Paying Extra to Avoid the Burden of in Person Voting Both the House and Senate approved to change the state Constitution to allow early voting in Connecticut, complying with 60.2 percent of voters who favored […]
Halloween has come early this year with the General Assembly imitating Dr. Frankenstein by cobbling together multiple “affordable housing” bills into one monstrously expensive and restrictive piece of legislation. The trouble begins with a newly […]
If we learned anything during the Covid pandemic, it’s that too many public schools are leaving Connecticut’s low-income children behind. As the study below demonstrates, simply increasing school funding will do little to solve the […]
Connecticut has on average the worst electricity prices in New England, and second worst throughout the United States, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA). Released May 24, EIA’s latest ‘Electric Power Monthly’ report shows […]
Climatepocalypse Emergency Downgraded to Crisis A bill declaring that climate change in Connecticut as a public health and environmental justice emergency — for the purposes of increasing access to federal funds — has been demoted […]
Connecticut sports fans felt like hosers after its beloved Hartford Whalers skated down south to Raleigh, North Carolina — renamed the Hurricanes — in 1997. In the nearly 30 years since, the prospects of another […]
The House submitted an amendment Wednesday (May 24) that substituted language on a bill that was completely unrelated to its original intent. The amendment, proposed by Rep. Joshua Elliot (D-88th), aims to change a bill […]
With only ten days left in the 2023 legislative session, lawmakers are scrambling to push their agendas across the finish line. Instead of addressing policies individually, the plan is to “simply create a lot of […]
Connecticut’s labor market is sending mixed signals. On the one hand, the state’s unemployment rate fell from 3.9% in March to 3.8% in April; on the other, however, the state lost 2,600 over the […]
The Connecticut State Legislature will begin its 2023 session on January 4th and will adjourn on June 7th. The “long session,” as non-election years are called in Hartford, will be centered around the biennial budget. The Office of the State Comptroller reports that state government found a way to spend $47.11 billion in 2022 and, if trends continue, we can expect that number to grow even more going forward. Concerns over energy prices, inflation, and general cost of living continue to dominate the headlines and the threat of a recession hovers over economic forecasts.
What will our elected officials be working on to improve policy outcomes for Connecticut residents? What tax reform proposals will there be? What can be done to lower home heating bills? How will state and local budgets be affected by fewer federal resources? How will schools be implementing to curriculum requirements?
While we wait to see the thousands of individual and committee bills that while dominate the myriad policy debates this year, Yankee Institute is hard at work promoting free-market solutions to the problems we face from Stamford to Putnam and Mystic to Salisbury. To that end, we have produced a new edition of our Charter for Change. The Charter provides commonsense reforms to make Connecticut’s government work for its residents.
Though the list of reforms may be exhausting to review, it is far from exhaustive! And that’s why we want to work with you to build a broad-based coalition to encourage sound policy reforms to enable Connecticut residents to forge a better future for themselves and their families.
It’s also imperative that we do so. As we noted in a report and CT Mirror op-ed last year, the debate over whether we’re in a national recession really misses the point for Connecticut residents. We had more people employed in the private sector in 2007 than we do today. Our economy has grown at one of the slowest rates in the nation for the past decade, and we are getting outpaced year after year. We’re not attracting innovation and industry. We’re losing some of our best and brightest as they seek other parts of the country where it’s easier to make a living.
But together, we can reverse this trend.
At Yankee Institute, we know Connecticut is a state with boundless opportunity, and we intend to help make our state more than a place where people are just able to make ends meet! Connecticut should be a place where everyone can thrive – and with your help, it will be.