“If we don’t succeed, I probably won’t be re-elected. If I’m not re-elected, you’re not gonna have somebody who does the kinds of things I do, who actually believes in government, and believes in unions at the same time.” — Gov. Dannel Malloy to union leaders on March 4.
Dannel Malloy is Connecticut’s first Democratic governor in twenty years, but he currently rests in no-man’s land. In February, he unveiled a budget which should have appealed to his base. He plans to increase spending by $1.5 billion over the next two years. He proposed the state’s largest tax increase in 20 years, a move which is expected to generate $1.5 billion. But the people who helped bring Malloy to office in an election decided by less than 6,000 votes out of 1.1 million cast are less than happy with the governor at the moment. That is because Malloy is also calling for $2 billion in concessions from the state’s 45,000 workers over the next two years and has issued thousands of layoff notices if his conditions are not met.
