Jobs For Connecticut Now

The following opinion piece appeared in this week’s Hartford Business Journal:
Inaction Leads To Over-Reaction
Paul Moran

Hopes must have been high earlier this year among members of a group of business leaders from across Connecticut when they put forth a blueprint for helping to end the state’s budget stalemate.

The group offered a comprehensive plan calling for reforms and other measures to get the state’s budget in order and stop the exodus of business from Connecticut. Unfortunately, according to a recent column in the Hartford Business Journal, state leaders had no interest in what the group had to offer. We commend the Metro Hartford Alliance and its membership for its leadership in taking the initiative, and share their frustration at the fate of the proposal.

This lack of response is symptomatic of what has been happening here for decades regarding business development in Connecticut: nothing. Usually there is at least lip service paid to the business community, but this time only a deaf ear was offered.

Today, there is no plan in Connecticut to move the state forward in creating and maintaining jobs and attracting business to the state. Several attempts have been made to fashion such a plan, but ultimately they have never come to fruition. Rather than see things in the long term, politicians are interested in immediate gratification — scrambling from one crisis to another, trying to appear to play the hero, but ending up with nothing to show for their grandstanding.

Of particular note is the grandstanding of Attorney General Blumenthal. In October, the Department of Public Utility Control (DPUC), at the behest of Blumenthal banned Connecticut Natural Gas and Southern Connecticut Gas, two major, longstanding companies, from conducting business as they saw fit. Given the economic pressures they are under, those companies felt compelled to let a small amount of their work force go — an unpleasant and all too familiar exercise today in Connecticut.

Earlier in the summer, Blumnethal tried to interfere with AT&T and its job restructuring plan. To its credit, the DPUC stood up to Blumenthal at that time and declared accusation unwarranted. And again, just last week, Blumenthal issued a press release written in collaboration with union officials who are currently in negotiations with AT&T, regarding job restructuring within the company. The release contained erroneous information about the company’s business affairs, although Blumenthal made no mention of that information in a subsequent press release.

The unhelpful, even antagonistic attitude that political leaders exhibit towards business in Connecticut needs to change. Instead of dialogue, there is demonizing. Instead of conversation, there is name calling. Instead of progressive and thoughtful action or promotion of new and innovative concepts, there is inaction. What many in government fail to realize is that business is the engine of job creation and growth that benefits all of us, and therefore warrants their support.

Had there been such a long-term economic plan from our political leaders, perhaps the movement of jobs to other states and countries by Pratt & Whitney might not have happened. Perhaps if a plan had been in place, the small manufacturers of Connecticut would not have to tell lifelong employees that they no longer had a job. Perhaps if politicians had been involved in a dialogue with all affected parties, today’s global recession might have been mitigated here. But there is no plan. There is no leadership.
We urge the Metro Hartford Alliance and all business leaders to renew their efforts to re-engage the state’s policy makers in meaningful and results-driven dialogue. In the absence of state leadership, we would urge that all state officials re-engage with business leaders to fashion such a plan. It will be hard work, no question. But the alternative is continued inaction that leads to over reaction.

Paul Moran is the executive director of Jobs for New England Now, a coalition of citizens, businesses, pro-business groups and nonprofit organizations that encourages economic growth and prosperity for greater New England.