What kind of message are we sending to future employers with these kind of tactics? When will our policymakers start providing incentives instead of insults to lure more jobs back into the state? We hope our local leaders take note and begin to change their attitude…

Dick Blumenthal’s Flashback

You might wonder why a state’s top law enforcement officer is issuing a press release denouncing a private company for engaging in perfectly lawful layoffs. You might also wonder why Connecticut’s long-serving Attorney General Richard Blumenthal is getting mixed up about what decade he’s living in.

His office last week blasted AT&T in a press release for laying off 75
workers in Connecticut. The AG’s release stated: “Awash in money as it
stands ready to spend $60 billion to purchase Media One, AT&T is hanging up on Connecticut families and consumers.”

Now that’s just weird, since AT&T bought MediaOne (a cable TV business) way back in 1999 and sold it to Comcast in 2003. But then weird is Mr. Blumenthal’s conception of his office’s responsibilities, which includes frequent grandstanding on matters far afield from an attorney general’s normal concerns.

The episode became marginally less mystifying when Bill Henderson,
leader of the Communications Workers of America Local 1298, stepped up to take the blame for the faulty information. So Mr. Blumenthal is
issuing press releases denouncing private companies for engaging in
lawful behavior — press releases that are actually drafted by labor
unions?

Mr. Blumenthal’s political ambitions have been a perennial matter of
speculation in Connecticut. He has repeatedly passed up chances to run for senate or governor, seemingly because he doesn’t like the odds of any race that he might actually stand a chance of losing. He will soon be coming up on his 20th year as Connecticut attorney general. A risk that often afflicts long-serving office holders is that a certain lack of accountability goes to their heads. They get sloppy.

– Holman W. Jenkins Jr.

… We’re creating no new jobs. That’s a 20-year trend, according to UConn economist Fred Carstensen. The anchor of Fairfield County — where half of our income tax revenue comes from — consists largely of high-wage earners from the financial services industry. As these highly specialized Wall Street jobs evaporate, these people, in the words of Bank of America Securities-Merrill Lynch economist Drew T. Matus, “have no skills.”

Unemployment levels are going to linger at 10 percent or above well into next year. So while it’s great that we were able to come up with $100 million to try to save 1,000 Pratt & Whitney manufacturing jobs for a little longer, has anyone thought about what $100 million could do to support cutting-edge biotech industries that might sustain us for decades?

… Matthew Nemerson, president of the Connecticut Technology Council, told me that we remain stuck in “a ‘gotcha’ mentality: Who raised taxes, who cut them?”

“We should be spending a lot of time not blaming each other but saying, ‘Oh my goodness, what is happening?’”

What’s happening is that new jobs are in education and health, and not manufacturing. Financial services jobs are not going to sustain us. We need to plan for — and support — a new economy. That’s no game.