Connecticut: Worst Roads in the Nation

Driving Off a Cliff

Image by Heath W. Fahle

The American Society of Civil Engineers 2013 Report Card on the Nation’s Infrastructure says that Connecticut’s roads are tied with Illinois as the worst in the nation. An incredible 73% of roads are in poor or mediocre condition in the two states, the highest percentage in the nation. Wisconsin’s 71% is third.

The report says that lousy roads cost motorists $847 million a year in extra vehicle repairs and operating costs, or $294 per motorist. Combined with last year’s INRIX National Traffic Scorecard data that showed the state has the fifth-most traffic bottlenecks in the nation on a per capita basis, the road is both rough and hard for Connecticut drivers.

The studies stand in stark contrast with the surreal world that is the Connecticut state government. The recently adopted state budget that raids $91 million from the special transportation fund while simultaneously implementing the largest fuel tax hike in history. The funds that remain in the transportation fund may not even be enough to sustain current services, to say nothing of the at least $10 billion on the Department of Transportation’s Unfundables list.

Fixing the transportation system means fixing the system that funds it. The improving fuel efficiency of vehicles, the rise of cars not powered by gasoline at all, and inflation erode the effectiveness of the gas tax as a user fee. A better solution is to implement cashless tolling with a congestion pricing model to raise the necessary revenue from users. One recent study suggested that the city of Chicago could raise the revenue necessary to pay for $52 billion in infrastructure upgrades by adopting this model. The other obvious fix, of course, is to spend transportation money on transportation projects.

As a small geographic space located directly between two of the nation’s biggest metropolitan areas, one might think that a modern transportation system would be a top priority. But with one in five Connecticut residents on Medicaid, unfunded pension liabilities that under the most optimistic of outlooks are underfunded by billions of dollars, and the worst performing economy in the nation, it isn’t hard to figure out how infrastructure investments were crowded out of the budget.

Last year, an MSNBC advertisement put Rachel Maddow in front of the Hoover Dam wondering if “America can still think this big.” The implication was that opposition to government spending is opposition to iconic American accomplishments like the Hoover Dam. Put another way, if you hate the way the US government spends money, you must hate America.

The truth is there was a time when spending on big things like the Hoover Dam weren’t crowded out by entitlements, unfunded liabilities, and debt, but that time isn’t now. The cost of government increased because the same folks cheerleading for more spending on the next Hoover Dam fight harder and more loudly for more spending on health care, retirement planning, and a wide variety of other priorities.

The promise of reform must be to deliver the same level of service with comparable quality at a lower cost. Rhode Island set their pension system on the path to stability with public employee pension reform in 2011. Florida, Indiana, and many other states are experimenting with Medicaid reforms that reduce costs while improving customer satisfaction. North Carolina, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Louisiana are all considering major changes to their tax systems to create new opportunities for growth. But on these measures, Connecticut lags behind. This, as much as any one report card, should be a wake up call.

 

Rick Perry’s Economic Hit List

perry2Back in March, I wrote about the omen of ill portent that was Texas Gov. Rick Perry’s jobs hunt in California:

Given how Connecticut ranks in comparison . . . we should be ready for guests.

The Texas Tribune carries word today that my forecast was correct. Texas Governor Perry will visit Connecticut next week amid a four-day business recruitment trip to New York.

At that time I pointed to the CNBC Top States for Business ranking to demonstrate how Connecticut lagged behind other states in terms of economic competitiveness:

CNBC’s Top States for Business ranked Texas as the nation’s best for business in 2012, with Iowa 12th and California 40th. Connecticut ranked 44th.

Even more instructive is Chief Executive Magazine’s 2013 Best & Worst States for Business list that ranked Texas as the top state for business. After his trip, Perry’s business recruitment trips will have taken him to four of the bottom six states. California is 50th, New York is 49th, Illinois (Perry visited in April) ranked 48th, and Connecticut was listed at #45.

It’s not a ranking, it’s an economic hit list.

He isn’t the only out-of-state governor fishing for Connecticut jobs . Barely a week after the Connecticut General Assembly adopted a state budget that raises taxes without calling them tax hikes, borrows $750 million that will have to be paid back in the form of higher taxes as some point, and increases spending by ten percent over the biennium, Florida Governor Rick Scott sent letters to a number of Connecticut CEOs in an effort to entice them to the Sunshine State.

In a national economy buffeted by lackluster growth, technological change, and globalization, this new level of economic competitiveness should not be a surprise. It is a challenge to Connecticut’s leaders: make Connecticut more competitive for business or watch jobs and residents disappear.

Get the Rats Out of the Capitol

After the conclusion of the legislative session each year, I write about the madness of a system that passes 600 bills in the space of 147 days with the majority being voted on in the final 30 days of the session. The most troubling part is that the system is designed to work this way.

A legislator would have to make a superhuman effort to read every bill before casting their vote. In the absence of the time necessary just to read the bill, legislators do what anyone pressed into their position would do: they rely on partisanship and gut instinct as the crutches they need to do their job.

This is madness. In this week’s CT News Junkie column, I write that institutional reforms like four year terms for state senators, term limits, and shorter legislative sessions would change the way laws are made in the state. Check it out.

Power: Use It or Lose It

Elections are troublesome things. As members of the “one party” in a one-party rule state, Connecticut Democrats have little need for elections. They would prefer things stay exactly the same: they have all the power, everyone else has none. While the state’s recent election results have offered reliable protection for the status quo, they are nonetheless harrowing for those in charge.

Banning elections outright would be unseemly so members of the majority party in Hartford simply pass legislation to make defeating Democratic candidates more difficult. In 2005, for example, they passed the Mother of All Incumbent Retention Schemes, the Citizens’ Election Program, which mostly liberated themselves from the hard work of fundraising by requiring the public to subsidize 80 percent of their campaigns. At financial parity, the incumbent candidate almost always wins and the majority of incumbents are Democrats; thus, Democrats are protected.

Connecticut’s relatively unique ballot access and multi-party endorsement rules yielded Democratic candidates an advantage for nearly a decade as the labor-backed Working Families Party (WFP) added just enough votes to just enough Democratic candidates in just enough races to make a difference. This strategy culminated in 2010 when Democratic nominee Dan Malloy trailed Republican Tom Foley by 20,000 votes after the tally on the major party ballot lines but surpassed Foley on the strength of the 26,308 Malloy votes on the Working Families Party line.

Republicans finally figured it out in 2012 by getting into the cross-endorsement game with the Independent Party. In Senate races where both the Independent and Working Families Party endorsed candidates for example, the vote totals on the Independent Party line trumped WFP in 8 contests while WFP polled ahead in just 2 races.

Fast-forward to the legislative session this year: what were some of the proposals? Ban the use of the word “Independent” in political parties, or as another possible remedy, an outright ban on cross endorsements altogether pushed by Senate Majority Leader Don Williams.

As a not so huge coincidence, Williams’ race was one of the eight in which his opponent, Republican Sally White, received more votes on the Independent line than he did on the WFP line.

It would be brazen if it weren’t so ordinary.

Democrats retreated from banning the word “Independent” only after Republican legislators threatened to shut the place down. The campaign finance reform bill that passed the Senate earlier in the week watered down the ban on cross endorsements, now requiring that for a minor party to endorse candidates, they first need a registered member of their party receive 15,000 votes for a statewide office at the previous election. This rule appears to spare the Independent Party and WFP for now, but just barely.

The first rule of political power is use it or lose it, but the way the majority party uses it in Connecticut should justify them losing it.

Live by the Sword

After advocating for a government big enough to do everything they want, many Connecticut liberals are surprised at what big government wants to take away.

The opinion section of the Sunday Hartford Courant and dozens of left-leaning Facebook profiles bemoaned recent moves to narrow the scope of the state’s Freedom of Information law and otherwise govern from behind closed doors.

Colin McEnroe pointed to several examples in his Sunday column, such as exempting pardon records from the Freedom of Information Law, restricting public access to all death certificates, charging the public $16 to inspect any police report, and changing the definition of a “meeting” so that political leaders can meet in secret more easily.

There are more. My colleague at the Yankee Institute, Zach Janowski, reported on at least two in recent weeks. He noted how current State Supreme Court Justice Andrew McDonald used his personal e-mail account as an end-around FOI while working for Governor Malloy. Janowski also revealed that the legislative branch deletes e-mails after just 21 days, a convenient way to avoid disclosing information that would otherwise be available under FOI.

Neither case is a outlier. Earlier this year, I testified in support of Comptroller Kevin Lembo’s corporate welfare transparency bill. The measure would create a state database of economic development assistance to businesses. Other states, like Texas, Missouri, and Massachusetts have similar systems in place. Connecticut can and should do the same. The Malloy Administration opposed the bill, claiming it would put the state at a competitive disadvantage with other states.

Last year, an effort to limit disclosure of corporate welfare documents was “snuck” into an omnibus bill one day after Janowski appeared at a FOI hearing trying to get corporate welfare documents – a request that was later denied by the Freedom of Information Commission.

Power is only valuable if you use it and Connecticut’s leaders swing it like a hammer.

The criticism isn’t about party affiliation or ideology – at least directly. Jim Manzi points out that we live in a less free society today than we did two decades ago as both Republicans and Democrats pursued policies that limited individual liberty. The solution isn’t replacing one governing party in Connecticut with a different one, though a more balanced approach on that score would assuredly help.

People with power often take steps to protect it. As the amount of power at stake grows, so too does the desire increase to keep power. The real remedy is giving government less power to use in the first place.

Let the Husky Make Money

UCONN changed its logo and most of the discussion is around whether its a symbol for a rape culture. The real discussion should be about how the new logo, and a bunch of other things, should be profit centers to support University activities.

University of Connecticut administrators kicked off a new, fiercer husky logo last month and promised new uniforms for all 24 athletic teams this fall. Some school officials say it isn’t about making money, but it obviously is. And it should be.

Read the full piece at CT News Junkie.

6 Ways to Score the GOP Governor’s Race

A curious polling memo from 2010 Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Foley spurred this column: 6 ways to score the GOP Governor’s Race.

With not one candidacy officially declared, including that of the poll’s sponsor, a public opinion survey is a poor measurement of candidate quality and will remain so until much later in the race. It is also worth mentioning that a poll without a ballot test is like a car without an engine: someone should ask why it does not have one. With this in mind, allow me to suggest a scorecard for the next year or so of the race. These six measures will help you identify whether a candidate is the frontrunner, one of the contenders, a pretender, or a gadfly.

Read the full piece at CT News Junkie.

Taking a Stand on Malloy

In my op-ed for CT News Junkie, I take a stand on taking a stand on Gov. Dan Malloy:

If job growth is really just a footrace to see who can give companies the most incentives, Connecticut seems destined for failure. On the other hand, those giving the most incentives don’t seem to be doing much better than those who refrain from it. Either way, the evidence is shaky at best.

See the full episode at CT News Junkie.