Former Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback and current Fox NFL Sunday commentator Terry Bradshaw once remarked, “I may be dumb, but I’m not stupid.”
Echoing this sentiment, Connecticut elected officials and residents seem to be reminding Governor Malloy, “We may have been dumb, but we’re not stupid.”
Both Republican and Democratic mayors have begun attacking Malloy’s proposed budget as both disingenuous and an unlawful extension of state power.
The bipartisan group of mayors has articulated a simple criticism: Malloy has claimed that he is protecting education and economic development when in fact the budget undermines these goals. The CT Mirror sums up the criticism, writing:
“Rather than admit his first budget didn’t solve all the state’s fiscal ills, Malloy is obscuring cuts to cities and towns, while shifting other aid to education from their operational budgets. With his proposed formula changes, Malloy is attempting to force municipalities to spend more on education, since education aid comes with strings attached.”
In addition to cuts in education funding, towns face an additional decrease in tax revenue if Malloy’s proposal to limit municipal car taxes passes the legislature. The change would cut municipal revenue from the tax by more than 90 percent throughout the state.
One of the mayors, Danbury’s Mark Boughton, compared the budget to “looking through the looking glass… Nothing is as it seems”.
By coming out against the proposed budget, then, Connecticut municipal leaders seem to be saying “We aren’t stupid”.
To allay any fears that these mayors are simply angry that their budgets have been cut, a recent survey conducted by the Yankee Institute for Public Policy shows that many Connecticut citizens are equally as upset.
The survey, conducted on February 10th, found that 54 percent of those polled believe the budget spends too much. Another 56 percent believe the First Five and Next Five programs are poor uses of taxpayer money, with only 27 percent supporting the programs.
Even more telling is the fact that, despite a 54 percent approval rating, Malloy leads an unnamed Republican mayoral candidate by only 3 percentage points. 42 percent of voters said they would “probably vote for Governor Malloy”, with 39 percent voting for the Republican candidate and 19 percent undecided.
While these numbers don’t exactly equate to a scathing criticism of the Governor, they do reflect the fact that a growing number of citizens and elected official are fed up with the shell games in Hartford.
If the Governor plans to keep trying to pull the wool over the eyes of Connecticut citizens, more and more will being to respond with this simple message: We aren’t stupid, so don’t treat us that way.