In the annual Connecticut State of the State address, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy expressed grief over the Newtown shooting and further work needed to grow the state’s economy.
Earlier this month Malloy’s administration announced the formation of the Sandy Hook Advisory Commission, tasked with making specific recommendations in the upcoming months to improve Connecticut’s school safety, mental health services and gun violence prevention. Malloy said he does not believe more guns is the answer.
On job creation, Malloy said the state was off to a good start, but that it’s only a start.
“Until every person in our state who wants a job can find one, we have more work to do,” he said. “We can’t stick out heads in the sand or simply hope for the best. Not when other states are actively recruiting jobs from every corner of the globe – jobs that can and should come to Connecticut.”
Touting the state’s First Five business incentive program, Small Business Express loan program and Innovation Ecosystem designed to help entrepreneurs start their own businesses, Malloy said the key is making government an “active partner, rather than a bystander who watches markets develop elsewhere.”
Unfortunately Governor Malloy fails to recognize the well established literature on the very limited success of inherently “beggar thy neighbor” policies of importing job growth through business subsidy programs and the over whelming evidence that high taxes associated with high municipal labor and utility costs encourage business to move out of Connecticut. Our state will remain at the bottom of jobs creation until business taxes by state and municipal governments financing among the highest paid public salaries in the nation are brought under reasonable control.
As to the Governor’s commitment to reducing gun homicide one has only to look across the border to see how Governor Cuomo moved quickly to secure remediation without “tears” or establishing a “commission”. Few topics have been studied as extensively as gun control and the lack of effective response by state and municipal governments has been disheartening. With over 10,000 gun related homicides annually action on this national disgrace is long overdue.