Connecticut's Legislative Dog and Pony Show
by Dan Lovallo

On August 22, Connecticut's Legislature will conduct a "dog and pony show," masquerading as a special session.   The gathering called by Governor M. Jodi Rell, at taxpayer's expense, is the result of a manufactured crisis, that will allow lawmakers, during an election year, the perfect photo-op.   
 
The usual ingredients of liberalism will be on full display for the session: create a crisis and then demonstate to the public, their leaders are at work, solving the problem.    Of course, they'll need to keep the surplus from the state's already overtaxed people to come up with a solution.    But don't worry.   Find a few willing media accomplices to buy into this "crisis," and the public will be sure to show their support.   You couldn't pay for such publicity, during an election year.
 
The roots of this special session were planted a month ago, when the non-profit organization "Operation Fuel," created years ago to help people, who fall through the cracks and can't pay their home heating bills, was upset it's state funding wasn't increased in the second year of a two-year state budget.    With expected higher oil prices, "how were they going to meet the demands of their growing clientele?"   Walla.    Operation Fuel's Executive Director Patricia Wrice, suggested that people pay an additional $11 a year on their utility bills, so that others wouldn't freeze to death.   When the Governor and certain media people, bought into the hype, the crusade was underway.  
 
Only one problem.    The public was paying attention and even in a blue state like Connecticut, they could smell a liberal plot.    For example, how could a utility company force customers to pony up more, so others could pay their electric bills?    Wasn't that nothing more than yet another rate hike, and didn't that have to be approved by DPUC?   Furthermore, didn't CL&P and United Illuminating already have a voluntary check off box, for those customers, wanting to donate to the downtrodden's electric bills?
 
An attentive public, a politician's worse nightmare.   Now what to do?   Well Governor Rell came to the "rescue" and announced that a state budget, predicted to end the fiscal year in the red, had managed a $22 million dollar surplus, thanks to her call for belt tightening by department heads.   And with her media supporters - already eating crow when the public wouldn't accept that suggested utility bill increase - cheering from the sidelines, the state's "fearless leader" said the surplus - instead of going back to the people - would be part of a program to address the impending home heating oil crisis.   And the best way to tackle the issue, would be the aforementioned "special session."
 
In fact, the Governor produced a laundry list of suggestions for the August 22 gathering, including restrictions on the minimum amount of oil that fuel companies can deliver.    But don't worry, if that was a problem for the oil companies, the government would bail them out too, just like it's bailing out those who can't pay their bills.    Stalin, or for that matter, Putin, would be proud.
 
Meanwhile, not to be outdone by the liberal governor from the opposite party, Senate President Donald Williams (D), an avowed Barack Obama supporter, announced this week, we don't have a $22 million surplus.  We have an $85 million surplus, and all of that should go towards this special program, "because the middle class will need help, paying their bills too."
 
Curiously, one of the voices of reason, throughout all of this, has been state comptroller Nancy Wyman, a Democrat,  who in so many words, said the Governor played tricks with the budget figures to produce the surplus.   Her suggestion is that no special session is needed and that the surplus money should be placed in the state's Rainy Day Fund.   If, down the road, the state legislature deems people need help with their heating bills, they could withdraw the money from the Fund. 
 
Wyman has supporters, among conservative Republicans, like 17th District State Representative Kevin Witkos (R) Canton, running for the state Senate this year.   Witkos says he's opposed to earmarking the surplus for a fuel program, saying that there are already government programs to help people pay their heating bills.   "All this is going to do is create another government program that you will never get rid of.    Put the money in the Rainy Day Fund.   Besides, oil prices are declining, and some people are predicting that by winter, a barrel of oil will be selling for $75."
 
74th District Selim Noujaim (R) Waterbury, is also opposed to another government program, to address the issue, although he hasn't totally made up his mind.
 
Obviously, Wyman, Witkos and Noujaim are offering too pragmatic a solution, for a problem that deserves pomp and circumstance.    Thus the special session will proceed, so the likes of Governor Rell and Senator Williams, two of the state's biggest liberals, can demonstrate no "problem" is too large for the government to solve.   And with some cheerleaders in the media, they'll get their message across.   Of course, in order to solve the problem, they'll need your surplus money.  In reality, it's money culled from an overtaxed public, that should be returned to the public, so that they could afford to pay their heating bills.    Without the government's help.    But then who would pay for the August 22 "dog and pony show?"
 
 

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It is the epitomy of political hubris, and it's coming to a Democratic Party near you.  
Dan Lovallo

On election day, November 4, Connecticut residents will be asked to vote on the following question:  "Shall there be a convention to amend or revise the constitution of the state?"
     Many Democrats oppose a convention, fearful this will be the first step toward a Direct Initiative Law.    Beholden to public employee unions, Democrats are against the Direct Initiative Law, fearful the already milked taxpaying public will undergo an epiphany, and vote to turn off the spigot that helps fuel our state's evergrowing taxburden.
     Leading the opposition is Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz.   In fact, Bysiewicz, who craves the spotlight - as long as it highlights a liberal cause - pulled every trick in the book to make sure the constitutional convention question wasn't asked two years ago, when by state law, it should have been on the ballot.    (The law mandates that residents be asked every 20 years, whether a constitution convention should be held.   The last time the question was placed on the ballot was 1986.)
    This time, not even the Secretary of the State could pull a rabbit out of a hat to delay the vote, again.   That's because a group. led by former State Representative and Democrat, and current Central Connecticut State University professor John Woodcock III, pushed hard to ensure the Secretary of the State made sure the question was on the ballot.    In fact, the professor is perplexed at the Secretary's position against the convention, saying the question should "stimulate voter participation," something Ms. Bysiewicz has pursued.   I'm concerned that someone in her position would take such a stance, considering she could be an arbiter in the event of a recount.
   As for Professor Woodcock's coalition, the  group even held a debate at the state legislature, pushing its cause to put the power back in the hands of the people and take it away from the special interest groups, to which many of the liberals in government are joined at the hip.    Sensing that the public might actually catch on to her political shennigans, the Secretary of the State, "coincidentally" issued a media release - on the day supporters of the Direct Initiative Law held their debate and news conference - to remind us the question of a Constitution Convention would be on the November 4.   Not content to give us just the facts, however, Ms. Bysiewicz proceeded to remind us in the release, that she was opposed to the question, saying our system of government was a republic, and that our democratically elected representatives, were perfectly capable of making the laws for us.    Not surprisingly, her pronouncement came in the same week, unions rallied to announce their opposition to the question.
    According to a recent Wall St. Journal online story, left leaning groups across the country, are doing everything possible to scuttle the Direct Initiative Law, even in the 31 states where it exists.   Their worst fears have come to life.   Taxpayers have awakened to the fact, public employee unions and other top heavy government inspired programs, are bleeding us dry, with one quarter of all jobs in the nation, either a federal, state or local government job.         
    From salaries to benefits to pensions, this huge group of workers, who do little to help the private sector, are placing a drain on our economy, as a discerning public is taking a closer look at the withholding line on their paychecks, in addition to various and sundry other state and local taxes, including those tied to energy price hikes.    And they've had it.
    Even in Massachusetts, the bastion of liberalism, people are fed up.    And on November 4, because the Commonwealth has the Direct Initiative Law, voters will be asked whether they would like the state income tax to be eliminated.  We could ultimately have the same option in Connecticut, if the constitutional convention question garners a "yes" vote.    It would be the Secretary of the State's and liberals worst fear: an engaged public.  As Professor Woodcock said, this vote is a "seminal moment for our state." All the more reason to vote in the affirmative on election day.  

Dan Lovallo

     In one of her many softball radio interviews the other day, Governor M. Jodi Rell expressed dismay over anticipated high heating fuel costs come winter, but not to worry, she was working on a plan.    What the Governor failed to mention, was that her policies have helped to contribute to the high prices, from her refusal to support Broadwater - the liquified natural gas project in Long island Sound - to her wholehearted support of the wacked out manmade global warming theory.    Don't expect to her to be asked about these issues by her media "interogators" anytime soon.
     The concocted global warming crisis, manufactured by the far left and embraced by environmentalists everywhere, as a means of exerting even more government control over our daily lives, has the particular interest of our Governor.    Along with nine other northeastern states, she enrolled Connecticut into the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative or RGGI..   That means power generating plants will be limited to the amount of carbon dioxide emissions, coming from their facilities.    But what if they exceed that limit?   Well, come September 10, those same plants will be forced to participate in a "cap-and-trade" program, whereby, they purchase from the state at a cost of $3 to $5 a ton, "allowances" that would enable them to exceed the limit.    The state would then use the money to create more "energy efficient" programs.
     At the time this "initiative" was announced, we knew this would eventually lead to higher utility costs, and it didn't take a course in economics 101 to reach that conclusion.   Now, the Governor and other liberals supportive of RGGI, are afraid the costs of buying these "allowances" from the state will be passed along to consumers by the power companies.
Duh?   We said that months ago.
    The "Queen of Public Service Announcements" and other liberals, such as former Canton state representative Jessie Stratton, deputy director of a left leaning environmental group, are proposing that consumers be insulated from rate hikes specific to the "cap-and-trade" program.    There's just one problem.   Under what's left of our free market system, such an insulation plan may be illegal    So Ma Rell has turned to our illustrious attorney general, Richard Blumenthal, for a ruling.
    My hunch is, our eternal general, the best friend of the environmental crowd, will use his usual voodoo jurisprudence, to rule against capitalism and say costs can't be passed along to the consumer.    And per usual, the power generators will eventually seek another rate hike and the DPUC will approve it.
    Here's the bottom line.   The Governor's support of RGGI is another tax on the people and another revenue maker for the state.   And this promise to take the money from the sale of "allowances" to invest in more efficient energy?   The only energy that will be produced is what it takes to create another layer of state government.    And that's one area of pollution that should be capped without a trade.

Dan Lovallo

     I could be wrong about this, but I believe, when you pick up your Hartford Courant in October, it may look more like the New York Daily News than your favorite liberal newspaper.   
     The newspaper business, as a whole, is in trouble these days.   Ad revenue is down in all sectors, from national advertisements to classifieds.   But I believe the Courant's woes are deeper than the national trend, because the paper, much like the city of Hartford, has never been comfortable in its own skin.    One minute, it's trying to be the New York Times.   The next minute, it's attempting to be your neighborhood corner newspaper.   
     No better example of the paper's identity crisis is the sports section, where some of the Courant's most talented writers reside.    One minute, it's attempting to be the Times, sending its own writers on the beat to cover the Red Sox and Yankees in addition to having its own national baseball writer.   The next minute, they pull one of its best writers off the Yankees' beat, dump the national baseball journalist and keep the Red Sox beat writer.  Meanwhile, they stop covering this area's only pro baseball club on a regular basis, the New Britain Rock Cats.   How confusing is that to the reader.?
    Better the Courant have a writer at every Rock Cats game and cover the Sox, Yanks and Mets with wire services.  More local sports coverage, with front page attention to the Rock Cats, Wolfpack, and Hartford Hawks, instead of giving the big leaguers and UConn all the top coverage, would also help.
    The news front is another issue.   For years, the newspaper has taken a liberal stance, from how it covers stories, to its placement in the paper - if it appeals to the liberals, it leads - to an editorial stance that sometimes is left of Karl Marx.   Tossing in a token conservative columnist is not enough to appease those, who want more balanced coverage, especially those who list themselves as unaffiliated voters, Connecticut's largest voting bloc.
    This always liberal approach has cost the newspaper dearly.   The paper is continuously beaten by smaller publications, such as the Hartford Business Journal and Manchester Journal-Inquirer, on major stories, because of its liberal focus.
    As has been noted, the industry is in trouble, as people look to talkradio and the internet for their information.   But it can still succeed.   No better example is the Waterbury-based Republican American, which knows its identity, offers a balanced package, with a conservative editorial slant, and doesn't break the bank with a daily price of 50 cents.
    However, the thought here is that the Courant, facing deep problems in a one newspaper town, will never betray its liberal roots.   That's why, in the wake of this latest announcement that the paper is undergoing major staff cuts, and will have a huge makeover in presentation come the fall, my prediction is the paper will go tabloid.   When newspaper honchos announce sweeping changes in presentation, that's usually the next step.    They might also want to consider content, as well, if they hope to survive.

Dan Lovallo

So our beloved Senator Christopher Dodd (D) received not one but two mortgage rates at under 5 percent, without any points or other attached costs?   Doesn't everybody?    Not really.    And that's why this growing scandal is resonating with more than just political junkies.    Especially since the Senator just happens to be chairman of one of the Congress' most powerful committees, the Senate Banking Committee.    And apparently, he's not the only Democrat to have received the "VIP" treatment from Countrywide Financial.

     At issue is Countrywide's approval of the refinancing of two of Dodd's residences in 2003, his Washington, D.C. townhouse and his Connecticut home at the sweatheart rates of 4.25% and 4.5% respectively.   Throw in the fact that Countrywide, now in dire straits because of the subprime mortgage fiasco, didn't charge Dodd for points or closing costs and it's estimated he's received a $75,000 break from Countrywide.    And did we mention that a non-partisian group lists Dodd as the Senate's number one recipient of campaign contributions from Countrywide over the last 20 years.   

    The Senator was a ranking member of the banking committee at the time of the refinancing.   Now, as chairman of the panel, he's proposing that taxpayers pony up 300 billion dollars to shore up the sagging mortgage mess.  And among those, who would benefit from the bailout?   You guessed it.   Countrywide.

    The amusing part of the entire story is Dodd's defense.    If this were a Republican, who engaged in a quarter of Dodd's antics in this case, he would be the first to call for that Senator's resignation.   Now he scrambles to defend his actions, reminiscent of Nixon, when people started poking around the edges of his administration, only to uncover some meaty stuff.

    First Dodd said the rates he received were "competitive" with the market place at the time.    Except, most working class people, refinancing back then, couldn't get below 5%, no matter how they tried.    Then, of course, there was that little matter of no points and no closing costs.    The "VIP" treatment, according to Countrywide.     Who really believes Dodd, when he said he didn't ask about the perks being tossed in his direction?    The future head of the Senate Banking Committee, didn't think to ask about the "VIP" treatment?    Either he's ignorant for not asking such a basic question - which means he doesn't belong as the panel's chairman - or he's not telling the truth.    You can't get anymore Nixonian than that.

    But the bottom line - something this Senator was obviously concerned about, no matter how he got there - is that the public is paying attention on this one, because they can relate to refinancing, closing costs, and points.    That will make it increasingly difficult for the Democrats to sweep this one under the rug, especially since they hold a narrow margin in the Senate, with the swing vote, non other than Dodd's former Connecticut Senate pal Joseph Lieberman.    When it comes to scandal, it doesn't get any more delicious than this, especially since it involves one of that body's haughtiest members.

    Dodd's approval ratings nosedived, after he moved to Iowa to run for president.    When a campaign, that was going nowhere from the outset, fizzled, he unabashadly pushed for a spot on the ticket, as VP, with his willing accomplice, the Hartford Courant.    Now, he may not even get dog catcher in an Obama administration - if there is one - with this latest scandal.    In fact, Dodd becomes vulnerable in a Senate reelection bid in 2010, if he isn't forced out of office sooner.

    Meanwhile, Connecticut's congressional delegation, mostly Democrats, and State Democratic Party chairwoman Nancy DiNardo, who trip over themselves, issuing press releases, if a Republican jaywalks, have apparently come down with lockjaw.   Not a peep out of these party hacks.    But the public is paying attention, in addition to paying higher mortgage rates than their senator.    Even O'Reilly is on the case, raking Dodd over the coals on a recent O'Reilly Factor.   

    So the questions now become, who did Senator Dodd know and why didn't he ask some basic questions,  that the everyday citizen would ask, when told of the VIP treatment?   A state and nation await his answer.   Until then, presumably, he is "not a crook" and has "earned everything he's got.."    Just like the last Washington politician, who fed us that script.    And we all know what happened to him.

Dan Lovallo

   There it was for all to see.   Regular gasoline selling for $4.17 a gallon, entering the Memorial Day weekend.   If I wasn't awake, before I went to the convenience store to gas up, I was afterward.   These days, just to top off your tank costs $25, and there appears to be no end in sight.
   Michael J. Fox, the executive director of the Connecticut Automobile and Gasoline Dealers Association, predicts we'll be paying more than $5 a gallon by the third week in July.   But many of the people, who make a "living" in the industry, say don't blame the oil companies, including Walter Dethier, the owner and operator of the Berkshire General Store in Cornwall.
    On my program this week, Dethier said, "I've been a leading critic of the oil companies, but you can't blame the price hike on them.   It's the speculators, who are driving up the price.   They need to close the Enron loophole.   If the oil companies operated at zero profit, it would only drop the price by 13 cents a gallon.   The only reason their profits are high is because of volume."
    Ah, the famous Enron loophole.   When the conversation turns to high energy prices, it usually reverts to the most famous loophole, this side of a tax deduction.   Back in 2000 - when Bill Clinton was President and Republicans ran the Congress - apparently in the dead of night in the waning hours of the 106th Congress, our lawmakers voted to allow these energy futures to be traded electronically - read that to mean computers -  by speculators, without government oversight.    Prior to that, our energy futures could only be traded on exchanges, such as the New York Mercantile Exchange, with U.S. government oversight.   But with the now defunct Enron, awash in money back then, buying off politicians left and right, the infamous loophole was sewn, at the behest of the energy behemoth.    The rest is history, which is what could also happen to our economy, if this thing doesn't turn around fast.
    For the most part, Congress has turned a deaf ear to the problem, although Eugene Guilford, executive director of the Independent Connecticut Petroleum Association, claims the Connecticut congressional delegation ranks the surge in energy prices right up there with Iraq.   At least that's the impression he received, after visiting with our "esteemed" delegation last week in Washington.  
   Repealing the Enron loophole was an amendment to the multibillion dollar farm bill, submitted by the Congress to the President this week, except, the wrong bill was sent to his desk.     That means the entire process has to start all over again.   Guilford thinks our Congress was just its usual bumbling self.   Fox is more sceptacle, claiming on my program, that the wrong bill was submitted "on purpose."  
   "I used to be a lobbyist in Washington, " he said.   "I see how these people work.   They hold a dog and pony show, calling up the oil company bosses to appear before a committee, then everybody gets in a room, behind closed doors in the middle of the night, and writes a bill to their liking."
   Meanwhile, Dethier says we haven't seen leadership from our politicians in years, blaming Governor M. Jodi Rell, the state legislature and the Congress for inaction.    He also agrees with Fox, $5 a gallon is on the way, unless the loophole is closed.  As for truckers, he says, they're paying more than $5 a gallon for diesel, with many of them going out of business.
   And what about the consumers?   We're mad.   Dethier says we should boycott and not drive our cars for a week, even if it means not going to work, not shopping and not gassing up.   He says the situation would be turned around in a week.
   I'm not so sure.   But I think we could at least tell our "leaders," we're mad as hell and not going to take it any more, by posting signs in our cars.    In fact, some listeners have already suggested what those signs could read:
 
   "Vote 'em out"
   "Forget the gas, give me a gas X"
   "I'm fuming, how are you?"
   "What kind of fuel am I?"
   "GAStronomical"
   "Environmentalism, my gas"
 
and my favorite, "Kiss my gas,"  because, if something isn't done soon, we could be kissing life as we know it,  good bye.