Nancy Wyman’s Vote For Malloy Labor Deal Already Proving Costly For Connecticut

After Failed Democrat Governor Dan Malloy’s top enabler, Lieutenant Governor Nancy Wyman, decided to cast a tie-breaking vote in Connecticut’s State Senate in favor of a reckless union concession agreement negotiated by Malloy, Democrats are already preparing to impose more tax hikes and cuts to municipal aid. As the legislature discusses sales and income tax raises, Connecticut towns and municipalities are already preparing for education cuts in response to Democrat leaders’ actions that could force teacher layoffs in schools around the state. As Wyman continues to weigh her decision to enter the Connecticut gubernatorial race, Connecticut voters will remember her decision to double down on Malloy’s costly deal with big labor and hold her accountable at the ballot box.

The Journal Inquirer writes:

“Now that the Democratic majorities in the General Assembly have ratified Governor Malloy’s ‘concessions’ deal with the state employee unions, they figure that they have saved so much money for state government that they can go back to raising taxes.

The tax Democratic legislators most favor raising is the sales tax, since to most people it is less noticeable than the state income tax and since the governor is believed to object less to raising the sales tax now that the income tax seems to be encouraging more departures from Connecticut.

But in the meantime the legislature is five weeks late with the state budget, the governor is allocating money by executive order and wants to divert school money from prosperous towns to poor ones, the resumption of school is only days away, and some school systems, not knowing how much money they will get from the state, are preparing to lay off teachers…

At least the governor is suggesting that the era of never reducing any municipality’s state ‘aid to education’ — the ‘hold harmless’ era — should be over as Connecticut keeps declining economically. To continue the ‘hold harmless’ era, the governor said the other day, would require ‘perpetually raising taxes to support local government in the manner in which we have supported it before.’

But continuing the ‘hold harmless’ era is exactly what the Democratic majorities in the legislature aim to do by raising taxes again, since this era is really the era of placating the municipal teacher unions, whose members consume most state “aid to education” through increases in their compensation.”