A ‘moral budget’ needs more than pious poses

By Chris Powell

Members of the clergy held a press conference at the state Capitol this week to protest restraint in state government spending, the infamous “fiscal guardrails.” They called for a “moral budget” — that is, a lot more spending on social services, schools, and housing.

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A Unitarian minister from Manchester charged that restraint with the state budget is “impoverishing the people.” He complained that state government is trying too hard to reduce the vast unfunded liabilities of its pension system.

A Baptist minister from Hartford agreed, screeching that state government “is trying to inflict a crisis on the welfare of the people.”

While the clergy members implied that state government should let the unfunded pension liabilities rise, they didn’t specify where the extra social-services money should come from. Of course if pressed they probably would call for raising taxes on “the rich,” but “the rich” and the comfortable already pay nearly all state income taxes.

Setting tax rates is serious business. They should be set according to a calculation of what is fair and effective and doesn’t scare taxpayers away, not according to how much more money is needed to satisfy any interest group at the moment.  

But if state government’s commitment to pension solvency is obstructing a “moral budget,” the clergy members should examine the pension fund problem closely in search of a balanced solution.

After all, the less that pensions are properly funded, the longer that pension payments will have to be drawn from taxes into the future, thereby diverting state tax revenue from other purposes. Conversely, the sooner pensions are properly funded, the sooner more state tax revenue will be available.  

Additionally, state government’s pension fund is a function of state employee salaries, which have increased by a rather extravagant 33% since Governor Lamont took office seven years ago. State employee insurance coverage and fringe benefits remain high as well. 

If the compensation of state employees wasn’t so high, the burden of properly funding their pensions wouldn’t be as high either and more money would be available elsewhere in government. 

So would the clergy members favor economizing with state employees for a while with a salary freeze, as Republican state legislators propose? Would the clergy members favor economizing anywhere in state government so the budget could be made more “moral”?

Indeed, why provide state government employees with defined-benefit pensions at all? Why not have state government just make limited contributions to the individual retirement accounts of state employees, the retirement plans that are presumed good enough for most people in the private sector? This would save billions. Why should state government employees be treated so much more generously than taxpayers?

Such are the questions governors and legislators must ask themselves whenever they devise a budget. Of course they seldom think very critically; usually they just yield to special-interest pressure. But even when they decide which special interests to please and which to disappoint, they realize that, as the old saying goes, “to govern is to choose,” and that Charles de Gaulle was right with his elaboration: “To govern is always to choose among disadvantages.”

In contrast, it often seems that belonging to the clergy in Connecticut does not involve choosing at all but just striking pious poses, as if God is fooled as easily as their congregations.

PUT THE CROSS AWAY: A teacher in a public school in New Britain is striking a pious pose too. She has been suspended for refusing the superintendent’s directive to remove a large crucifix she displayed beside her classroom desk, and now is suing to get her job back, claiming First Amendment freedom of religion.

But freedom of religion isn’t the freedom to promote religion on the job in a public school, an environment that, under the same amendment, must be religiously neutral. If, as the teacher says, she wants to look at a cross occasionally for strength and comfort, she can keep one in a desk drawer out of everyone’s sight but her own.    

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Chris Powell has written about Connecticut government and politics for many years. (CPowell@cox.net)