Rell's Plan To Tax, Spend Wows Democrats, Jars GOP (CT)

The Hartford Courant ^ | February 8, 2007 | CHRISTOPHER KEATING, Capitol Bureau Chief

[nutmeg]

Words like "historic" and "brilliant" flew around the state Capitol Wednesday as legislators struggled to absorb details of Gov. M. Jodi Rell's two-year, $35.8 billion budget plan, which includes proposals for record-setting increases in education spending.

The question was, were Democrats or members of her own party more taken aback?

"I have to take a pill," Sen. William Nickerson said to a Greenwich Republican colleague after the governor's speech.

Rell called Wednesday for education spending that would break the state-mandated spending cap and lead to a 10 percent increase in the state income tax. In doing so, she co-opted traditional Democratic issues such as education, but also increased her leverage in dealing with a potentially hostile legislature that has veto-proof majorities in both chambers.

Normally, a governor facing a General Assembly dominated by the opposing political party could be seen in a weakened position, but insiders said Rell helped herself Wednesday.

"Frankly, you could just put a Democratic head on her shoulders because it sounded more like a Democratic response to major issues in our state," said Rep. Christopher Caruso, a Bridgeport Democrat. "It was a brilliant political move. Here she is surrounded by 107 Democrats in the House, realizing that her veto is meaningless."

Throughout her 22-year public career as a legislator, lieutenant governor and governor, Rell has been known to many as a fiscal conservative. As such, Republicans were flabbergasted by her plans to raise taxes and to raise both education spending and the income tax over five years by $3.4 billion.

[TChris]

When will the "more money equals better education" hallucination end? It's just nuts, along the lines of Global Warming^TM.

Liberals have successfully convinced most voters that it's somehow immoral not to give more and more money to ineffective school systems. Yet student success does not correlate to dollars spent per student. It's not correlated very strongly with class size either.

[Vicomte13]

Ok.
So, let's cut off all money to public schools, then, and just close the systems, right?
After all, you didn't go to public school, did you?
YOUR mama and daddy could afford to pay for you to read, and so should everybody else's! And if they can't, well, that's their problem! Right?

[TChris]

Ok. So, let's cut off all money to public schools, then, and just close the systems, right? After all, you didn't go to public school, did you? YOUR mama and daddy could afford to pay for you to read, and so should everybody else's! And if they can't, well, that's their problem! Right?

You argue like a 13-year-old. Absolute statements like, "So, let's cut off all money to public schools, then..." are a dead giveaways of knee-jerk, emotional responses. Look again at what I wrote, think about it, then post.

For starters, I did not indicate that I think all public education is worthless. I did not indicate that all funding should be cut off.

You're just throwing a tantrum instead of reasoning.

[fieldmarshaldj]

I'm going to have to part company with you on school spending. I went to inner-city public schools in Nashville in the 1980s, and that helped shape my opinion on the entire institution as a profound negative. There is too much money being dumped into this rotten institution with not only no accountability, but often the money finds its way into the pockets of crooks working the system. These are the last people I'd trust to "parent" kids. If anything, it's no wonder why so many end up in prison with these folks serving as an example.

Until this Stalinist abomination is dismantled to the last brick and wood plank, starting with the teacher unions, the overall educational system (at least those that have no choice but to go to public schools) will never improve. There's a reason why the best nation in the world has some of the worst educational facilities imaginable. As bad as it was when I went there, it's like the halcyon days of the 1950s by comparison today.