25 March—Not that anybody who knows anything at all about what’s going on in Connecticut needs more proof of the poor little state’s irresponsibly profligate political leadership flicking the handle to flush it, nutmegs and all, down the crapper, but here it is anyway:

Just the other day Democrat House Speaker Matthew Ritter of Hartford (son of former Democrat House Speaker Tom Ritter, who had followed Matt’s grandfather into the House of Representatives), assured or threatened taxpayers, “I am not going to ask my caucus to vote for a budget that does not have $300 million to $400 million of extra spending.” Save a few bucks? Perish the thought! That’s simply not the Democrat way.

Speaker Ritter could, of course, ask the less profligate—albeit not by all that much—Republican caucus, which surely would oblige him. Again, though, perish the thought!

As if that weren’t enough, Matt was positively horrified that the General Assembly’s Insurance and Real Estate Committee hadn’t advanced any bills this session by last week’s deadline: “You don’t ever want to see a committee get to this point. Obviously, we’ve got to figure out what happened and how to avoid it in the future.”

Ever? Yes, ever. For shame! Never again must a committee be allowed to get away with not producing legislation. For any reason.

And Speaker Ritter was dead serious about what he obviously considers not just unacceptable, but a legislative catastrophe. Even more important, though he certainly couldn’t admit it, it’s an embarrassment to his questionable leadership.

Matt Ritter, a state representative only since 2010 (but just the latest in a dynasty of Connecticut pols), lamented that in his experience, “it’s been unprecedented for a committee to pass no bills.” Jesus, save us! It seems the young speaker had “never heard of a committee not passing anything,” so he blamed the lack of legislation on “a lot of strong personalities on that committee” as well as “adversarial relationships.”

The Insurance and Real Estate Committee members must be hanging their heads in shame. At least the Democrats.

To us of the great unwashed, however, the Insurance and Real Estate Committee’s failure or (less likely) refusal to pass any legislation is not only surprising, but most refreshing and gratifying.

So?

So is it really a bad thing for legislators to not pass legislation? Lots of legislation does more harm than good, after all. And lots of legislation is passed just for the sake of passing legislation in order to delude voters into believing the pols are actually doing something useful, something—anything—to deserve our respect, votes, and dollars . . .