Organized labor made two complaints Thursday about Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s proposal for a $1.5 billion tax increase: It’s not big enough, and the rich won’t pay enough of it. “It has to go much higher,” said John Olsen, the president of the Connecticut AFL-CIO. But how high? Is Olsen, a former Democratic state chairman, […]

Up against a looming court-ordered deadline to reduce the racial isolation of Hartford’s largely black and Hispanic school population, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy has opted to take a less expensive–and arguably more effective–approach to integration. Since the 1996 state Supreme Court’s Sheff v. O’Neill desegregation order, the state’s emphasis has been on creation of magnet […]

Gov. Dannel P. Malloy summed up the meaning of his new budget proposal Wednesday in one word: jobs. But while the new governor once again declared that Connecticut is “open for business,” reactions were mixed as to whether his initiatives would enhance or hinder the state’s already sluggish economy. The state’s chief business lobby, the […]

Dr. Cliff O’Callahan’s practice submitted an application last week to become officially recognized as a patient-centered medical home and, in the process, became critical to Gov. Dannel P. Malloy’s administration’s goals for providing health care to more than 500,000 state residents. Dr. Cliff O’Callahan As part of an overhaul of state Medicaid programs, the administration […]

Lawmakers who were counting on a cost savings report the University of Connecticut announced months ago to help offset the $50 million reduction in state aid Gov. Dannel P. Malloy is proposing will need to think again. University officials said Thursday those savings will not be realized or even identified for quite some time, months […]

House Speaker John Boehner, R-Ohio, suffered a significant defeat yesterday when 110 members of his own party joined with 123 Democrats to kill $450 million in funding for the alternate engine, which would create jobs in his home state of Ohio. But if Boehner was flummoxed or irritated by the vote, he didn’t show it […]

The period between 2008 and 2009 saw the largest decrease in U.S. greenhouse gas emissions in 20 years, Tiffany Stecker says at Climatewire, and the lousy economy gets part of the credit. That was hardly the only reason: Better technology, recycling of industrial materials, higher prices for coal and lower costs for natural gas also […]

The MATCH Coalition finally held its forum to advocate for Medicaid coverage of smoking cessation services Thursday. The event got postponed twice because of bad weather, but the interim brought good news for the group: Gov. Dannel P. Malloy included tobacco cessation for Medicaid recipients in his proposed budget. “In the long run, I guess […]

The Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday morning approved the nomination of Connecticut’s Susan L. Carney to be a federal judge on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit. Carney is now deputy general counsel at Yale. The committee tally was 16 in favor, two against. The two “no” votes were from Sens. Jeff Sessions, […]

In what’s shaping up as the worst of four bad years for state budgets across the country, at least 20 governors have submitted budget proposals with no new or increased taxes, Stateline.org reports. Some are even proposing tax cuts, including Florida Gov. Rick Scott wants to reduce taxes by $2 billion despite a deficit of […]

The motto of the Connecticut Council of Small Towns is, “We’re working to keep small towns strong.” To this end, COST analyzes policies being considered at the Capital with several questions in mind: Will they make Connecticut’s 139 smaller communities, those suburban and rural towns under 30,000 in population, better places in which to live […]