Chris Christie To Democratic Connecticut Governor Malloy: I Got The Job Done. How You Doin'?

This isn't a double-post, swearsies. But for background, as mentioned by Laura, the liberals controlling Connecticut just passed the largest tax increase in state history, to the tune of $3.4 billion.

Now, that was, according to Malloy, supposed to be a compromise. See, in exchange for the $3.4 billion in fresh taxes, Malloy was also proposing $2 billion in spending cuts. The biggest part of this was $1.6 billion in concessions from the public employee unions.

Well, apparently, these were introduced to the legislature as two separate measures.

And you just will not believe what happened.

Oh wait, yes you will, since you already guessed it: The legislature passed the $3.4 billion tax increases but rejected the $1.6 billion in public union spending cuts.

Wonderful.

Correction: Laura tells me I have this wrong-- Malloy negotiated the "compromise" with the unions, and the unions were supposed to vote in favor of the concessions. The unions voted them down. Laura adds that this now makes the whole budget unconstitutional, as Connecticut must have a balanced budget.

A couple of weeks ago Malloy baited Christie by supercilliously lecturing him on how conciliation and compromise were oh-so-much-better than his bluster and budget cuts.

So now Christie asks: How's that workin' out for you, Champ?

The upshot is that Connecticut closed part of its deficit with huge tax increases, but did not get spending cuts to cut the rest, so Connecticut will now also have to lay people off -- just like in New Jersey -- but Connecticut taxpayers will now have to pay even more in taxes to support a smaller public union workforce.

Oh, and the big question Mika has for Christie is "Will you consider raising taxes?"

And Joe Scarborough immediately has has a follow-up: "Why not?"

Dude, he just told you why not.

posted by Ace at 03:02 PM

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