By Chris Powell
Is state government in Connecticut in a financial emergency because of its likely loss of hundreds of millions of dollars in federal assistance under the Trump administration?
Most Democratic state legislators think so. Led by House Speaker Matt Ritter, they want to remove the “fiscal guardrails” that have restrained state government spending and helped to amass a large surplus, though that surplus only reflects the continuing underfunding of state pension funds.
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Republican legislators acknowledge the possibility that reductions in federal aid might rip big holes in the state budget but don’t want to alter the “guardrails.” The Republican stance may be as close as anyone in elective office comes to hinting that state spending should be cut.
Governor Lamont seems to feel strongly both ways. He’s worried about federal aid reductions but he is against weakening the “guardrails” even as he’s still supporting state government’s award of grants for politically connected organizations and inessential local projects.
The Yankee Institute notes that the General Assembly’s recent $3 million “emergency” appropriation, passed without public hearings and approved by the governor, was bestowed mainly on leftists, including sexual minorities, illegal immigrants, and Planned Parenthood.
The other day the governor, Speaker Ritter, and Senate President Pro Tem Martin Looney announced $77 million worth of state bonding for 35 “community development” projects in 21 municipalities. Among them:
— $5 million for Danbury for rearranging the city’s downtown.
— $2 million to renovate the Barnum Museum in Bridgeport.
— $250,000 for the Connecticut Humanities Council to assess the needs of hundreds of “cultural organizations,” as if their primary needs aren’t all the same: more money.
— $1.5 million for the Hartford Region YWCA to renovate its headquarters to house what will be called the Center for Racial Justice and Gender Equity but what might as well be the Center for Political Correctness.
— Another $2 million for Planned Parenthood, this time to renovate its office in New London.
Those projects were hardly necessities. Other projects on the bonding list were more compelling, like homeless shelters. But most projects were mainly matters of local Democratic political patronage, not necessary like raising reimbursements for Medicaid providers, renovating old schools in Bridgeport, Hartford, and New Haven, and saving money to protect against losing federal aid.
In a way it’s funny. While state government has just found $250,000 to spend to discover that “cultural organizations” need more money, it has found no money for auditing the effectiveness of the main drivers of state spending — like primary education, state and municipal government employee union contracts, and welfare.
Is primary education raising or lowering student achievement? Does collective bargaining for government employees improve their performance and public administration or just increase costs and destroy accountability? Is welfare policy increasing self-sufficiency or worsening dependence?
Would even Trumpian chainsawing of federal aid prompt state government to try to answer those questions? Or, down to its last several hundred million dollars, would state government just pay raises to its employees and forget about everything else?
BANKRUPT HOSPITALS: Connecticut has a major problem with three formerly nonprofit hospitals. A private equity company, Prospect Medical Holdings, the owner of Waterbury Hospital, Manchester Memorial Hospital, and Rockville General Hospital, has filed for bankruptcy after essentially looting the hospitals and forwarding the proceeds to its shareholders. Other private equity companies have done the same to hospitals elsewhere in the country.
Getting the hospitals out of bankruptcy with a new owner is proving difficult. Yale New Haven Health has withdrawn its bid. State government, which can hardly manage itself, may have to take over the hospitals for a while.
Legislation proposed in the General Assembly would require hospital executives to obtain a state license and hold a college degree in hospital administration. This won’t fix the problem and could worsen it. For the problem is not unqualified local managers but ill-intended ownership.
Connecticut never should have let nonprofit hospitals be acquired by profit-making entities — and despite the scandal, the state still hasn’t outlawed that. That’s the first legislation needed here.
Chris Powell has written about Connecticut government and politics for many years. (CPowell@cox.net)
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Chris Powell column 
“Connecticut never should have let nonprofit hospitals be acquired by profit-making entities — and despite the scandal, the state still hasn’t outlawed that. That’s the first legislation needed here.”
Is that something Washington could do?
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