Conneticut: America’s worst-performing state economy!

Connecticut was the place to live in the 1980s. No income tax, the finest schools in the nation and a beautiful natural environment attracted the powerful and smart people from all across America and from foreign lands. Stamford became “a little Wall Street” as financial firms exited New York City to settle on Connecticut’s “gold coast”.

Along came a spindly buffoon named Lowell Weicker, who somehow got elected governor, on a promise not to enact a state income tax, and then did exactly the opposite. That spelled the end of the Connecticut boom.

For over eighty (80) years skilled and unskilled workers alike had been able to land in Connecticut on a Monday and have a job by Wednesday. The “Brass City”, “Silver City”, “Hat City”, “Thread City”, “Clock City”, “Insurance City” and many others provided everything needed to start the American Dream.

After Weicker’s deceit, Connecticut began a slow economic slide as a series of spineless governors and radical activist legislatures milked the taxpayers for the money to implement their own demented pet projects. Government greed ran amuck. Perhaps Connecticut’s most thoughtless governor, John Rowland, signed a twenty- year pension deal with government unions. That was as incompetent a move as Weicker’s tax.

In 2013 Connecticut appears more like East Berlin than the state where everyone who could physically work once got a job. There is a vigorous exodus of producers underway. Certain mayors running leech-like cities have proclaimed sanctuary for foreign invaders. The law does not apply, and the lawless at the very top and at the very bottom rule.

In 2013 Connecticut suffers a tyrant governor, a certifiable state legislature and a Republican Party minority that relishes defeat and grovels at the feet of the Democrat majority. Things can change, however. There is a grass roots effort underway to copy Wisconsin’s blueprint for recovery. It does not involve the state’s pitiful GOP directly.

Connecticut can become the “little Texas” of the northeast as it once ways, but voters must awake to reality first. Connecticut is awash in a tsunami of gripers but alas, few are willing to turn off the TV and do something proactive.

There are a handful of activists who keep pushing forward. They follow in Samuel Adams’ foot steps. Adams said, “It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brush fires in people’s minds.”

They are tireless. They are irate. They are setting brush fires. To the CT Republican Party they have added a message not unlike what Adams said, “pass the matches or get out of the way!”