Lamont offers more of the same

Chris Powell

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By Chris Powell

Democrats have controlled the governor's office and General Assembly for eight years and polls suggest Connecticut voters are extremely unhappy with the state administration, what with the chronic insolvency, tax increases and oppressive unfunded liabilities.

So how will wealthy Greenwich businessman Ned Lamont, the party's nominee to succeed Gov. Malloy, address that unhappiness?

At the Democratic State Convention Lamont didn't address it at all. To the contrary, he seemed to promise more of the same, figuring that he can win anyway with an unprecedented degree of mobilization of state government's many dependents, particularly government employees.

Accepting the nomination for governor, Lamont acknowledged that state government's finances are awful but pledged not to balance the budget at the expense of state employees, teachers and the poor. But that's where most of the money goes. Who is left? Only taxpayers.

Lamont added that in writing the budget he will have “everyone at the table,” which sounded exactly like Malloy. Having been “at the table” only to suffer Malloy's two record tax increases, taxpayers might prefer never to sit down again.

Not that any Republican candidates for governor have offered a comprehensive solution to state government's insolvency, but most of them agree that state employee compensation must be curtailed. So there is no mistaking which side is the tool of the government class and which is not.

To quell the Democratic convention's unexpected clamor for more racial and ethnic diversity on the state ticket and the dissatisfaction of many delegates with his choice of former Secretary of the State Susan Bysiewicz for lieutenant governor, Lamont pledged to create the most diverse administration in state history. He did not pledge to create the most qualified, competent, honest, and efficient administration, as no delegates were clamoring for that. For the diversity prattle is mainly cover for more patronage claims.

Tribes don’t need to run gambling

Nobody calls for a special session of the General Assembly when some financial scandal breaks in state government, as when, recently, the state auditors reported that the state Department of Economic and Community Development, which gives tens of millions of dollars away every year, has never learned how to count money or jobs.

But when the U.S. Supreme Court invalidated the federal law that prohibited states from authorizing sports betting, Gov. Malloy and state legislators quickly announced their interest in a special session to get state government into the sports-betting business. The governor and legislators imagine annual sports betting tax revenue of as much as $80 million.

Just as Connecticut's authorization of Indian casinos 30 years ago pushed most of the rest of the country into casino gambling, the Supreme Court decision will push most states into sports betting, and much faster, since the internet instantly will carry any state's sports betting nationwide. Connecticut and other states will either undertake their own sports betting or forfeit the sports betting of their residents to other states.

The sports betting issue facing Connecticut is simply whether state government will accept the claim of its two reconstituted Indian tribes that their casino duopoly arrangement with the state gives them exclusivity on sports betting as well. The claim hinges on whether sports betting is to be considered just as much a casino game as slot machines and blackjack.

So this is the moment for state government to assert its sovereignty, to reject the tribes' claims and start subjecting their casino exclusivity rights to regular auction.

Those rights well may be worth more than what the tribes long have been paying, 25 percent of their slot-machine revenue.

Chris Powell is a columnist for the Journal Inquirer in Manchester.