I grew up in Connecticut. It used to always have the highest per capita income, and may still be ranked high primarily because of hedge fund money in Greenwich. But times have changed drastically. Its pension obligations are among the worst of any state, per capita debt is very high, Moodys just lowered their bonds to negative, and two greedy pig unions blew up a budget deal in order to save the jobs of a few of their members with senority.
The NY Times on the ongoing debacle in Connecticut finances.
“No state had more resources and did less with them over the past 20 years,” said William E. Curry Jr., a former Democratic candidate for governor who now writes about state and national politics. “Yeah, we wiped out in finance and real estate, but the real problem was our own poor choices.”
CT consumer watchdog George Gombossy sums it up well, ‘Connecticut taxpayers, consumers facing tough times because of state unions.’ Two unions there just killed a carefully worked out plan by the state with fourteen unions which could have saved the state. It is widely assumed those voting no had seniority and knew they wouldn’t get laid off. Because of their actions, thousands of state workers will now be laid off (one of whom might be my sister) and the state is in chaos financially. Those two unions are steaming turds who wouldn’t know what solidarity was if it bit them on the ass, not that selfish pricks like them care even slightly about solidarity. But their backstabbing behavior is just the latest in a very long chain of bad decisions by Connecticut. Sue and I lived there in 2007 and the most charitable way I can describe CT politics is “comatose.” They’ve been running on empty for at least a decade and it’s finally caught up with them.