Author Archives: cxpowell

By Chris Powell Should the restraints on state government spending that were imposed by bipartisan majorities in the General Assembly several years ago be repealed outright or evaded by enacting strategic exceptions, what Governor Lamont disparages as “gimmicks”? Such clamor has arisen from liberal legislators, social service groups, and other advocates of enlarging government inContinue reading “More spending only delays improvement in state government”

By CHRIS POWELL Connecticut residents may be forgiven for thinking that two of their most successful politicians of recent years, Joe Lieberman and Dick Blumenthal, invented the modern practice of the state attorney general’s office, whereby they posed as “the people’s lawyer” and constantly thundered and brought suit against all sorts of villains abusing society,Continue reading “Amid climate change hysteria, Tong scapegoats oil industry”

By CHRIS POWELL Everybody seems to love federal appropriations for “infrastructure” — free money, conjured not with taxation but with inflation and the rest of the world’s purchase of U.S. government debt. Such appropriations can pay for big and expensive things, like modernizing the country’s creaky passenger rail system. But will people always be asContinue reading “Who will like ‘infrastructure’ when it ‘dislocates’ a town?”

By Chris Powell Presumably Connecticut U.S. Rep. Rosa DeLauro agrees with the novelist F. Scott Fitzgerald, who wrote that “the test of a first-rate intelligence is the ability to hold two opposed ideas in the mind at the same time and still retain the ability to function.” But ordinary people observing DeLauro’s performance in CongressContinue reading “Contradiction snares DeLauro on crash dummies and sports”

By Chris Powell Despite the complaints on the political left, amplified by politically slanted journalism, no books are being “banned” in public schools or public libraries in Connecticut or anywhere else in the country. Rather, books stocked in libraries, especially school libraries, increasingly are being challenged by people who find sexually graphic content inappropriate forContinue reading “There are no banned books, just unaccountable officials”

By CHRIS POWELL Elected officials long have been telling Connecticut that its schools are the best in the country. But they seldom produce evidence for the claim, maybe because the most that can be produced is that the grade-level proficiency of Connecticut’s students is not falling quite as fast as that of students in otherContinue reading “Brutal candor, not complicity needed from state’s schools”

By CHRIS POWELL Governor Lamont beat up the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities system pretty good the other day, but not good enough. The college system’s president, Terrence Cheng, had called a press conference, ordered other system executives to join him, and then denounced the governor’s proposed budget for the system, contending that it isContinue reading “Does the governor remember he appointed college board?”

By Chris Powell While they quickly approved bonuses for state government employees the other day, Governor Lamont and the General Assembly may require much more time to decide whether and how to finance the “baby bonds” program that was enacted two years ago. The program would have the state treasurer invest $3,200 of state governmentContinue reading “‘Baby bonds’ are another way of rationalizing child neglect”

By Chris Powell Nearly everyone in Connecticut knows that the first rule of employment with state government is that no one can be fired. State government itself should know this most of all. Nearly everyone in Connecticut also knows that the state and federal constitutions confer freedom of expression to people in their personal lives.Continue reading “State can’t terminate anyone so finish the arbitration first”

By Chris Powell Connecticut state legislators don’t want to know — or don’t want to be seen to know — that public education has been collapsing for many years. They don’t want to know that poverty policy is creating as much poverty as it alleviates. They don’t want to know that awarding lucrative licenses for casinosContinue reading “Legislators think it’s better to overlook rape of children”