‘Investing’ euphemizes spending; and two more empty gestures

By CHRIS POWELL

Politics and government long have been full of euphemisms — words that camouflage or sanitize what is being done — and the euphemism that was in greatest use as the recent session of the General Assembly ended was “invest.” The governor and legislators declared proudly that they had “invested” more in this, more in that, and more in the other thing. 

---

Falling student population means higher teacher pay

Can Fazio expunge Stewart and Elliott widen his range?

Audit shows college system is even worse than its chancellors

---

What they really had done was to spend more on this, that, and the other thing. But “spending” tends to evoke suspicion. 

Ordinarily investing means deploying resources in pursuit of a return. But when government in Connecticut “invests” it seldom checks to see if there has been any return apart from the gratification of those who received the money described as an investment. The worst example of this is that state government “invests” more in public schools every year but without ever inquiring about student performance. 

True investment in education would include academic proficiency tests twice a year in every grade. If the tests didn’t show improvement, the “investment” would be liquidated. But Connecticut has few such tests and the ones it has are of no consequence, since they have no bearing on student advancement with the schools operating by social promotion.

That’s why “education” in Connecticut is itself a euphemism. Its real meaning is only raises for teachers and administrators.

For months Connecticut Democratic leaders have defended state government’s obstruction of federal immigration law enforcement by arguing that the federal government lacks authority to commandeer the state’s police agencies for immigration law enforcement or anything else. But in the last hours of the recent legislative session the Democratic majorities passed a bill purporting to control how federal immigration agents can dress and where they cannot enforce the law in the state. Governor Lamont happily signed it.

State government doesn’t have that power over the federal government either, and the new law is likely to be unenforceable. The Trump administration quickly challenged it in federal court. Meanwhile will state or municipal police departments want to try arresting federal immigration agents as they do their jobs in Connecticut, thus inviting a shootout?

Like so much else coming out of the General Assembly, the new law is an empty gesture signifying only the political correctness and self-righteousness of the legislators who voted for it.

Federal immigration agents should follow some of the procedures specified by the new state law, like wearing badges and identification tags. Otherwise people being seized by officers not displaying proper identification may fairly assume that their assailants aren’t officers at all. But Congress will have to require that.  

To hear the governor and Democratic legislators tell it, another great success of the legislative session was a law prohibiting the sale of pistols that are easily converted from semi-automatic to automatic firing capacity by attaching a small converting mechanism. This mechanism turns pistols into machine guns, whose possession is sharply limited by federal law.

The new law, called the Glock switch law after the make of pistol to which the converting mechanism is most frequently attached, isn’t really an assault on Second Amendment rights. But state Sen. Rob Sampson, R-Wolcott, is correct that this law too is just another empty gesture. For few if any crimes in Connecticut are being committed with pistols converted to automatic firing capability. Gun crime in the state is almost entirely a matter of ordinary handguns — and a matter of the failure of state government to prosecute gun crime seriously. 

Connecticut might nearly eliminate gun crime by refusing to plea-bargain gun charges away in exchange for guilty pleas to supposedly more serious crimes — like robbery — and by imposing mandatory life sentences for gun crime convictions. But under its current political regime state government prefers reducing the prison population over reducing gun crime.

Indeed, the Glock switch law seems meant mainly to mislead people into thinking that state government wants to get tough on gun crime when that is exactly what state government does not want to do.

---

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