Political Capitol

The Yankee Institute for Public Policy has unveiled an impressive new website – CTSunlight.org – to track how state government spent your tax dollars in 2007 and 2008.

The group’s press release is pretty savvy, leading with the following sentence:

“HARTFORD – The Connecticut Department of Corrections hired Huggles the Clown for $600.”

Sure enough, I was able to find Huggles listed in the database for the DOC, conveniently under vendors beginning with the letter “H.”

I sent Brian Garnett, a DOC spokesman, an e-mail confirming Huggles’ hiring. Here’s what Brian had to say:

“This was a very different economic time. We in the past had held a Christmas party for the families of our staff who sacrifice throughout the year with our staff’s 24/7 work schedule, missing holidays, birthdays, etc. The clown was hired for that party. The party was not held last year.”

… for most responsive candidate.

After state Senate Democrats proposed a surcharge on million-dollar bonuses paid out to Connecticut residents working for federally-bailed-out financial institutions, I sent out e-mails to various candidates for Congress or incumbents to gauge their thoughts.

I contacted Democratic U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd, who is retiring; Linda McMahon and Rob Simmons, two of the Republicans vying for the GOP nomination to run for Dodd’s seat; U.S. Rep. Jim Himes, a Greenwich Democrat and former Goldman Sachs executive; and state Sen. Dan Debicella, R-Shelton, considered a frontrunner among the handful of Republicans looking to take on Himes.

So far only Debicella responded with the following e-mail:

“First off, I am glad to see the Democrats have endorsed our proposal to eliminate the business entity tax. As you know, the legislative Republicans have been proposing it for years. I introduced it last year as SB 161 in the 2009 session.”

“The amazing thing is that the Democrats want to pay with this with another tax!  Rather than getting serious about cutting out-of-control government spending, the Democrats are trying to be demagogues by attacking Fairfield County residents.  Raising taxes on financial services professionals will just cause them to move out-of-state– hurting the middle class who will have to make up the lost taxes.”

“I believe we should eliminate the business entity tax and should pay for it with reduced government spending.  We Republicans have proposed hundreds of millions of dollars of spending cuts, any one of which would make up for the $10-20 million revenue loss from the elimination of the business entity tax.”

Thanks for the reply, Dan. And the rest of you – Dodd, McMahon, Simmons and Himes – are on notice. I want you all on the record on this issue.

The bonuses federally bailed-out insurance giant AIG issued one year ago caused not only a populist furor nationally, but in Connecticut, home to the company’s now infamous Financial Products division.

Last March Democratic Attorney General Richard Blumenthal and the co-chairs of the legislature’s Banks Committee, relying heavily on newspaper accounts, subpoenaed around one dozen Fairfield County residents who reportedly received the controversial payouts.

Ultimately AIG sent an attorney and some low-level staffers to the Banks Committee hearing, which met with mixed results.

Republicans in the General Assembly complained it was a show trial that unfairly publicized the names of bonus recipients, resulting in protest bus tours past their homes and potentially putting their families in danger.

Rep. John Hetherington, R-New Canaan, demanded Blumenthal issue a public apology, alleging the Attorney General mistakenly targeted one of his constituents. That never happened.

But Banks Committee Co-chairs Sen. Bob Duff, D-Norwalk and Rep. Ryan Barry, D-Manchester, argued they uncovered important data about the bonuses.

Duff and Barry did warn “there may be additional pay outs in 2010″ and that shoe dropped this week with the news AIG is issuing a $100 million round of bonuses.

So now Blumenthal, Duff and Barry are again condemning bonuses and urging the Treasury Department to take “aggressive action to establish basic fairness and equity to Wall Street compensation.”

I asked Duff tonight if we might see a repeat of last year’s Banks Committee hearings and he left the door open, saying he and Barry have been trying to wrangle additional information out of AIG for months.

“We recessed the hearing. We never adjourned,” Duff said. “If we wanted to we could always reconvene the hearing.”

If that happens, there will be one huge difference between last year and this – Blumenthal is running to succeed retiring Democratic U.S. Sen. Christopher Dodd, who was blamed for weakening a provision dealing with executive pay in the economic stimulus package that paved the way for bailed out companies like AIG to award bonuses.

If Blumenthal was accused of mounting a political show trial last year, just imagine the firestorm that will erupt this year.

Rep. William Tong, D-Stamford, the first Asian-American elected to the state legislature in 2006 and an early supporter of Barack Obama’s presidential bid in 2008, was among the handful of finalists being considered by the President for Connecticut’s next U.S. Attorney.

The White House today announced Obama has instead chosen David Fein, a Greenwich resident who, like Tong, also practices law in Stamford.

Since this blog is about the goings on at the state capitol, I was interested in what Tong had to say about the decision, and here’s the e-mail he sent me:

Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell today proposed something called the P-E-R-F-O-R-M initiative, an acronym for Plan to Effectively Reorganize the Functions, Operations, Responsibilities and Mission of state agencies.

The goal is to in the coming months have a 24-person committee develop a package of reforms that will allow the next Governor and General Assembly elected in November to streamline state government upon taking office in January.

But it says something about the name when the Governor’s budget staff – who admittedly have their heads crammed with far, far more important data – were initially unable to recall what each letter in P-E-R-F-O-R-M stands for when asked by this reporter.

I think before the P-E-R-F-O-R-M group gets to work streamlining government, members need to streamline their name.

Here’s a piece about P-E-R-F-O-R-M I wrote for today’s papers.

On Monday state Senate Democrats issued a very populist proposal.

They said they want to find a way to place a surcharge on bonuses of $1 million or more received by residents who have been employed at companies that benefitted from the federal Troubled Asset Relief Program.

In other words, they want a new tax on Fairfield County.

But seriously, since the idea would impact monied executives living in Greenwich and some of the other wealthy neighborhoods in that end of the state, I decided to ask three Fairfield County Democrats who are running for Governor or U.S. Senate for their thoughts.

All three attended Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell’s final state-of-the-state address today at the capitol.

“I wouldn’t be talking about taxes right now,” said Ned Lamont, the Greenwich businessman/millionaire who tried to unseat “independent Democrat” U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman in 2006 and is exploring a run for Governor.

Another possible Democratic gubernatorial candidate – recently retired Stamford Mayor Dannel Malloy – said he needed to review the details of the TARP surcharge but questioned its legality.

“I’m not sure it’s Constitutional to single out employees of TARP recipients,” Malloy said.

Attorney General Richard Blumenthal of Greenwich, who last year subpoenaed around a dozen Fairfield County residents who received the controversial AIG bonuses, said his support of a TARP surcharge depends on the details.

Blumenthal is running to succeed long-time Democratic U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd.

I asked Blumenthal if it is fair to single out these individuals for a special tax?

“The question of how and when and why any tax is imposed certainly has to be thought through very carefully,” Blumenthal said, adding: “I don’t think the Senate Democrats’ proposal was very specific, as far as I can gather.”

Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell’s budget revived last year’s proposal to introduce the game of Keno to Connecticut to help raise needed revenue.

But no mention was made of Sunday liquor sales, despite some of the traction the issue received over the holiday thanks to a report by a legislative committee that it could raise an additional $8 million in tax revenue.

Why not?

“The Governor’s not a proponent of Sunday sales, period,” Robert Genuario, Rell’s budget director, told me.

There were three terms/phrases in Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell’s final state-of-the-state address which I think best capture the major points she wanted to make to the General Assembly and the public.

1. “Partisan pinball” – Rell called on the Democratic-majority legislature to work with her in a civil manner to solve the state’s budget/economic problems and set aside the partisan warfare that marked 2009’s budget debate.

“There is no room for such pettiness on the playground,” Rell said, adding “none of us are blameless in this regard.”

Certainly Democrats, and even some Repubicans, would say Rell Chief of Staff Lisa Moody is one of the most political people in the building and constantly coming up with ways to make her boss look good at the expense of the majority party.

2. “A new normal” – Rell, noting 94,000 Connecticut residents have lost their jobs since the start of the recession in March, 2008, said a “new normal” will emerge at the end of the slow recovery.

“We in state government need a ‘new normal’ as well,” Rell said. “We need to recognize that not every service, not every program, not every function is absolutely essential. We need to acknowledge that higher taxes are not a solution to our problems.”

3. “The list goes on and it will be added to before I leave office next January.” – Rell, who is retiring, made this statement after recounting some of her accomplishments as Governor. Her message seems clear – she’s on her way out, but she’s no lame duck.