By CHRIS POWELL
Being so small, the Republican minority in the General Assembly struggles just to be heard. Making a difference is usually out of reach.
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But the Republicans can take credit for what most state residents may consider the top achievement of the legislature’s recent session: the removal of some secret taxes from Connecticut’s electricity bills, so-called “public benefits” charges that have little or nothing to do with the actual generation and delivery of electricity.
For years the legislature and governors have used the “public benefits” charges to conceal the expense of programs that might not have enough support if they had to be financed by ordinary appropriations and taxes. Stuffing the “public benefits” charges in electricity bills not only raised the money for those programs; it also gave the false but politically desirable impression that electricity rates went up because of the big, bad utility companies.
It has been years since the utilities made any money generating electricity. State law drove them out of that business and, while most people don’t understand it, the utilities just buy electricity from generation companies on behalf of customers who don’t bother to select their own generator. The utilities can be blamed for their delivery costs but the cost of electricity itself is now set by markets in which residential and business users can shop for the lowest rate, though most don’t.
Connecticut’s largest electric utility, Eversource, has estimated that as much as 20% of electricity bills in the state have represented “public benefits” costs, costs that include the electricity used by people who say they can’t afford their bills and so have gotten state government to pay them. Such welfare expense never should have been charged to electricity users particularly; it should have been placed in the welfare budget and financed by regular taxes.
Republican legislators long have been clamoring about this issue, and this year they gained traction with it by holding informational meetings around the state, urging people to complain. Many did. Most state residents have been sore that Connecticut has nearly the highest electricity costs in the country, and eventually even Democratic legislators and Governor Lamont supported bipartisan legislation that removed many “public benefits” charges from electricity bills.
But the spending at issue won’t stop, since it is virtually forbidden for state government to economize. Instead much of the “public benefits” spending has been transferred to the regular state budget, where it will be financed not by taxes but by borrowing, as incredible as that may seem. Not only will Connecticut residents still be paying what used to be the “public benefits” charges; they’ll be paying bond interest too. But at least the charges will be paid by a broader base of taxpayers, not just by electricity users.
Connecticut needs Republican legislators to continue their clamor about questionable spending. There is plenty of it but attacking it won’t be as easy as it was to attack high electricity bills, which afflict nearly everyone. For most of the questionable spending is attached to influential special interests, especially government employee unions, which can mobilize far more dependents than the so-called environmentalists who believe that the “public benefits” charges are necessary to save the world. Since Connecticut is a one-party state, these special interests now are closely tied to the ruling party, the Democrats.
Even so, a public interest endures in Connecticut, and it isn’t complicated to articulate it. It just requires the courage to defy the special interests and figure out how to gain publicity amid news organizations that are almost as connected to the ruling party as the special interests are.
Since Republican legislators are a small minority, obliging the special interests won’t get them anywhere. For Republicans have nothing to offer them. But even unarticulated, the public interest is vast, and as the Republicans just showed with the electricity issue, and showed six years ago when they assisted the grassroots movement against reinstating highway tolls, the public interest is powerful when mobilized.
There’s nothing to do but keep trying.
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Chris Powell has written about Connecticut government and politics for many years. (CPowell@cox.net)
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Chris Powell column 
The one thing all of us can do is to keep pointing at all the abusive spending, showing how it impacts everyone’s life regardless of party, and get people to vote out the governor and the Democratic legislators, one by one if necessary!
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