By CHRIS POWELL
Under investigation by a federal grand jury for having steered millions of dollars of state government anti-poverty grants to enterprises controlled by a friend, state Sen. Douglas McCrory, D-Bloomfield, insists, “I did nothing illegal.”
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Most people may not believe him, but McCrory is probably telling the truth. For steering money and other goodies to its favorites — patronage — is what state government does ordinarily. Sometimes those who steer the money and goodies get kickbacks, and if those kickbacks are paid in cash or negotiable instruments, they may constitute bribery. But if the kickbacks take the form of political support, campaign contributions, or personal favors, or if they can’t be tracked clearly to the recipients of the patronage, they are routine.
Don’t like it? Well, McCrory did not say he had done nothing wrong. He said he had done nothing illegal.
Since, in an interview with Connecticut’s Hearst newspapers, McCrory acknowledged widespread suspicion that he has been romantically involved with the woman to whom he steered those state grants and then said he would not discuss his personal life, his friend may make a career from poverty. Poverty is big business.
Connecticut’s Social Equity Council, which distributes state marijuana tax revenue as patronage grants in communities where drugs were a big problem, is the embodiment of the poverty business, formalized by government and prettily disguised by its name.
The late editor of The Washington Monthly, Charles Peters — a liberal back when liberalism was idealistic and unselfish, before it was a business — saw enough of this stuff to draw a maxim from it. The big scandal, Peters discerned, is never what is illegal but what is perfectly legal.
McCrory should be too smart to have ever taken cash for exploiting his office. But he may need luck if he doesn’t plead the Fifth Amendment and instead tries telling the grand jury what he told the Hearst papers: that he won’t discuss his personal life and his connection to the woman to whom he steered the grants.
Thanks to the work of the Yankee Institute’s Meghan Portfolio, it seems that the corruption of state government goes far beyond the poverty racket.
Two weeks ago Portfolio exposed the fraud of state government’s “Passport to Parks” program, in which, starting in 2018, a $24 surcharge was imposed on every three-year motor vehicle registration. The fee was pledged to finance improvements at state parks and to convey free parking there for Connecticut vehicles.
But now, Portfolio writes, most of the $27 million a year produced by the fee isn’t used for the parks. Instead nearly 60% is spent on state employee pensions and benefits.
Of course most people don’t use the state parks much and would have preferred to pay for admission and parking at the point of use rather than to have to pay so much when registering their cars. The program was actually a racket to begin with, also prettily dressed up.
Last week Portfolio disclosed that the new state law establishing a trust fund for “early childhood education” has an obscure provision to help teacher unions get more municipal money.
The provision requires school boards to produce an annual report on any money left over from previous budgets. But the objective is not transparency.
Portfolio writes: “The law doesn’t direct these reports to parents, taxpayers, or even locally elected finance boards. Instead the reports must go directly to the state Department of Education — and to the unions. That means union negotiators and state officials get advance access to a district’s financial reserves — a significant advantage when labor contracts come up for negotiation. Local voters, by contrast, get no such direct insight unless they file freedom-of-information requests or search through meeting minutes.”
As always the teacher unions come first, taxpayers last.
The obscure provision was the product of the General Assembly’s Democratic majority, the longstanding tool of the unions, and the usual kickback will be union support for the Democrats in the next legislative election.
Chris Powell has written about Connecticut government and politics for many years. (CPowell@cox.net)
Chris Powell column 