Category Archives: Uncategorized

By Chris Powell Addressing the General Assembly last week, Governor Lamont touted state government’s comfortable financial position, a reversal of the position he inherited when he took office three years ago. As this is an election year, he proposed to spend a lot more money without raising taxes. Some of the extra spending may makeContinue reading “Governor needn’t raise taxes since inflation did it for him”

By Chris Powell Connecticut lately has generated more than its share of silly paradoxes. Having given up on the futility of criminalizing marijuana, state government is rushing into the marijuana retailing business with overregulation and overtaxation. This will make the drug even more available to minors while ensuring the black market’s continued profitability. Meanwhile theContinue reading “Connecticut won’t suppress crime without restoring deterrence”

By Chris Powell How, in a wealthy and highly taxed state with scores of social programs and constant prattling about unmet human needs, does a 17-year-old girl approach adulthood missing six teeth and able to eat only soft food? This month a report by Theresa Sullivan Barger of the Connecticut Health I-Team blamed the stateContinue reading “Teenage girl’s missing teeth indict neglect by parents and state”

By Chris Powell Maybe all those people who in the last year or so have given up on New York City and its inner suburbs and moved to Connecticut are not so good for the state after all. While they have offset the decline in population that Connecticut long has been suffering relative to theContinue reading “Population gains don’t help if housing doesn’t keep up”

By Chris Powell Connecticut’s best investigative journalism so far this year was probably the Jan. 2 report by the Connecticut Mirror’s Andrew Brown and Kasturi Pananjady about the lovely little racket state government has been running with its unclaimed property program. The program, the Mirror reported, collected $2.3 billion in the public’s lost assets overContinue reading “Wooden, Hayes, and Colangelo teach a seminar on ethics”

By Chris Powell For most of the last 70 years in the United States, ever since the Red Scare of the 1950s, the Republican Party has been the party of repression — more intolerant of political dissent, more inclined to censor, and more eager to use government to ruin livelihoods. Of course the Democratic PartyContinue reading “Democrats replace Republicans as the party of repression”

Shall I join with other nations in alliance? If allies are weak, am I not best alone? If allies are strong with power to protect me, Might they not protect me out of all I own? — “A Puzzlement” from “The King and I,” Rodgers and Hammerstein. * * * By CHRIS POWELL Regarding foreignContinue reading “We won’t fight for Ukraine and so might as well make a deal”

By Chris Powell What has Connecticut gotten for the 33 years of litigation in the Hartford school integration case of Sheff v. O’Neill, which purportedly ended last week with a settlement between the plaintiffs and state government? The first result of the Sheff business is a mockery of state constitutional law and the courts themselves.Continue reading “Sheff case ends, mocking the law and gaining little integration”

By Chris Powell Maybe with an eye to the public’s growing skepticism of rule by decree as his re-election campaign begins, Governor Lamont has asked the General Assembly to maintain a nominal state of emergency about the virus epidemic while allowing his emergency powers to expire Feb. 15. Lamont’s request confused many legislators at first,Continue reading “So long, emergency powers; and is Bysiewicz libertarian now?”

By Chris Powell Maybe the best measure of Bob Stefanowski’s vast improvement as a candidate for governor is how quickly he scared Democratic leaders and left-leaning observers into attacking him upon his formal announcement last week that wants a rematch with Governor Lamont. Though Stefanowski still has to win the Republican nomination, for which heContinue reading “Well-prepared Stefanowski quickly scares Democrats”