Opinion
Ehlers: Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff Sells Out His District — Again
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This is an op-ed by Greg Ehlers, the GOP challenger who ran against state Sen. Bob Duff in the 25th district in 2016:
Every family who lives in Bob Duff’s district and every business operating in Fairfield County needs to be aware of what their elected state senator just did to threaten their livelihoods this week. The labor contract agreement that just passed and will now become law is another in a long line of sweetheart deals with unions negotiated by Governor Malloy that has prolonged the fiscal crisis and created the poor economic climate our families and businesses suffer in every day. It should no longer be a surprise to anyone in Connecticut that our state remains mired in a devastating fiscal crisis that has resulted from a cycle of spending money we don’t have, raising taxes to cover the differences, and then suffering the consequences of taxpayers leaving for more tax-friendly states — this cycle has been repeated for decades and has stunted economic growth in this state. If you closely observe this economically disastrous cycle, you will notice one troubling fact about Connecticut’s government that has given wake to years of awful budgets — the basic fact that state government is just too expensive. In particular, state employees receive benefits so luxurious, and so unprecedented, that as bureaucracy balloons and employees retire it has brought the state to the brink of insolvency.