Connecticut: Back In The News -- October 7, 2018 -- And, Back By Popular Demand -- Donna, The Deer Lady

The next big thing.

The doomsday chronicles.

Doomsday states.

Before reading further: flashback. Connecticut reported a $1.1 billion budget surplus earlier this year. And then this, Connecticut's budget revenues are on pace to increase the rainy day fund -- just a few weeks ago -- September 20, 2018.

Link here. From The Wall Street Journal, opinion.

Mr. Stefanowski’s lament seems to reflect the mood of voters. In Quinnipiac University’s latest state poll in August, only 25% of respondents approved of Democratic Gov. Dannel Malloy’s job performance. Seventy-one percent rated the state’s economy as “not so good” or “poor.” And with good reason: Connecticut’s economy has shrunk at an annual compounded rate of 0.5% since 2009. Next door, Massachusetts’ economy grew at 2.1% a year over that same period.

Connecticut’s bean counters are forecasting a $2 billion budget deficit next year. Worker pensions, retiree health care and debt service make up about a third of the budget. Pension costs are projected to grow by half over the next four years.

The state fisc is underwater, and Mr. Stefanowski, a former executive at General Electric and UBS , has a plan to keep it from drowning. But can he persuade voters to jump on a life raft of tax and spending cuts?

Mr. Malloy’s answer to gaping budget holes was to raise taxes. But many businesses and high earners responded by decamping for sunnier tax climes. GE, which had been headquartered in suburban Fairfield for more than four decades, moved to Boston in 2016. New Haven’s Alexion Pharmaceuticals followed this year.

“We lose over 80 people per day,” Mr. Stefanowski says. “Just in the last six years we lost $6 billion of taxable income just to the state of Florida.” The numbers are abstract, but for voters the malaise is real. Hence the governor’s race here is competitive even in a year in which Republicans face strong headwinds nationwide.

GOP governors in blue states generally fit two molds. They’re either moderates who play down their conservatism, like Charlie Baker in Massachusetts, or pugilists throwing punches against public-sector union machines, like Bruce Rauner in Illinois.

Mr. Stefanowski is of neither sort. He’s running as a supply-side Republican and change agent—part Ronald Reagan, part Jack Welch. He’s called for eliminating Connecticut’s estate tax immediately and phasing out the corporate tax over two years and the income tax over eight. He also wants to impose 10-year term limits for state legislators and allow citizens to initiate referendum campaigns.

Good luck.

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Meanwhile, Back in North Dakota

Deer hunting season will soon begin. (Bow hunting has begun.)

Beware! Drive safely.

Deer Crossing

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Female Logic 

I know I'm going to get into trouble with that headline. I'm used to it.

I recently had some health concerns that worried my wife greatly ... perhaps another story for another time ... suffice it to say, my wife had legitimate concerns and legitimate worries about my health.

With that as background ...

The other day, both my wife and I left the apartment at the usual time, about 7:00 a.m. She went off to drive the granddaughters to school. I went off to Starbucks to blog.

When my wife came home a couple of hours later, after running some errands, about 9:30 a.m., she noted that the bathroom door was closed and that the light was still on. She assumed I was in the bathroom. She called my name. I did not respond. She called my name again. Later, she said she did not try the bathroom door. She said she was afraid that she would find me dead on the floor and didn't want to see a dead body. Or something to that effect.

So, what does she do? She takes out her smart phone and begins to text me. Despite assuming that I had died.

When I did not answer the first text, that confirmed the worse. I was dead. In the bathroom.

So, she texted again. Don't ask.

Again, no answer. Which, of course, confirmed to her, a second time, that I was dead.

I wasn't. 

I honestly do not know what she planned next, but I will never know. I had finished my blogging and had been driving home while she was texting. I walked in the front door to see that she was still staring at her smart phone, I guess hoping for a message from "the other side."

I never got the texts as far as I know. I wonder who got them and wondering why May was asking "Are you dead?"