Stevenson declares Democrat stimulus caused inflation

Jayme Stevenson Jim Himes Joe Biden

Susan Collins Chris Shays Fourth Congressional District

By Scott Benjamin

DARIEN – Jayme Stevenson – the former first selectman of this town of 22,000 people - says it was shortly after the schools had closed and the masks were mandated that she “realized that our government didn’t know how to manage our economy during the pandemic.”

“I drove down the Post Road and all of my small, family-owned stores were shuttered,” she recalled. “Yet, I could go half a mile down the road and Wal-Mart and the other big box stores were open”

“Government, for the first time in my life, was responsible for picking economic winners and losers,” Stevenson lamented.

“There was a snowball effect,” she declared. “The U.S. government realized how much damage they were doing to the U.S. economy and figured they needed to stimulate, and what they did was overstimulate the economy.”

“Inflation has become a problem for us due to the pandemic,and the policies that were put in place to keep the economy going,” remarked Stevenson, who stepped down last year after 10 years as the town’s chief elected municipal official and is now seeking the Republican nomination in the Fourth Congressional District, which covers 17 municipalities in the southwest part of the state.

Stevenson is favored to win the GOP convention nomination on May 5. She has two opponents - Michael Goldstein of Greenwich and Ethan Book of Bridgeport.

Stevenson said that she hopes to avoid a primary and immediately set her sights on unseating 14-year Democratic incumbent Jim Himes, who lives in the Cos Cob section of Greenwich. Stevenson placed third in a three-way primary in 2018 for the Republican nomination for lieutenant governor.

A recent CNBC survey indicated that nationally, inflation, - which soared to 8.5 percent in March, – the highest rate since December 1981 - is the top issue for voters.

Stevenson said it is the issue she hears most frequently while campaigning.

She remarked, “Over the last number of years there have been efforts to raise wages, raise the minimum wage, and all of these gains have been lost with the rise of inflation. Food, gas, diapers and baby formula cost about 10 percent more today than a year ago.”

“Democrats are great at, ‘Let’s throw money at a problem and maybe we can fix it,’ “ she said. “It is a lack of understanding of the economy. What happens when you overstimulate? It leads to inflationary conditions when supply chains were broken and when one war was theoretically ending in Afghanistan and another was about to break out in Ukraine,” she remarked.

U.S. Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME.) told Democratic President Joe Biden days after he took office that she could produce 10 Republican senators who would support $600 billion in additional stimulus. This was about a month after Republican former President Donald Trump had signed a $900 billion package. Trump also had approved the $2.2 trillion CARES Act nine before that during the early days of the pandemic.

Biden declined Collins’ offer and a short time later through reconciliation procedures signed the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan stimulus package.

Would it have been better to accept the $600 billion package? Would it have been better to have done nothing?

“I think if we had not done anything further the situation would have been better today,” Stevenson declared in an interview with Patch.com.

“Most people are predicting that we’re not going to see any relief from that in the near term because of things that are exacerbating inflation on the global stage,” she said.

“This is a different kind of inflation,” Stevenson commented. “When have we ever had inflation driven by both domestic and foreign problems, and at the same time we have supply chain issues, and we can’t forget to talk about labor issues.”

She said manufacturers tell her there “is more than enough work, but we can’t find skilled labor.”

Said Stevenson, “I think we’ll see increases in interest rates” by the Federal Reserve Board to combat inflation. She said that would raise mortgage rates, which “will send the housing prices through the roof” after some New Yorkers left during the pandemic to move to the wealthy Fairfield County Gold Coast.

Stevenson said also she is concerned about the allocation of some of the funds from the $1.9 billion American Rescue Plan.

“I don’t think there has been a real accounting of all the money that has been spent to date,” she said. “Not just nationwide, but here in Connecticut as well.”

“While I was in office we got a small amount of money from the American Rescue Plan, and we had to come up with a plan on how to spent it,” Stevenson commented. “And I can tell you that towns across the state of Connecticut made the stuff up on how to spend it.”

She continued, “Some of it went to worthy causes, such as to help bolster the public health departments and bolster policies and systems related to the issues from the pandemic. But I can tell you a tremendous amount of that money went to frivolous projects and ideas, and much of it has yet to be spent. It was too much, too soon.”:

In an e-mail statement to Patch.com, Francesca Capodilupo, Himes’ campaign manager, wrote, “Towns all over the Fourth District are using American Rescue Plan funds to improve the lives of their residents. Westport is replacing the Burying Hill jetty and renovating the Aspetuck Health District. Greenwich is addressing flooding in Pemberwick Park. Norwalk is building greener infrastructure to promote walkability, green space, and livability.”

How has the pandemic changed the businesses in the Fourth Congressional District?

“There is more of a demand for small office space in towns like Darien,” said Stevenson. “Large corporations are looking for space” for satellite offices to oversee the greater number of employees who now work from home.

Stevenson said the Democrats have boasted about “the record number of jobs they created over the last number of months. However, there were 22 million jobs lost during the pandemic. So you have to do the simple math. You have to look at all the jobs lost versus what has been gained.”

On a separate subject, the 2017 Trump tax reform package reduced the maximum income tax deduction to just $10,000 on state and local taxes. Critics say it penalizes people who choose to live in towns in the Gold Coast because they have quality schools and recreation.

“I’d like to see a discussion about it in Washington,” Stevenson said. “I think it’s something that would really help the people of the Fourth Congressional District.”

“There is a war that is being raised: The rich versus everyone else in America,” she explained. “The people who have a few extra dollars are the ones that help fund the non-profit system. It’s not a zero-sum game.”

Stevenson noted that she grew up in Reading, PA., which she described as “one of the poorest cities in America.”

She said that she and her brother were the first members of their family to graduate from college. She attended Albright College in Reading for two years and initially was on a path toward a medical degree. Instead, she transferred and then graduated from the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communications at Arizona State University with a degree in Telecommunications and Business Administration.

What did she learn at Arizona State that has helped her as a municipal leader?

“I knew no one in Arizona,” she recalled. “I had no friends, no family. That was really when I grew as a self-sustaining human being.”

She was working as a bond analyst for Standard & Poor’s, when Republican Susan Marks helped recruit her in 2009 to run for a seat on Darien’s five-member Board of Selectmen.

Stevenson captured a seat and then two years later scored the first of five lopsided victories for first selectman. Over her tenure, she served as chairman of the Western Connecticut Council of Governments, the regional planning agency, and as first vice president for the Connecticut Conference of Municipalities.

Marks, who was elected to the Board of Selectmen in 2013, recalled the municipal budget that the Board of Selectmen crafted that next winter.

“The two Democrats on the board wanted to make huge changes,” she told Patch.com in a phone interview. “We could have taken a 3-2 vote and gotten it approved. There were things on the table that we had been discussing for weeks. Jayme said we should discuss what the Democrats wanted to change. We compromised and it was approved 5-0.”

Marks commented, “I don’t think that if you had asked her 20 years ago that Jayme would have told you that she wanted to become first selectman. But she was such a natural. She has the right temperament for the job, because she collaborates.”

Stevenson pointed to that as one of the reasons she thinks she can become the first Republican to win in the Fourth District since former longtime U.S. Rep. Chris Shays of Bridgeport captured his final term in 2006.

“There are a growing body of unaffiliated voters who are just tired of partisan politics,” said Stevenson, who classified herself as a moderate. “I put problem-solving over politics as first selectman.”

The Fourth Congressional District has only had one female congressional representative – Republican Clare Booth Luce – the noted author and ambassador - who was initially elected in 1942.

What do women bring to elective office?

Republican former Brookfield First Selectman Bonnie Smith, who served for 12 years, once said that women – particularly if they are mothers – usually exhibit patience and nurturing skills.

Said Stevenson, “I think we’re great listeners. I think we’re compassionate listeners. We are the ultimate multi-takers. We understand strategy. I think women make phenomenal leaders.”

Gary Rose, the chairman of the Government Department at Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, said shortly after the 2018 Connecticut gubernatorial election that suburban women used to be evenly divided between voting Democrat and Republican. That changed that year as more of them voted Democratic, partly because of Trump who wasn’t even on the ballot that election.

Stevenson said, “Southwestern Connecticut was not as embracing of Donald Trump as other parts of the country. And we lost suburban women voters and unaffiliated voters.”

In 2020 Trump took just 34.5 percent of the vote in the Fourth Congressional District.

However, shortly after the 2020 presidential election, Wall Street Journal columnist William Galston wrote that Trump remade the Republican Party by “altering his party’s stance on foreign, trade and fiscal policy.”

Stevenson said that she disagrees.

“I think President Trump was an embodiment of a significant number of people in America who felt disenfranchised,” she said. “I don’t think he changed it [the Republican Party]. I think he represented those people.”

Himes election over Shays in 2008 was the first Democratic victory in the Fourth District in 42 years.

Rose, who wrote a 2011 book on the Fourth Congressional District, stated in an e-mail interview with Patch.com that, “Stevenson is a highly qualified and exceptionally experienced candidate to challenge Jim Himes in the 2022 election. But Himes has done a skillful job of forging a broad-based moderate coalition of voters within the 4th CD which is why he has been comfortably reelected since winning the seat.”

“Prying moderate voters away from Himes within the suburban and wealthy communities is Stevenson's main challenge,” he added. “But her chances could be bolstered by having the team of Stefanowski/Devlin [apparent Republican nominees Bob Stefanowski of Madison for governor and state Rep. Laura Devlin of Fairfield for lieutenant governor] at the top of ticket which will play well in a number of communities throughout the 4th CD. Straight ticket voting is quite common these days. What will also help Stevenson is President Biden's low approval ratings along with her gender. Women vote in greater numbers compared to men which should help her in November.”

Himes has taken at least 60 percent of the vote in the last three campaigns, adding suburbs to his longtime base of Bridgeport, Stamford and Norwalk – Connecticut’s first, second and sixth largest cities.

Although Ct News Junkie columnist Susan Bigelow has noted that in the 2020 election Himes ran slightly behind Biden in the district and trailed him “significantly” in Darien and New Canaan.

The Sabato Crystal Ball rates the Fourth District as “Safe Democratic.” In reporting in January on the reappointment of Connecticut‘s five congressional districts, CT Mirror’s Mark Pazniokas wrote that “the fourth now rivals the First District as the most Democratic congressional seat in Connecticut.”

What a change. Twenty years ago Shays won re-election with 64 percent of the vote.

Democrat Sal Liccione, a member of Westport’s Representative Town Meeting, said in a phone interview with Patch.com that Himes has helped secure considerable federal funding for emergency medical services, law enforcement, fire departments, and municipal employees.

“When I crisscross my district everybody has rave reviews for Jim Himes,” he exclaimed. “He also has helped small businesses in all the towns in the Fourth District.”

Getting back to the aftermath from the pandemic. Stevenson insists it will not just be inflation that will be on the ballot on November 8.

“Parents want their children to be in school, free from socially isolating distancing and masking policies that have stunted their academic, emotional and social growth and for their kids to be learning core academic skills,” she explained.

“According to the CDC [Centers For Disease Control], American children are experiencing a severe mental health crisis,” added Stevenson. “Government-imposed COVID lockdowns resulted in a 51% increase in suicide attempts among adolescent girls. And 44% of our kids report persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness.”

“We will look back on this time and see that we have sacrificed the well-being of our children at the expense of adults and government policy-makers,” she declared. “It will be the greatest moral crisis of our lifetime.”

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