One of the enduring myths in American politics is that you don’t have to participate in politics if you don’t want to. Many are so disgusted they go to great lengths to avoid politics. Whole movements in U.S. history have been dedicated to that goal, and most failed when it was realized it can’t be done.
In politics, not participating is still participating
Posted inCT Viewpoints
Consolidating Connecticut’s colleges is a desperate move — and insane
While neighboring New York has declared free two-year and four-public education, and Massachusetts/Rhode Island maintain their high standards for accessible public education, Connecticut seems to have lost its collective mind this week with the passing of BOR President Mark Ojakian’s plan to consolidate and possibly eliminate the Connecticut Community College system in our state.
Posted inCT Viewpoints, Talking Transportation
It’s time for tolls
Nobody likes the idea of paying tolls. But tolls are coming back to Connecticut and I just wish that lawmakers in Hartford would be honest with us about why. We are running out of money for the Special Transportation Fund, that’s why. And none of the re-funding alternatives are attractive: vehicle miles tax, sales tax, gas tax and yes, tolls. But tolls on our highways would not be a tax.
Posted inEducation, Money
Two legislative leaders proposing sweeping school funding changes
A plan backed by two Democratic legislative leaders to boost state spending for public schools by $53 million next year and shake up how the state funds charter and magnet schools is causing disagreements among members of their own party and with the leader of the state’s largest teachers union.
Posted inMoney, Politics, Transportation
State DOT drops study of mileage tax
A political football in state transportation debates for the past two years — the concept of a mileage-based tax on motorists — apparently is no longer even a subject of research at the Connecticut Department of Transportation.
Posted inCities & Towns, Health, Money
Independent living centers at risk from state, federal budget cuts
The five centers provide a wide array of training, counseling and referral services to thousands of residents with physical and mental disabilities, the elderly and the poor. Leaders of the centers have watched state funding shrink by 62 percent over the past year and are at risk of losing the rest this spring.
Posted inEducation
School funding on trial: High court rejects speeding up appeal
The Connecticut Supreme Court has denied the state’s unusual request that they speed up hearing arguments against a lower court’s controversial ruling that the state’s way of distributing school aid is irrational and unconstitutional.
Posted inPolitics
Murphy campaign says it’s raised $3 million this year
WASHINGTON — Sen. Chris Murphy on Tuesday said his election campaign has raised $3 million in the first three months of this year, mostly from small donations. Murphy said he has received 66,039 donations averaging $42 per contribution this year, and ended the first quarter of the year with nearly $3.5 million in cash-on-hand.
Posted inCT Viewpoints
Neediest students first to be sacrificed in CSCU consolidation ‘plan’
In recommending a plan to consolidate the state’s 12 community colleges in order to sustain the larger CSCU system, President Mark Ojakian maintains that this latest disruption in Connecticut higher education was never the goal of the consolidation that created CSCU in 2011. However, since it was Ojakian who crafted that original reorganization plan for the Malloy administration, his denial seems somewhat disingenuous and promises to result in similarly disappointing outcomes.
Posted inCT Viewpoints
Dominion Resources needs no special deal at consumers’ expense
Connecticut legislators are currently considering legislation, Senate Bill 106, that would allow Virginia-based Dominion Resources, the company that owns the Millstone Nuclear Power Station, to bid for long-term energy contracts alongside renewable energy generators. In effect, this legislation will provide a multi-million dollar special deal to Dominion paid for by Connecticut residents.
Posted inEducation
Growing wait list for child care subsidies taking its toll
Thousands of low-income families hoping to receive child care subsidies are stuck in limbo as a wait list for the program swells. The number could grow to 5,000 families by this summer, advocates say.
Posted inPolitics
Murphy battles Trump on foreign policy, undiplomatically
WASHINGTON — Even as President Donald Trump aims to slash the State Department’s budget, Sen. Chris Murphy is battling the headwind in an effort to double the money appropriated for many diplomatic programs.
Posted inEducation
See the graduation rate at your local high school
Of the state’s 180 high schools, 107 have increased their graduation rates by more than 1 percent, and 16 high schools saw increases above 10 percent. However, 33 showed decreases of more than 1 percent.
Posted inEducation
Faculty balk at Ojakian’s ‘clandestine’ plan for CSCU’s future
“In the biggest decision that has ever come before the Board of Regents, the [Faculty Advisory Committee] is shocked at the lack of specificity in President Ojakian’s ‘Students First’ proposal, and the lack of transparent deliberation that went into passing it,” says a resolution adopted by the system’s Faculty Advisory Committee.
Posted inCT Viewpoints
Bad assumptions threaten good bill raising the smoking age
Every conversation in Hartford these days comes down to two things—dollars and cents. Unfortunately, there’s not enough focus on dollars and sense. As a result, lawmakers face an unenviable task in developing working solutions to the financial crisis the state finds itself in. There is a proposal before the Connecticut legislature to raise the tobacco sale age to 21 (HB 5384) that deserves to pass because it will protect kids from tobacco, won’t hurt state revenues in the short run, and will save the state millions of dollars in health care costs in the long run.