Connecticut Commentary: Red Notes from a Blue State

Like chocolates, government programs are instantly addictive. They are also difficult to repeal, especially in Connecticut, because every new program creates its own constituency, instant professions; and as George Bernard Shaw reminds us, “Every profession is a conspiracy against the laity.” The laity is the world outside the profession. In government, the laity is the collective whose pockets are mined by the profession to extend and continue the conspiracy. That is how hard pressed and friendless taxpayers in the state should think about new programs. Old programs involve entrenched constituencies, which are considerably more difficult to uproot and cast into the fires of Hell. An entrenched constituency is like a mouse in a house. First you see one, then two; then nothing happens for about six weeks. Then the mouse population explodes. Soon you are overwhelmed by boisterous mice chatting in the wall. What a mouse population that threatens to overrun the house needs is a cat – a bri...