Susan Merrow

In the thick of a long legislative session, like the one we are about halfway through, each day brings forth a surprising proposal for addressing an issue that cries out for public policy innovation. Some of the proposals never make it to a public hearing. Some are heard but never seen again.  A few survive and change our political landscape for the better, and some, unfortunately, survive and change the landscape for the worse. Connecticut’s legislative history is littered with bills often cobbled together in the hectic wee-hour, waning days of the session that somehow survive the rough and tumble of the process but end up as the poster laws for unforeseen consequences.

The Commission on Fiscal Stability and Economic Growth, created during the drama-fraught 2017 budget battle to recommend bold action for jump starting Connecticut’s economy, fulfilled its mandate to produce a comprehensive plan by March 1 of this year. That doesn’t mean, however, that the study, like the dozens that have preceded it, won’t be consigned to the proverbial dust-covered shelf where its recommendations will forever be ignored. It would be a travesty if that occurred – again. Yet the likelihood of that happening is high.