2021 municipal elections and a growing number of Hispanic voters “coming to our ranks,” it should be a banner year for the Republicans in Connecticut.
As campaign manager, Curran said he faced similar circumstances with Murphy during a mid-term election.
“The most reflective example was 2010,” Curran said, when nationally Democrats lost 63 U.S. House seats and Tea Party members were posting “Murphy Must Go” lawn signs and demonstrating outside his public events.
Murphy won a third term with 53.7 percent of the vote.
Curran declared, “That shows that the voters in the Fifth District don’t necessarily follow national trends.”
Logan has begun ramping up operations with the recent hiring of Republican operative Paul Amarone as his campaign manager.
Said Logan, “We’re doing a lot of fund-raising. Fund-raising is extremely important so that I can compete with all the money that Jahana Hayes has received and will be receiving from those Nancy Pelosi-backed PACs.”
So, you need to raise a figure that is bigger than a breadbox?
“It’s much bigger than a breadbox,” Logan said.
What number are we talking about?
“There is no solid number,” Logan remarked. “You can look at the past. There are some congressional races that are run on $500,000 and some at $3 million. We need to raise as much as possible.”
Former Congressman Jim Maloney, the Danbury Democrat who held the seat from 1997 to 2003, once said that to win a congressional seat the challenger usually has to raise at least 80 percent of what the incumbent has, but that isn’t required when the tide is running against the incumbent.
New York Times columnist David Brooks recently stated, “At the start of 2021 Democrats had a nine-point advantage when you asked voters to name their party preference. By the end of 2021 Republicans had a five-point advantage.”
Is the tide running against the incumbent?
Logan said, “Everyone is tired of the status quo. That is what I’m hearing across the board throughout the Fifth District.”
Resources:
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/21/opinion/biden-trump-mcconnell.html
https://www.wsj.com/articles/march-2020-how-the-fed-averted-economic-disaster-11645199788
https://www.wsj.com/articles/why-this-economic-boom-cant-lift-americas-spirits-11645544670
Dominic Rapini interview with Patch.com on Monday, February 21, 2022
https://patch.com/connecticut/brookfield/fifth-congressional-district-swinging-again
https://patch.com/connecticut/brookfield/pizzuto-says-crime-voters-minds-special-election-race
