Now that the virus epidemic has delivered the Age of Infinite Money in Washington, Congress and the president are bestowing tens of billions of dollars one day, hundreds of billions the next, and sometimes trillions in a week, without a thought as to where it is to come from. Of course the money isn't coming from anywhere. It is being created as a claim against whatever assets, goods, and services are purchasable for dollars, even as national production is collapsing because so many people have been told to stay home.

Maybe it will all work out. Maybe even something good will come of it, like the idea of the U.S. Senate's Republican majority leader, Mitch McConnell, that federal law should be amended to permit states to file for bankruptcy as municipalities and counties can.

Democrats scorn McConnell's idea as a scheme to cheat Democratic states out of reimbursement due them, their businesses, and their residents for expenses combating the epidemic. But such money already is being appropriated on equal terms. McConnell seems to have been thinking of the desire of many Democrats to use the epidemic to gain money for unrelated things, particularly for rescuing Democratic states with grossly underfunded pension commitments to government employees -- states like Illinois, California, and Connecticut, which McConnell cited specifically.

Instead of making the whole country rescue Democratic states from the consequences of their subservience to government employee unions, bankruptcy would reduce the impossible pension obligations and give taxpayers a fresh start.

The Democratic reaction to this idea has approached the paranoiac and hysterical, including that of Governor Lamont. The governor said: "Marie Antoinette said, 'Let them eat cake,' and Mitch McConnell said, 'Let them file for bankruptcy.'"

Of course merely enabling states to enter bankruptcy would not require them to do so. Bankruptcy would just become an option. The governor and the Democratic majority in the General Assembly could remain what Lamont's predecessor, Dannel P. Malloy, once proclaimed himself to be at a rally of government employee union members -- their "servant."

But the mere option still terrorizes Connecticut Democrats and their masters, for it might awaken the public to some possibilities -- that servitude to the unions might not be the natural order of things, that the "fixed costs" that constitute more than half the state budget and most of municipal budgets were fixed not by God but rather by elected officials betraying the public, and that these costs might be unfixed so that government employee compensation no longer cannibalized public services and that government's highest purpose might become something other than the contentment of its own employees.

Regardless of the bankruptcy controversy, things are about to become impossibly absurd for Lamont. Under the contract granted a few years ago by Dan "I Am Your Servant" Malloy, on July 1 unionized state employees are due to receive raises of 5½ percent, amounting to about $353 million in a year, even as a quarter or more of Connecticut residents have been thrown out of work by the governor's emergency orders, thousands more people are queuing at food banks, and state tax revenue is crashing.

Despite the destitution exploding around them, the unions see no reason why their raises should be suspended. Asked about the issue last week, Lamont at least said he will have to think about it. Indeed, whose servant will he be?


Chris Powell is a columnist for the Journal Inquirer. His views are not necessarily the newspaper's.

(4) comments


Mr. Powell asks a question that we already know the answer to. The vast majority of previous governors are servants of the unions. As such, they will continue to get their raises, longevity checks and fat pensions. Even that “maverick” Lowell Weicker had to look the other way when it came to negotiating with these hooligans. We are long past the need for unions in this country. Our labor laws and civil rights have evolved to protect these state employees from unfairness. Unfortunately, our elected officials lack the courage and political will to say what I just did. Until such time, our fiscal outlook remains bleak.

(Edited by staff.)


Mitch is right. Why should the rest of the country bail out Connecticut and other states for their decades of mismanagement? Not the fault of anyone in Texas or Utah for Connecticut's overgenerous pensions and salaries. Calling everything the fault of a flu-type problem is wrong and is the basis of demanding money from the Federal Treasury. Time to stop the flow of dollars and re-open the states. Enough is enough.


You can be sure Governor Lamont will take care of the state employees first.

(Edited by staff.)


Could not agree more with these three comments. Connecticut is slave to the unions. Until they are gone, Connecticut will always be in financial trouble. It is very dangerous for the Fed to keep on handing out money as solution to COVID-19 and even a bigger mistake to send big money to states that have mismanaged the people's assets/money which they have taken(taxed) from them. Connecticut is $914 million in deficit so far this year. Nothing has changed or will change. The state has been bankrupt for many years. Just keep raising taxes, spending more than we have and then try to use the pandemic to bleed the Fed and remedy the lack of intelligence and leadership at the Capitol.

(Edited by staff.)

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