Connecticut Needs Better Leadership

As many of you are probably aware, Hartford’s bond rating has been downgraded with a clear trajectory toward junk status. Obviously, this doesn’t bode well for the capitol of Connecticut. Should Hartford succumb to bankruptcy, it’s pretty obvious that the economic effects would ripple throughout the state and ultimately the burden would shift on where the money is ~ wealthy towns like Greenwich, Darien and so forth. The fact that the state is mired in debt is not a secret. Part of the problem is inept leadership in the form of poor planning and oversight. Another factor that contributes to evolving problems is poor transparency in government. In effect, this becomes a breeding ground enabling this form of economic cancer to proliferate.

Looking at the current and last governors (John Rowland was omitted since his problems received plenty of transparency), I found a couple of articles relating to past performance of Jodi Rell and Dannel Malloy.

In September 2010, Rell was one of seven governors to receive a grade of F in the Cato Institute's fiscal-policy report card https://object.cato.org/sites/cato.org/files/pubs/pdf/PA668.pdf.

Looking at Governor Malloy back in back in 2012 https://www.publicintegrity.org/2012/03/19/18162/connecticut-gets-b-grade-2012-state-integrity-investigation, it appears that he’s made inroads into better transparency.

I’m not totally convinced that these articles really tell the true story , there’s no compelling evidence that any of the top Connecticut top government officials are all that candid about how they govern the state or that Governor Malloy is doing his job optimally. Long term problems are best solved by bringing in new blood to shed the type of internal bias that’s difficult to shake when your views are inextricably entwined with those of the state culture. That can get solved by bringing in proven leadership outside of the state as well as staffing key judicial appointments with qualified individuals that also don’t suffer from the same judicial bias. The bench requires new material composition instead of the same old dead wood that sags under the weight of same old, same old decision making.

Based on my knowledge, Connecticut should dump much of its top government brass. Several emails concerning serious matters such as Civil Rights and serious questions were asked of Senators Chris Murphy and Richard Blumenthal as well as State Minority Leader Scott Frantz as well as Governor Malloy and the resounding response was NO RESPONSE. My take was that it prefers to be opaque when pressed on sensitive issues and much of the change that appears to be taking place is window dressing obscuring a better view into the inner workings of Connecticut State Government. The state hasn’t really overcome its reputation of being SNEAKY and CREAKY.